At Night…

At Night…

this house tells of
sudden thumps
and untouched cries.
I discover a hall full of
leftover footfalls,
the aftertaste of
unmade beds,
mantels not dusted,
stacked plates
gasping for water.
A fly wakes at four
desperate for daylight,
and an orphaned cat
whispers at the door...
with claws.


 First draft 1998 - this is a revised version

Three Older Poems

Three poems that have been around for a good while: the first two date back two or three decades; the last is a little younger. 

1. 

Dali-Magritte - poem written on the back of my will

 If you have ears…then listen.

There was a cat in the corner:
I know - I saw its tail twitch.

A mouse slid across the floor:

don't tell me it's only leaf shadows
flaying at windows.

Three dogs sit outside the café
drinking lattes -
I don't care if you can't see them.

A horse marches into the traffic:
why shouldn't drivers blare their horns?

Hermaphrodite elephants
impregnate each other,
struggling worms under the soil -
have you no ears?

If bottom-dwelling slugs
walked, or shrugged their shoulders,
men would cry out:
"Mountains fall on us!"
You walk as though the
moon never woke.

I know some person

dreams my dreams -
am I not in them?
will he wake?

2. 

We need poems when we...

see
a blind man point his white stick at a magazine stand,
an old lady walk against the lights while five cars grumble;

hear
the mention of worms in the ears of fish,
an empty building's bellow when a hammer drops four floors;

find
a week-dead fish in the refrigerator,
a hessian-skirted church tower,
a dead tree in a public square's brick planter;

understand
an icecream in the mind of a child,
sharp-cornered knee-height coffee tables,
two minds at one table unaware,
space between a pillar and a window where no child can squeeze;

discover
an untouched swinging lightbulb-cord,
toilets beneath the street down bleach-cleaned steps,
a boy concealed in clothes three sizes too big;

realise
literacy is for the spiritually-impaired.

learn our inability to walk in another man's shoes,
taste another man's wife's cooking,
wait for a blind date who doesn't show,
thrust too many oranges into a paper bag,
know the inability of the human hand to encompass a banana,
wear black clothes without a funeral,
find concrete block motels with orange plastic cups and tasselled bedspreads.

3. 

Lying still

Lying still,

winding down from making love,

I heard the room - for the first time - 

singing.

And realised it was not

cold, insensate,

knew it knew me

knew me naked,                                                                     

in intimacy:

in getting up and dressing,

ferreting in the dark for underpants,

slipping trousers on,

undressing, lying down,

swapping shoes for slippers,

lying buff in summer,

in winter pyjama-ed.

All walls have ears, eyes –

this room smells me, is tender towards

me, feels me in itself where

love is most hard to make

and simplest. 

Opening a morning window

it sings me to the world.