pausing in your stride
You have rid the garden of me.
Topkapi Cat
When the revolution came,
Eight generations earlier,
Your ancestor said the guardsâ bright
Costumes dimmed to khaki, girls
Ambled outside the harem,
Mice multiplied and though at night
It became your silent playground
There were no cushions, no fires,
No kitchens, no fallen viziers
Seeking the comfort of a purr,
Warm fur and the sweet lament of the oud.
A Prayer for a New God-daughter
Preserve the moment
When nothing is decided:
Not name, not the pace
Or direction of childhood,
The shape or frequency of love,
The pull of money, home or duty.
Cry for the future and smile
At your new day, the few already past,
And let no-one organise your mind,
Dictate your prayers or their destination.
Let your conquests be in hearts
And your mercy boundless.
Do not blame the silence
If you cannot hear the songs,
For they are all yours to compose.
Afternoon Excuse
It seemed the perfect lie
Nonlucent, impervious, elegant.
So it remained for a day
From the first insistent message
To the fluent second, too fluent,
The embellishment, the doubt trigger
The new unnecessary place where you
Had to be for the satisfaction of the gods.
Did you decide early or only
In the morning when the dread set in?
Society Haiku
So, Mr. Prufrock,
Howâs the rest of your week look?
Mega exciting?
Translated Daughter
After Auden
and the art of Klara Pokrzywko
Translated daughter
Who prints a foot
Into virgin paper
Or compliant silver
Leaves a torso
To bronze in the sun,
Takes the sweat
Of spent bodies
Tainting the sheets
And hangs them
To dry in the wind.
Come down then
And blend the acid
With immortal fire
To catch a version
Of your arms and teats
Your curling lips
Against this skin
Startle this itinerant
Mortal to perform
And serenade
The natal moment
We transform
This sombre night
Into glorious dawn.
Olympic Love
You are my cauldron, my petals of flame
Consuming hope, dropping molten rings
Here, there, nowhere near enough
For even a pentathlete to reach your body.
I want you to dive from aeroplane high clouds,
Cut the water silently, touch and score gold.
When you step up to bow your head
For the medal, freshly cast, this special anthem
Will banish nations and tell how you,
My sweet youth across the world,
Have gathered at these games for me alone.
The New Senedd, Cardiff
A Poem for the Opening, St. Davidâs Day 2006 .
Watch the words fly in their aviary of toughened
Glass, mingling with other languages,
Obfuscating in front of everybody as if it were decent
To debate without resolution, their consonants
Finished with the thud of English,
The crack of Welsh drugging meaning
Until they float from the chimney of the politics bothy
Or are netted, protesting their innocence
And captured digitally for all to read,
Shameless in the cold of history.
A Vote for Absence
That was an unusual manifesto by any standards,
A plea for anti-votes, for noughts not crosses.
The crosses were no protection
And the noughts contained no promises.
Thirteen candidates were enough to cause
Alarm but escape from the conclusions was futile,
The message from the people clear but silent.
All twelve party candidates had voted crossly for themselves,
Thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-seven voters
Approved their choice with nought. Abstentions won.
The others were all equally cancelled, the noughty manifesto
Adopted â no more laws nor regulations,
Three terms results in surfeit, redundancy rules.
Lines...
Commemorating the European Commission Conference âDialogue Between Peoples and Cultures: the Artists and Cultural Actors, Held for Two Days in Brusselsâ Palais de Beaux Arts (BOZAR) During the Brussels Bravo Festival, February 2005 under the Patronage of President Barroso of the Commission and Repeated at the Berliner Konferenz A Soul For Europe, November 2007 to Official
You have rid the garden of me.
Topkapi Cat
When the revolution came,
Eight generations earlier,
Your ancestor said the guardsâ bright
Costumes dimmed to khaki, girls
Ambled outside the harem,
Mice multiplied and though at night
It became your silent playground
There were no cushions, no fires,
No kitchens, no fallen viziers
Seeking the comfort of a purr,
Warm fur and the sweet lament of the oud.
A Prayer for a New God-daughter
Preserve the moment
When nothing is decided:
Not name, not the pace
Or direction of childhood,
The shape or frequency of love,
The pull of money, home or duty.
Cry for the future and smile
At your new day, the few already past,
And let no-one organise your mind,
Dictate your prayers or their destination.
Let your conquests be in hearts
And your mercy boundless.
Do not blame the silence
If you cannot hear the songs,
For they are all yours to compose.
Afternoon Excuse
It seemed the perfect lie
Nonlucent, impervious, elegant.
So it remained for a day
From the first insistent message
To the fluent second, too fluent,
The embellishment, the doubt trigger
The new unnecessary place where you
Had to be for the satisfaction of the gods.
Did you decide early or only
In the morning when the dread set in?
Society Haiku
So, Mr. Prufrock,
Howâs the rest of your week look?
Mega exciting?
Translated Daughter
After Auden
and the art of Klara Pokrzywko
Translated daughter
Who prints a foot
Into virgin paper
Or compliant silver
Leaves a torso
To bronze in the sun,
Takes the sweat
Of spent bodies
Tainting the sheets
And hangs them
To dry in the wind.
Come down then
And blend the acid
With immortal fire
To catch a version
Of your arms and teats
Your curling lips
Against this skin
Startle this itinerant
Mortal to perform
And serenade
The natal moment
We transform
This sombre night
Into glorious dawn.
Olympic Love
You are my cauldron, my petals of flame
Consuming hope, dropping molten rings
Here, there, nowhere near enough
For even a pentathlete to reach your body.
I want you to dive from aeroplane high clouds,
Cut the water silently, touch and score gold.
When you step up to bow your head
For the medal, freshly cast, this special anthem
Will banish nations and tell how you,
My sweet youth across the world,
Have gathered at these games for me alone.
The New Senedd, Cardiff
A Poem for the Opening, St. Davidâs Day 2006 .
Watch the words fly in their aviary of toughened
Glass, mingling with other languages,
Obfuscating in front of everybody as if it were decent
To debate without resolution, their consonants
Finished with the thud of English,
The crack of Welsh drugging meaning
Until they float from the chimney of the politics bothy
Or are netted, protesting their innocence
And captured digitally for all to read,
Shameless in the cold of history.
A Vote for Absence
That was an unusual manifesto by any standards,
A plea for anti-votes, for noughts not crosses.
The crosses were no protection
And the noughts contained no promises.
Thirteen candidates were enough to cause
Alarm but escape from the conclusions was futile,
The message from the people clear but silent.
All twelve party candidates had voted crossly for themselves,
Thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-seven voters
Approved their choice with nought. Abstentions won.
The others were all equally cancelled, the noughty manifesto
Adopted â no more laws nor regulations,
Three terms results in surfeit, redundancy rules.
Lines...
Commemorating the European Commission Conference âDialogue Between Peoples and Cultures: the Artists and Cultural Actors, Held for Two Days in Brusselsâ Palais de Beaux Arts (BOZAR) During the Brussels Bravo Festival, February 2005 under the Patronage of President Barroso of the Commission and Repeated at the Berliner Konferenz A Soul For Europe, November 2007 to Official
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