Ode to Sleeping in
New parents lament the loss of you
lazy slow hours dreaming,
morning leaking out the window
dancing off
to enjoy the day
without you.
Nesting in the feather duvet
insular sleep cushioning your ears
from the noises and needs of waking hours.
Clean linen wrinkle and crumb free
scented with the breeze
that caressed the sheets dry
sighing and billowing on the line.
Like owning paper money
Papyrus, the folding stuff
all money is only a promissory note.
The intrinsic value is perhaps pounds sterling
or something non visible, a concept.
All things are worth their salt.
Time is money.
There is no doubt time has passed
time is always passing
as are the names of hours and systems for the names of years.
There have been great leaps forward.
BC or not BC was too simple
and Dominium was coined.
Time will never die
only the account of it.
Google Earth
The world is not so large
that it cannot be sonar mapped
and posted on the internet.
and the 360 cubic degrees
are available to anyone
with a connection.
satellites zoom in on the globe from space
tectonic plates and fault lines fully visible
It is then that
we notice privacy
is in the past tense.
Such A Card
Playing cards, n.
Playing cards, v.
Card tricks.
Trick cards.
It's on the cards.
It's not on the cards.
Suit yourself.
On Finishing a Novel
During the course
of novel digestion
the weight shifts
from hand to hand
like the scales of Justice.
One thinks of Aristophanes
and the weighing of the words.
You feel the balance shift gradually
until you begin to ration the last morsels out.
The thin flimsy pages are countable as money.
You defer the next chapter, for the morning
to eke out another day.
Paradoxically the characters are:
merely ink on newsprint
already alive and yet,
born again to inhabit the mind of another reader,
they could pop up at any moment.
A novel is a dangerous piece of equipment
the extension of:
a mind,
an author.
It is possible to catch a glimpse of
characters in the minds of others.
But invariably, there is the important matter of phonemes
the intricate shaping of the mouth, repeating
this or that characters name,
No one else says it quite the same.
Collage - a winter activity
After expeditions for pinecones
the hounds breathe in fresh crisp air
out speech bursts of steam.
Later the fire blazes
we have scissors and glue sticks
pins and needles from kneeling on the floor
old National Geographic magazines
with glossy sexist advertising.
adhesive colour like a giant jigsaw with no rules.
