Inanimate, inarticulate

 

The fridge door always shuts
before I replace the milk on its shelf.
The door of the microwave
subtly closes as I put in the pie
that needs reheating.
Ditto the oven door; it hates
staying open; prefers slamming shut
when I have a tray of biscuits
ready to go inside, and they
delight in sliding floorwards. 

The toast in the toaster pops up
while I’m cleaning my teeth,
and goes cold;
the jug boils and cools again
while I’m doing something
urgent in another room. 

A slurp of coffee always skulks
unnoticed while I write, read,
eat my lunch, then when
unthinking-lifted slops
on bench, table, computer. 

The radio ignores my
first attempt to switch it on then
breaks my eardrums when, on the
second push of its button, it
decides to blast its fullest
all percussion brass and
shrieking piccolo chord out into
an unsuspecting sitting room.

Of course
the bath will never overflow from
pouring taps forgot;
the gas will always go 
on the first push of the switch -
it would never think of
blowing the house up;
the heater left on
at bedtime will not, of course,
make us wake at 2 am and think
the house is now about to burst into flames. 

Inanimate, inarticulate, the
things that live around us
can’t be suspected of
desiring anything but our best. 

Our attitude is the problem:
walk faster between the bench and the fridge,
slip the plate or tray into the microwave
or the oven, at speed;
don’t clean your teeth,
don’t go to another room;
fake a creepy Uriah Heep
humility, avoid a hint of
insincerity or
sycophantic slighting or
hypocritical wickedness.   

Trust the voiceless,
those without breath,
those without consciousness,
those without any capacity to
intend bedevilment.

At Fortrose

In the morning a resident came onto the domain
with his Shetland pony and its fortnight-old foal –
all frisk, investigation,
chewing my knuckles. 

In the evening we did the cliché
beach stroll, clambered over rocks,
watched the lazy river and the
lackadaisical sea slide
dance-wise in and through each other. 

The sun, slowing down for the day,
slid satisfyingly into the sea,
siphoning long soft rays through 
clouds. Cliché, cliché. But clichés,
even clichés, disrupt the heart.

From 1993

Fortrose is a locality on the southernmost coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It's within the area known as the Catlins. 

Photo courtesy of Trip Advisor

Why do they make us cry?

Fine. Why do they make us cry?

Why is someone dying like a
paper tissue blowing, or a sigh,
or a garden with trees from a
neighbour’s garden overflowing,
or the trees themselves in a
childhood garden, or the sky
which can’t be understood from
where I stand, or an adult hand,
or the shortness of my breath,
or the shortness of my breadth
of understanding compared to
those who’ve woven round this
planet longer.. 

No, no children’s
gardens; no, no chunky
puppies, no thorn-sting roses,
no, not the voice of someone
I’ve never met calling out to me,
calling, asking,
What the heck are you saying? 

As well he might. 

None of these. 

Why do I lie and lie? One
spoken, the other prone on a bed
woken from some dream full of
dread where my lies will finally be
seen as the token of who I really am.
None of these. By the by I don’t know
why I repeat None of these. I’m not
implying some deep truth-telling,
secret-selling – my secrets are all
dry, or drying, hung high on wire,
pegged there for all to see. See? My
secrets are not secret: they share
common humanity with Thee and me. 

Fine. Why do they make us cry?

Today the sky, the garden…a painting.

Sun drifts me to the garden.
Pale gray clouds drift swift as
geriatric snails. We amaze.
This same procession meanders
through some thousand of my life’s days;
though today’s the first day of creation.

A black fat bird spreads his pencil line legs
bloke-like on a twig-sized branch,
pecks at things unseen. Flicks his tail: a
long-haired girl flicking her hair.
It’s surely all performing.
Where’s the bread spread on the grass?
he asks. 

I respond, head inside for bread.
When I return, he returns too:
Been next door.
Tightropes on the fence,
picks in the bark on the
raised garden at
unwarned bugs and things minute.
Bread ignored. 

Imprisoned between the
neighbour’s shed and
the other neighbour’s tree,
the slate blue sea, distant,
but not so distant,
stretched like a satin swatch,
becalmed, midway to the sky,
threatens clouds with
increased denseness.

May 2020

A dog of two halves

I love the way a dog dumps its rear end down,

so that the rear is sitting, but not the front,

as if the rear was parking the car while the front went shopping,

as if the rear belonged to some other dog,

a pantomime dog of two halves,

as if this other dog was just filling in for the afternoon

and it had now reached the end of the time it was paid for,

and at any moment the sighted front could walk off

and leave the rear squatting blindly.