from POEMS TRUE, FALSE, AND UNABLE TO BE VERIFIED
A typical day, relatively speaking
The North on my back, absence of Sun, perpetual night
Nankeen pants badly soiled, never to be worn with pride again
I have imaginary mental issues the same as everyone else
But the world insists upon carrying on
I applied to the monks but the monks wouldn't have me, refusing to bend
I fall short of their exacting criteria
Monks might've been expected to be more flexible
But the commandments are carved into stone
Never mind: I'm winning at the table cricket
And flowing blond locks render one ridiculously attractive but I'm not easy
The last time I was a fool for love I dropped the mirror
Predictably society builds a by-pass around me
I await a Saviour; He’ll show up one day, it’s been foretold
Sullenly a man outside my immediate circle looks in at me full of reproach
I’m treading unhallowed turf, but articles of faith are available
To be able to tolerate this one has to adopt several wearying strategies
For I am a flower, able to blossom fully
Only under certain carefully controlled conditions
I nurse the last glass of rioja, stare at the empty bottle
No matter how long I stare it stays empty, refusing to change its mind
I cast smoke rings into the vacancy
After every endeavour it comes down to this:
Listening to the wind and its voice not talking to me, talking about me
The sun's sinking across the road, there's life somewhere
While I'm in a book I haven't written
O major domo, I think it’s your worn and weathered face
That’s been haunting the hours of my sleeping
And when the box of cloud is delivered to the breakfast table
What is the song that always comes to mind?
I hear the martins in the eaves, they’re storytellers rather than songsters
Telling me to find a house, somewhere to live quietly for ever
from POEMS OPTIMISTIC, PESSIMISTIC, AND FANTASTICAL
The dissolving man is up to his neck in sparkly water
listening to the sky that will say what it has to say once
and that's it. Listen: distilled air, and digitized
birdsong that will one day be stored in alphabetical order
and kept under lock and key. If Providence has its way
it's the demented gardener will get to determine everything,
everything Everyman needs for ascension to where everything
is always available in season, while wise men sit and wait
patiently. Down here, all you think you want can be had for
a price, all so slick and therefore all the more desirable.
I nurture fond memories of a distant world in the past,
while in the pantry there’s a good supply of cheap splosh,
for a single man at the latter end of his days may find
himself sat waiting for his washing to be done and watching
the launderette lady looking askance at some dirty children.
Mrs. Baxter says to put them in the washer. Intent upon
recovering romance, I try to compose a serenade for love
although it can only ever be a pale shadow of the real thing.
The Conjuror pipes up: “To conjure is to do that which
The Great Manipulator created me to do,” he says, and all
who heard him speak knew he spoke Truth. It's incredible but
this is only in a book among the words and what they say.
You can say anything you want to say because nobody’s
listening. Yes, the trees are in bud. The land is fertile.
It's written in The Testament that if you’re a good boy
you likely won't get emerods in your secret parts; even
might the sun shine from out of there. Algernon Swinburne
was beaten by professional ladies in establishments in
St. John's Wood. If there is a God, silently watching from
somewhere, God knows what he’s thinking. Improbability has
invaded randomness. But against the odds we're pretty happy,
smiling like snow. Take my withered hand in your gloved mitt,
and here we go out of the window into the too white thrall.
So brilliant. The more of this the better, a caress for all.
_______________
Martin Stannard lives in quiet retirement in Nottingham with his cat, Xiao Mei. Details of his books, whims and private life etc. can be found at www.martinstannard.com
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