Poetry is the sound
The wind makes
As it circles your soul
And everything is second-hand
All of it spent air
Turned around and around
And we sit here
In the commonplace
Rinsing the air
And rubbing the threads
Of patterns worn down
Abraded by familiarity
Yet still we come
To gather round in spell-bound hope
Ready as ever to witness
To be in thrall
To absolutes
And know that we can find
In everything
A little of the new
I veered through narrow streets
At night in Piccadilly and Soho
In ramshackle pursuit of a sea captain
While under my arm I struggled to carry,
a mattress
And all the time I knew it was absurd
But I kept up a dialogue with him
Remonstrating against him and his crew
How he had parked his ship
Too close to my car
And blocked me in
Awake. I am left with the residue
Of confusion
Amazed at what goes on inside my head
When the day shift goes off to play
And all manner of characters move in
To the theatre of my invention
Bristling with malevolent energy
To prick my pride
And expose my fragile hold on reality
How apt to start the month,
with a Monday
Now we’ll expect symmetry to unfold
Like logic. As it should
And all the curly wurly thoughts
False starts and chaos of the past
Be tamed. Brought into line
Oh, how kind, to start like this
To give us all a break
This democracy of chance
Whence one, the first, could be the last
Figures rolling, resolving to be
Significant in patterns that repeat
The life cycle. But neatly
And if all the lights go out
Then what, my number fetishists
Are we cast into a darkness
Of tumbling die
Where confusion will drown clarity
And logic leak from the cracks
Of pursed lips that crave conformity
New days. New dawns
They are not cheap
Entrusted as they are
With all we most want to keep
Perhaps we should be
Blind to numbers that conform
To patterns that unfold in sleep
