Smoke

The citronella candle

is a poet

when it smokes:

see how the words

curl up

the ribbed throat

of the well-

tempered glass

eloquent as a haiku:

but alas

only a photo

will do

 

Let Go

 

Let go, he says. Let go.

Let go?

Yes, you have to let go. I give you permission.

So I do.

I let go of all the baggage I have built up over the years.

I feel so light I have to be tethered to the earth like a hot air balloon.

2061

 

[written in 1986, the day before]

 

I suppose

I will hold your hand

That night

The comet passes over

And I will guide your young, young eyes

And show you its starry path

Across these Southern skies

And say,

“Look, that is the comet”

And you will stare in wonder with me

And perhaps we will never be

This close again.

And I will say,

“Look closely. One day when you

Are very, very old

You will tell your children what it was like

On this day”

And they will hold your hand

That day in 2061

And ask you,

“Did grandma and grandma see it with you?”

And you will shake

Your tired old eyes

And remember

Though we will long be dust

Like a comet’s tail.

Glimpse

 

1

 

The spider’s squandered his chances.

The fly sits on the shelf.

The sun preens itself in the mirror

Studying the glory of itself

 

2.

 

Deposited on the mat

Early one morning

A furry centaur

A gift from cat

Half bloodied stalk

Half grey rat.

 

Can You Put a bit more OOOMPH into it?

 

‘The tooth doesn’t seem to want to come,’ said the dentist.

‘I can see that,’ I said, holding grimly onto the chair.

‘Can you get up and give us a hand?’ he said.

‘What about your assistant?’

‘She’ll never be able to handle this. It’s a two-rooter.’

‘Okay, then,’ I said, hopping out of the chair. We both gripped the pliers, yanking together. It wouldn’t yield.

‘Could you put more oomph into it?’ he said.

So I gave it all I had and the dentist did too. We pulled and pulled and pulled. The dentist really had some biceps. Any minute now ….

Suddenly we fell backwards as the tooth yielded to superior force.

‘There, that did it,’ said the dentist pleased as I climbed back into the chair. ‘It’s amazing what a second pair of hands can achieve.’ he added holding up the bloodied tooth.

‘It certainly is,’ I said, blood streaming from my mouth.

That Annoying Little Novel

 

I am reading an annoying little novel called ‘To The Lighthouse’.

I am on page 138 and they still haven’t got there — though they talk about it a lot: whether they will or they won’t and on what day they should venture forth? It is always the weather.

Hamlet, if he were written a few hundred years later, would have loved it. He was a ditherer too. There’s even a skull he could have addressed as ‘Alas. Poor Yorick’ though sadly it belonged to a sheep.

I’m getting tired of these people. They need a cattle prod applied to a certain part of their anatomy — though it may be it is not the book for me. I didn’t much like ‘Hamlet’ either.

 

Bigger and Bigger

 

I was beginning to inflate. Getting bigger and bigger ever since I began the list, a very long list, of people whose necks I would like to wring. It filled three foolscap pages. I have a very long memory. My fury knew no bounds. All that hate had been building up. Now it had to go somewhere.

My shirt buttons popped and the belt on my trousers flew off as if on a spring.

My singlet and underpants tore down the centre. I was butt naked.

In my birthday suit!

Then before I was about to pop, a funny thing happened. I began to fart. Not small whiny ones but big ones like summer thunder.

And a funnier thing happened. Each time I let it rip the gas formed the outline of one of my enemies: Greg, Tony, Jason, the dude who side-swiped me at the intersection, the cop who issued me the fine …..

They were anthropomorphic farts. And they stank. And they went on all afternoon.

 

But the good thing was my dimensions shrank, a little more with each fart. It was very satisfying. I’m glad they stopped when they did else there’d be nothing left of me. I felt so good though, once the breeze had swept away the foul smell, I tore up the list and compiled another. Of people I liked. It was very short.

The Couch

 

 

“You’ve got a Hyde, Dr. Jekyll”,

the psychoanalyst said.

 

“One of you must be put

permanently to bed!”

 

“No, No, Not I,” Mr Hyde flared,

 

Whereupon the room noisily

went red.

 

 

Wimp

 

Too overcast.

Shadows on the ocean.

Clouds shifting.

Too much motion.

 

Anything could be anything.

Shadows or sharks.

Stingrays or box jelly-fish.

Too dark.

 

You just don’t know.

Cannot say.

No, sir. Not going in.

No swimming today.

Creature

 

 

 

 

She likes the new me, the gentler me.

The one that’s considerate and consoling.

The nicer me. The fun me.

The accepting me.

Not the old one

Who criticizes and condemns

From his high moral ground.

Though we all know the old me lurks

just beneath the surface.

The creature from the black lagoon.