It's the second go
                we're not happy
that metaphor's melted
                it's the global irony
which clung
        and you caused it!
these words
        don't stay long
what were
        you thinking of
as if you are
        a kind of reverse Houdini
I will stay here
        ting! ting!
it's gone
        off without you now
that preposterous shape
                        a mess of scree
and you want to stay
                here again
oh this isn't vertigo
                cue not far to go
cut puns fast - oh
                it bucks
and buckles up
        a long way down now

*

shakily drawn up
                like peanuts about to be hanged
sing gibberish to authority
                        good educational values
1950s or 1490s?
                they burst the bus
those who are free
                dance in the air
those who know they aren't
                        sing harder
the wind blows
        also tonight
are you nostalgic
                or simply on the side of power?
get off
        and walk!

*

trying not to
        these phrases do just come
oh yes?
        like this
or sometimes that
                a rip
and the whole page
                gets bundled up & out
pick it up!
        you claim it
your own original work
                as if you were original
or as if
        some kind of value added
the page
        made more valuable
more beneficial to human living
                        really
it's a strange illusion
                keeps though
this
        moving onward

*

tinted
        stirred by the brightness of the evening
lurid
        desperately clear
as if the world's about to end
                        slip into the sea
we wouldn't want that
                blinkety blink!
it's crept back
        the opposite of waking
control it while you can
                that trick mechanism
out of that little seed
                shall grow a universe
where every bit touches another
                        taste emptiness, earthling!
cold, clear, lurid
                gorgeous golden browns
imagine waking up in the cinema
                                how beautiful & various this world
the one we don't live in
                imagine

*

to see beyond
        foolish & dangerous
where rivers go to
                come from
equally uncertain
                mud mostly
a foggy place
                too steep or flat
few ideas
        how to cope here
how then do we know this is real?
                                it is just dirty
and that's the good thing
                        to relax into imperfection
let what's beyond
                sweep around
curled
        & unconstrained

 

 

Copyright © Peter Philpott, 2006