|
The Necessity of Ice
One frosted time,
Orion rising roughshod
in a clenched & closing year
left us living meagrely, by coffee,
cigarettes, by bread, alone,
& wanting nothing more
than the slow tread of ice
too thin for any argument
from icecaps that are yesterday's news
that will soon have no mysteries
to conceal or reveal,
dwindling to the thinness
of a concave lens,
focussing all our contraries
to a diamond point of need:
for the rigour & dispassion
of ice, its clarity
& clouded mystery,
We need its night-time crack & groan
of shifting darknesses,
floe & crevasse, berg & glacier
& structures that are given to us to name.
We need so much light,
so many cool rooms, & music;
we need icebergs to see the tip of,
ice to pack against pain,
to cut with others
to put our plans on, or to crush
with lemon & vodka, & melt
in warm young mouths.
The Election Candidates Promise To Be Tough On The Causes of Disorder
Car doors secured, fathers leave for their orderly office,
Mothers leave for school with their disorderly children
Sparrows seek asylum in the orderly sunlight,
Squabble for scraps in the disorderly breeze.
At the airport, a man is detained on suspicion of future disorder,
Although the man is afraid of uniforms & order
& is afraid of the locked room where he'll await a court order
Which may send him back to his country's civil disorder
In a van down a road that smacks of order,
Cars bound for the office, mothers & disorderly children.
May 2001
|
