Little exorcisms
I thought they were the keystrokes, the penstrokes that got the
word bombs out but no, as it turns out they’re Brer Dream, arriving
at 4.41am, or as I shall now call them Brain Purges a/k/a Calendar
Invites for the Astral Plane, where you can make appointments at
cash points in car parks to meet soon-to-be-dead-then-arriving-here
relatives, find wardrobes stuffed with suitcases of memories that
fall on you, and end up in a lexicographical arm wrestle with an empty
yellow circle around whether you should reinvent the word ‘loophole’
as ‘loophoop’, ‘loophope’ or ‘hopeloop’. Let’s go with the latter, as that's
the only way I get an epiphany out of the torrid streams last night.
My ghost speaks iron
oh the elemental sadness
of having a lover come back
to your mind unbidden,
summoned up by a word,
say ‘iron’, a fine cell thought.
You wait for a revelation, not
realising the epiphany of her is
always there by never being there.
_________________
A poem from Rishi Dastidar’s Ticker-tape was included in The Forward Book of Poetry
2018. His second collection, Saffron Jack, is published by Nine Arches Press. He is also
editor of The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century (Nine Arches
Press).
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