originally published 2010
Pine a blooming parasite
Twined
Poised on a twig a jackdaw
Issues a pungent cry
Indignant towards celestial
Lights
One raises short-sighted
Blood-shot eyes
Curses the bird
Flicks it a bud
Gaunt over coated layman
Hangover holding out a
Gout
Rejected or rejecting
Relations he had suffered through
Acquaintances with exiled few
Shady
financial statements
Among the intellectually
Vain
The reputation he had
Gained
For likening a line of cocaine
To that from Joseph Brodsky
His hazel pupil,
Piercing and cold, a
Needle on the record of the
World.
And thirty passes
Round the Sun
Same old tune filters out
Never to be heard
Into the cosmos so vast
It is absurd
And yet familiar
Enough
To stir in scientists
And bums feeling
Of domesticated love.
If only to grow hoar
Retire, collect a pension
Bore the younglings
With references to hardships
During the depression,
Collapse,
The August crises
Become oblivious as to the
Possibilities
Of contemporary
Electronic devices
But History, severe and
Dull,
Deludes its prey in alcohol,
Abandons it to die
In alley’s dark, back roads of
Time.
Ecce the chapel o’ the Bar
‘Hit me boy double
Kentucky corn nectar’
In the corner on the stage
Prancing round a
Double bass
Nonchalant his fingers
Face
He had always thought
That he was
What he was not
