Lucky Me (2 page)

the reels to scream.

The two who brought new rods meanwhile

had coffee slosh like washing in their bowels.

They reached for sugared ginger and dropped

their swaying knots;

while at the stern burnt sailor arms were

striking, bending, gaffing

out great coloured fish both steel and bronze

without a glance.

The father and the son meanwhile, though sick, were

hoping for a snap to honour just one fish, but

every fish that one could eat was brained and

put on ice,

while barracuda (even shark) was cursed and

slashed then flung aside like factory waste

to flap around as further bait for

barracuda (even shark).

By noon the sea was flicking white and

lurching at the boat, the men were drunk,

their bin was blood and lines

were ordered out.

The welcome motor puffed alive, the anchor

clanked and slewed as it was crudely winched

aboard. The two where they had spewed

sat still, ignored.

The travel back was best forgot but the

vessel reached the harbour calm with no

one drowned, no one harmed; no one

but the bream.

Stiff fish were dealt out on the wharf and each

went off with more than he could freeze. Even

they (the father and the son) were given

one to gut;

but when they reached their mother-wife, whom

they had hoped to please, they could not

raise another knife and curve it through

the fish.

So settling for a simpler dish of turnip

stew and beans, they wrapped their golden

prize in foiled tin and gave it to

the trees.

Opposite, on the bank

of the slow and final river, Ant

ducks, their paddle feet no

match for cocks' and hens',

hurry running in a flurry

of tail and neck, hissing and

nipping while their opponents

rape and scrape and peck.

A boy no older than Alice,

(part-time butcher bringing

breakfast rather than blade),

drops slops from his mother's

bucket, while his dog (also

white like Alice), yaps with

imperium at their bleary

buffalo shackled in the shade.

Ant! A brother in another

world illuminated by ineffable

text which I can float to for a

visit. He was no older than

Alice when the cobra killed his

ducks, and, when I get to pay

my visit, I will gather down

and place it in his chalice.

Like ice against enamel

the wood coal squeaks

as xylem splits and phloem

spits out fat-hot sap,

and smoke – the alluring

fume – curls unmolested

into spirits, not all solemn;

but no one speaks.

Up then, up the lichensmothered

trunk it creeps,

smudging one by one

the witch-long walnut

digits, and licks them dry,

dry as tongue, eburnean

sculptures, not all solemn;

but no one speaks.

And further still, through

halted winter night, it seeks

to filter constellations

that I know but cannot

name, primal/parent smoke,

the burning eyes of children's

hopes, not all solemn;

but no one speaks.

Imagining is chemical,

sugar-powered kiss and collision,

electrified ingredients

gathered from experience

to zip, then zip undone;

molecules conjuring up song

and insurrection; catalysts

acting moon, hurrying love;

enzymes throwing flares

for Archimedes.

Even Proust, endorphin-poor,

was gifted sparks of stinging joy

from chemistry – atom-rich

lit-words;

while Einstein

had a Bunsen in his brain.

I was dreaming

when she broke her plate, dreaming

fragmentally, coupling infant and old, smelling

sugar burning and my father's gorgonzola,

resigned, primed - and she shook me

less than she did

the chimneys. Already

I was underground!

          It was easy then

to offer my sprung neck with the dying

calm of a trapped gazelle – even

with froth.

          But as suddenly she stopped (like

Daniel's lion) and chance was gone.

There was no end

and no substantial harm.

I had to find my shoes – perhaps a comb – and

follow them down, down,

until we hurried out to

reach the sanctuary of night.

          I looked up, up

at the frozen stars,

and focused on the cluster that

warmed me all those years ago.

I thought that they might know,

from their vantage point, whether

I was riding on a blue, revolving hearse, whether

they could cut me free.

I have always trusted in silence

To explain. No, perhaps not always but

Rather since the present never is and words

My mouths have uttered have uttered up a fence;

Since then!

I should have known from boyhood

When lemons shared were sweet, when

Chicken talk cut silent for a nimbus or a

Hawk. Then, of all times, I should have understood;

Since then!

As when the desperate bucking stopped and

Slowing calm brought sorrow joy and now

Was palpable as passing air and we were poised

As one. That was when to mute and make a stand;

Since then!

Or even now when now is not and Helen

Leaves with planes arriving, leaves us Paul to take

The driving, I must entrust the gone to silence

To still the peptide hurt of when;

Since then!

No secret can be kept from flung birch seed when

the wind is up to it, when the irascible wind bends

Frost branches till they cower low,

holds them so, then

lets them go.

Like Roman catapult it sends

the seed, like crazy grain it scatters round,

like whale sperm it sprays the ground;

and we are left to stop the nose

to wax the safe before it knows.

