That cackle,
Musty and burnt
Like a sodden cigar
Crushed underfoot
Outside the Royal Legion,
A curdled cough,
Snarling down the street,
All shivered gutters,
Twisted, leaking engines
And monologues paused,
A chapped and cracked
Thumb of a man,
Rumbling threats
In a grumbling funk,
Endlessly stained.
When the bulb fizzles out,
The glass stays warm,
All hushed fascinations,
Inhalations,
Fresh dilations
And pfft.
A pivotal moment,
A popped sigh
Cocked askew,
A hovering suspense
With those brief
Tickled shivers,
And soft
Hissing whispers
Of unassigned types.
Just like the minor fools
Who thought so many things
Were achievable,
They sit twisted on the sofa,
Patiently waiting for
Pizza and enlightenment;
They’re avoiding the news
And just waiting for signs,
Or at least sublime substitutes
For all the heartburn
And the vague regret
That something could’ve been done,
Something won,
Were it not for that
Big blinding sun.
Cascading leaves dance
Shimmering in the sun spots
Fragile as they sway.
Brutal beliefs
In an over ripe
Memorial garden,
Low buildings,
The shadows drop
Quickly at dawn,
All the neon
And glitter fades
In the sun,
All the cracks
And stains slouch,
Ungroomed and tired;
A surprised town
Where the dandelions
Sing until winter,
Streets propped up
By liquor and
Flickering hope,
History itching
Through pavements,
Beneath doorways,
There were reveries
Here when the dogs
Roamed.
Her young words
Stuck to my thoughts
Like fridge magnets
Sliding slightly
Down a door,
A beautiful question
I’d reduced to a
Cutting aside,
Why are you always funny?
We looked at each other
For a moment,
Two cats frozen,
Guessing,
Just the purr
Of the passing cars
Outside –
I’m not really,
I said,
I know,
She sighed.
The best way of announcing
He had no new terrains
Left to explore
Was with the city at gridlock,
In an electrical storm,
Amidst the wet, manic pavements
Of a bustling city,
A worried nation,
All telekinetic prayers
And fetishized chords
Of depression,
Commercialized indecision,
Derision and sitcoms –
An absurdist existence
For most folk,
But most folk
Skipped hope long ago.
A world away from
The stifling black
And the beauty of dusk,
He was part of a vision,
But that vision’s outgrown,
Left to rust,
Blown faith bends
The wrong way sometimes
Much like songs,
And that silent, floating shape
Was a human all along.
The language of
An astronaut’s anguish,
A dusty, weighted blanket
Cocooned from intrusions,
A smoky, cloaked grunge
That’s outlived its disdain,
Streaks of spilled coffee
And nicotine stains,
Trapped in subterranean
Rumblings.
It thrums with vulnerability,
All Norman Rockwell fever dreams
Drifting out into the chop,
No destination in mind,
A sigh that has long since
Embraced the inexplicable,
Fickle in passing, undressed,
A confession left whispered,
A glittering disconnection
That feels like it could cut you
And all but fade away.
I went looking for jeans and a jumper
And left the house wearing a dress,
The wind was sour and soft,
Like an embarrassed stranger’s cough,
A disconnected vagary
Hanging on a reverie;
They’d left all known communications dead,
Tired entrepreneurs dished out scribbled notes to plebs,
Entertainers traded pseudonyms like sex,
A mess from stress and kind regards,
Old errors on unmanned, spent radars,
Charred symbols in the parks
And satellites crying from the sky.
It was left to a dazed woman in a torn jumpsuit
To unexplain what had got us all here,
Teary eyed, numb with shock and afraid
Like an old dancehall where the songs stutter then fade,
A mess of washing left out in the rain,
Unlit bonfires and sacks of wet grain,
She sobbed words into a cloud,
All epithets and growls,
And ruined the rest of my day.
Slacker Shack
Dunstan Carter : Poetry 