This poem is taken from Stand 236, 20(4) January - March 2023.
Four Poems
Poem
He thinks of bricks, how easy it is to lay them. The physicality of them, the duration. He thinks of quarries, of marble, of a marble wall, of Inca fortresses, of dry stone walls. He is unable to find the one true barrier he wants, the one between him and what is outside. He wishes himself inside stone, so he can be part of it, or even become it. He wants something beautiful, a Doric column perhaps, or a slim porphyry one, like in some Italian churches, or even a sarsen from a stone circle. He immerses himself, and thinks of what holds stone together. All those molecules, all those crystals. Their invisible to the naked eye connections, their building blocks. He senses them. The unseen weaves around him.
Poem
She joins the dots between the cracks and lumps on the wall with a pencil. She is drawing a map. Of a new or a very old, undiscovered continent. She draws sea shores, rivers, lakes, vast forests and mountains. A land full of screeching, leaping, slithering, swimming, devouring species. She sets traps for those that rise and stay on two legs.
Poem
A decorated and mustachioed colonel, notorious slayer and conqueror, an old lady in a wig sitting in a garden, a boy with very blond curls, a young woman in a wide brimmed hat sitting on a country fence with an admirer at her side, a surviving couple from the new century in some European city. She keeps hanging them. Paintings, photographs. She cannot recognise some of them, nor remember who they are. The wall is full. ‘Remove the dresser’ she tells the workmen, ‘remove the cupboard too, I want them all the way down to the floor’. All the walls must be covered, there are suitcases full. Hang and pin and hang, until their weight makes the walls collapse. A rubble generation. This will be their vengeance.
Poem
When our knuckles and fists are raw, we use crockery, broom handles, bottles, glasses, spoons. Even our heads sometimes, just for fun. We tap, tap tap. On the wall between us. It has been like this for years now. We have devised our own system. We play with it. We let the word-taps hang in the air, will they go this way, that way, stop. Sometimes we change the implement, they make different sounds you see. Speech-sounds are a thing of the past, even in our heads. I think in taps now. We misunderstand each other so well. All is harmony.
...
He thinks of bricks, how easy it is to lay them. The physicality of them, the duration. He thinks of quarries, of marble, of a marble wall, of Inca fortresses, of dry stone walls. He is unable to find the one true barrier he wants, the one between him and what is outside. He wishes himself inside stone, so he can be part of it, or even become it. He wants something beautiful, a Doric column perhaps, or a slim porphyry one, like in some Italian churches, or even a sarsen from a stone circle. He immerses himself, and thinks of what holds stone together. All those molecules, all those crystals. Their invisible to the naked eye connections, their building blocks. He senses them. The unseen weaves around him.
Poem
She joins the dots between the cracks and lumps on the wall with a pencil. She is drawing a map. Of a new or a very old, undiscovered continent. She draws sea shores, rivers, lakes, vast forests and mountains. A land full of screeching, leaping, slithering, swimming, devouring species. She sets traps for those that rise and stay on two legs.
Poem
A decorated and mustachioed colonel, notorious slayer and conqueror, an old lady in a wig sitting in a garden, a boy with very blond curls, a young woman in a wide brimmed hat sitting on a country fence with an admirer at her side, a surviving couple from the new century in some European city. She keeps hanging them. Paintings, photographs. She cannot recognise some of them, nor remember who they are. The wall is full. ‘Remove the dresser’ she tells the workmen, ‘remove the cupboard too, I want them all the way down to the floor’. All the walls must be covered, there are suitcases full. Hang and pin and hang, until their weight makes the walls collapse. A rubble generation. This will be their vengeance.
Poem
When our knuckles and fists are raw, we use crockery, broom handles, bottles, glasses, spoons. Even our heads sometimes, just for fun. We tap, tap tap. On the wall between us. It has been like this for years now. We have devised our own system. We play with it. We let the word-taps hang in the air, will they go this way, that way, stop. Sometimes we change the implement, they make different sounds you see. Speech-sounds are a thing of the past, even in our heads. I think in taps now. We misunderstand each other so well. All is harmony.
...
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