May 27, 2005

Poem

The Crash in Amagasaki

My proximity to tragedy
is measured by small degrees
of space and time.
These are simpler to chart
than a distance to safety
constructed squarely
of coincidence.

April 8, 2005

Another poem

For the April Guardian Poetry Workshop.

Henry Pulling’s Dahlias

I’d left my dahlias, unwatered, to die.
Called away on a whim by a not-maiden Aunt.
Rare spontaneity for a banking man such as I.

She had to keep running, though I wasn’t sure why.
Brighton, Paris, Madrid, then Istanbul we went.
I’d left my dahlias, unwatered, to die.

My Aunt was a smuggler but I didn’t pry.
I left her to her vices though I thought that I shant.
Rare spontaneity for a banking man such as I.

On the Orient Express, something stuck in my eye.
Living on pot and chocolate felt too delinquent.
I’d left my dahlias, unwatered, to die

But the man I’d been before her, I was forced to decry.
I followed her to Paraguay, as was her want.
Rare spontaneity for a banking man such as I.

Too much of my life spent bored, awkward and shy.
Now I’m embroiled in torridness but I dare not recant.
I’d left my dahlias, unwatered, to die.
Rare spontaneity for a banking man such as I.

April 7, 2005

Poetic Interlude

I wish my enemies were Russians

for the privilege of your naiveté
they played you like an instrument
set against that Europe
your Russia was a love story;
the thinking man’s erotic fantasy.
You wrote odes to odes on lunacy
but even the polarity was illusion
shifty spies confused the confusion.
That war was all in your head;
endless scenes of winter
intrigue. Your house with
picture windows and a fallout shelter;
mutually assured destruction.
Your history was the cinematic stuff
of fiction. The enemies were Russians
with beady eyes and edgy names.
Your symbols were comic book
red menaces and red phones,
iron curtains and star wars.