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Pollen
For Sachiko
pollen is waiting in the forest
for the unwary
eating the sharp air in
solid gulps, a gulf between
wishing & wanting, that too
a kind of plant, brown
in the yellowing sun
cellophane is the usual metaphor
but seeds take few prisoners
as the night lengthens into
day & white breaks into
the endless cloud of decaying
foliage, an empty sign
preceding the eye, the throat, the breath.
Current Affairs
in memory of John Forbes
'instead we are caught
half-way between
a European sense of style
you can always be at home in'
from a long distance away
into John's voice, a lily-
white dove caught in
his throat speaking lies
grey legs shadowed a
barely opaque fog of logic
as the house emptied
loss into the street, town
alone in the vast country
taking into its heart men
and women bereft of sense
or a place to sleep
at night or in the day the
house closing its mouth on
the couple embracing gently
as the willows touch the water
but man is free, whimpered
mother: the born speak, as the unborn sing
because in town, cows low & moan
when the silos lay lost in the sun
the wind has a presence, on the
trace of air, the birds seek
passage or serenity to another, better
time when the depression left nothing
it was the war that made
the town, wild lilies grew in
broken groves, lilting tunes remained
unsung as the coffins drove on & on
of what does John sing, his
eye a screen to the world
CNN a bird blue on
the black bough as light fell
in lamentation unmourned, his
requiem less than the nation
black on the golden sands
asking not taking but there still
John cannot abide our version of bliss
he spurns our pretence of charity
out of blind indifference, we
drift through the trees like dreaming
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