HOLDING STILL
You imagine me standing at the window
watching the fireworks above the harbour
You imagine me choking back the tears and the cocaine
heartrate uncommonly high
spirits expectedly low
You imagine me burning your letters
and cursing the day that we met
precise about the date the time of day
the occasion in the lecture hall
the summer in Sardinia
I’ve been living in your past
a dingy emblem in a worn-out coat
a monochrome image you took of me
out of focus fading fast
You keep me in a frame in your bedroom
holding my breath and holding the pose
I imagine you naked the tears the cocaine
GAZA
Once an ice-cream van
now a mortuary
THE PAST TO COME
Verily, verily, news from the scullery!
Hear it in hindsight, its cry codicillary:
Igniting a lightshow of punitive jewellery
Downwind of the whiff of the ruined distillery,
That isn’t thunder, it’s effing artillery!
Narrowly trapped by convention and salary,
Mindful of waistline and obstinate calorie,
Countering candour with posturing drollery,
How we long for the times of our callow tomfoolery:
Strutting and fretting like heroes in Malory,
Our ups and downs worthy of Tensing and Hillary—
Love was an ambush, a lickerish pillory,
Teasing the mind like a baffled fritillary,
The heart neurasthenic, all Bergish and Mahlery,
Cornered unfairly by beauty’s cajolery.
Pumping desire into every capillary,
Each to the other we played to the gallery…
Then rolled in a meadow of spurge and wild celery!
Gregory Woods