- Vol. 01
- Chapter 09
Fail-Safe
“I have come back,” he said to Beatrice, “I am not under the table. I have come back victorious. The dog it was that died.” (Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana)
When I am in pieces I call this state daughter
say one day all this will be yours but remember
the eyeless head on fragile stalk mustering
in every close object.
Stalk, talk.
No that’s not shadow thrown but light
captured and blindfolded. So they say.
Any wooden abstraction arising there
is strategic move – you can be sure
the fat shot foreigner and poisoned pug
are fusibly linked around the corner.
Prized, pried.
Wooden car with button siren –
don’t trust them.
Noah’s Ark with bite-size couples –
don’t trust them.
Chickens waddling their own soundtrack –
don’t trust them.
Glasses – don’t trust them.
Touch screen – so they say.
Fail-Safe
Blink, link.
Be on your Kierkegaard. Divine
how the cup spins by subtracting
itself. Only then will solace find you
even in the form of a vacuum
cleaner. Then let the cityscape melt
for your tabled clarity.
That’s how it stands for you
not for pity.
Neglected, elected.
A bronzed skin homing
in on the gold film of your eyes.
To make my move I have flicked
a kind of switch in gazing
into so much silty pedestrian traffic.
I think I love my new soft focus.
Now I am the bull and the matador here
where I am having a quiet coffee.