But still it penetrates the darkest, darkest spot,

where mould stays moist, where archived thought not

folded in and hidden like a blush, not

coded locked, may find that it has won and we have got

no secret kept, no secret yet that we can take

from flung birch seed when the summer blows,

when it really blows, and flowers break.

Exempt, absorbing blue,

devoid of all but filtered light,

the sky looked down

impartially, and drew

the faintest veil over night.

It witnessed, without

affect, and without the

prerogative of right,

a bird attached to fireworks

take flight, explode,

and then ignite.

Staring from an oscillating face,

unprotected and pocked

by the arrows of expanding time,

the moon has no memory

of birth. It was burst from the

belly of a blasted earth, and held,

umbilically,

by a mother's mysterious force.

She of course is losing

her grip, but imperceptibly,

(her foetus won't snap free):

She's tilted with pride

and drugged by monotonous spin.

It will take an infinite warp till

she sees his face

recede with the diminishing

pull of the tide.

If Death insisted that you choose

between breathing out and breathing in

harmonicas would argue that you couldn't lose,

flutes that you couldn't win;

but harps would say that you need no breath,

would see no gain from either choice,

for they have donned the shrouds of Death

and stay suspended in its voice.

The moon subsumes the sun,

surreptitiously, like a phagocyte

a mite, dimming day into night,

using tentacle, not bite,

choosing fear before fright -

the moon subsumes the sun.

Act Two, scene four, line 1.

Hawk sight and dog scent, plus

the touch of Keller,

might help us

to travel chemical, to reach

a bottom quark,

or even dark

matter for that matter.

Throw in the blind

for their hearing, (and,

if he doesn't mind,

a raging chef), then my goodness

we would soar

high, or even bore

like moles into the molten.

Unexpectedly the ice-stone

sank, where the heart berths,

tethered if you know your anatomy

to a desolate suburb

of flat and featureless terrain

in the brain – without arched mountains

as a backdrop, without caressing

sycamore for shade – a pastel

zone, a wither zone.

And to dissolve the stone

he sought the chaos of the centre,

where crickets shrieked,

where tree stems offered sweet

latrines for dog and drunk,

where rhythm beat the terror

out of night, alone.

Safely placed on the moon

I watched the earth spill

yolk, as it split into two.

Dust smoked, and cups

of crust lost poise,

while water tried to fall.

I saw one continent break

into bits, like chocolate,

and another buck the way

loose wire does when

live. To be honest I could

have given up and cried,

because the rest of the sky

took absolutely no notice.

I had the option of staying

on the moon, of making a

permanent home there, but

everyone had gone, everyone;

so I reattached my wings

and flew towards the sun.

I look out from the living

without the clarity of youth,

towards history, arriving

by light at light speed, late.

Previous suns, spelling an

elemental tale, feign

nonchalance, and blink;

too remote to influence

the living, (driven by reliable

light), to think. Instead they

look in, towards silos of brutal

waste, greed and ambition.

I am past wishing and prefer

apparition, the unsettling

hologram, the gossamer

sliver of pearl in gas lace.

At equinox

when light and dark divide

he fetches tools. Hand

trowels, fowl droppings, collected

seed; and turns

the hibernating soil.

His neck corrects

for gravity with chalk

on chalk, and weightless grains

are lifted pinched

between his father's bones.

In ancient

brain his mother, thin

in cotton, leads him past

the angled fig. Past

rock that clipped his toe.

They fling dry seed

and dip their biscuit halves in

tea. Next thought she calls

him round from play. They

scan, indelibly, an oblong

joy. His feet stick firm

in dry dust, and

he startles like wing.

With thick saliva tasting of

kiss, he stoops to rake

then wet the modern earth.

Nails and implements are washed

clean, the dog is given a stick; and

he waits for colour.

I believe in luck!

Shot – or not – by a ricochet.

Squashed like a frog when a block

collapses – or not.

I forfeit hymn,

outrage and despair. The

elements are indifferent. They

obey physics, not prayer; they

jump to commands from a seething

earth writhing – or resting – flailing

their arms when it storms – combing

their hair when it calms.

I believe in luck!

Caught in the gaze of a

lion – or eaten up.

A fitful dream (the type

provoked by alcohol or meat)

is like running in toffee.

The most that one can

hope for is to meet

a kind ghost.

Last week in such a dream

(it could have been the heat)

I met my mother.

I knew it was my mother

because the arms were hers

and because she wore my feet.

I tried, like any boy would, to

touch her cheek and speak,

but hand and tongue were wrapped

in web, and weak. I tried

once more to reach her face, but