EXHIBITION

She lent across and right there kissed his neck

in the queue to see Francis Bacon.

What the heck?

These chances are there to be taken.

I was standing behind her behind

as he gently patted her there.

He seemed very kind.

She had soft brown hair.

We entered the gallery of pain,

of Bacon’s suffering and death,

love’s falling as acid rain,

twisted faces and terminal breath.

Was that them I saw in the room,

Bacon’s truth sliding easily by?

His love starts in the womb,

is born, distorts then runs dry.

‘Bacon’s art is the work of a genius,’

the guide said as she led us about.

‘Just look how he’s painted that penis!’

Indeed – bleeding, erect – not in doubt.

I looked for the couple to see:

any effect on their easy affection?

There they were – holding hands he and she

paying torture and death no attention.

Will today’s soft kiss and their touch

transform in the years ahead?

Bacon doesn’t offer them much:

but then, he’s dead.

MOVING PICTURES

Time to move the stack of paintings

from behind the lounge where they lent

like pensioners against the wall

clad only in a shroud.

No sign of life: all dead?

Time to rehabilitate or bury,

hang them or put them in the shed.

One was a rural scene

into which you might escape

on a morning when the porridge

has horrible lumps, the coffee is weak

enough to make you weep,

the rain sogging

the thin tissues of poor sleep.

Another has a badly broken frame.

Painted decades ago in oil

it’s of a Parisian boulevard

that he and she may have walked

or maybe not – if only just

perhaps a dream –

a painting for the lost.

A third, disheartening in its loss of colour,

was of children playing on a beach

in swimwear of the ‘30s. 

Does it really matter

which wall, which shed?

the fact is very simple:

the children like the pictures are all dead.

LORD, HOW?

Turquoise has visited this island and spread its table in a lagoon

of fish and turtles behind a coral wall,

nourishment for the bodies and souls of the dying.

The clearest possible skies invite speculation and at night,

beyond the moon in hiding and absent city lights,

the same skies allow starlight unimpeded access

to respond with more questions, deeper inquiries born of quiet grief,

to the questions asked by those whose time is short.

For this is the island of palliative care with cushions for the weary –

a slow and gentle ride (no speed over twenty) –

for those whose illness has taken command,

boats for slow rowing across quiet waters inside the coral reef.

There’s nothing to do without a mobile phone,

life without email. This is a place where slow cycling

and recycling claim the hour, mutton birds and woodhens and palms

indifferent to the passing of those on vacation –

two weeks, then home after tasting the disengagement of the terminal. 

The airstrip is not well suited for landing in a storm.

iROBOT

This morning on the TV I watched

an intelligent machine the size of a curling stone.

It vacuumed hands-free, sensing where it was,

on the floor, reversing on collision,

diving under beds and lounges in search

of roach bodies, desiccated cat piss,

toast crusts and babies’ lost single socks.

The device, the salesman said, was an iRobot

selling at a low price for Christmas,

the season when gravity is especially strong,

and the need for machines that will suck up

what the dogs leave is at its peak

as families meet amidst repulsive dynamics

and spilled food, drink, urine, dribble

of old farts and the puke of young.

This was the ideal gift, the salesman sang,

for the woman or man

who has everything.

Imagine a nano-version of iRobot

stronger than Satan

that I could inject

that would vacuum up the stinking sludge

and slop that I slip in on the floor of my brain,

remove my need to seize a semi-automatic gun,

search out a classroom full of little children.

CALL FAILED

Damn it, we were like gorillas,

vision reduced, tripping on tangled vines,

shouting and cursing in the mist;

gorillas, hulks, arms hanging,

dull brains firing off

random instructions to limbs

that did not connect.

Gorillas in the mist:

we missed as though miles apart

for all the good our shouting did.

Instead, let’s shed this fur,

enough of these make-believe uniforms –

remodel our jaws,

let human talk begin

and textured skin shine.

Be mysterious if you will,

but speak your mind! 

THE LIGHTENING

Among the pleasures provided

by my father, Suddhodana,

to keep me captive and distracted

in his palace in Kapilavastu,

in the foothills of the Himalayas,

in winter he lit fires

of the finest aromatic

sandalwood from Benares

and in summer

sent me concubines who

danced and taunted

through nights of music

beside pools

of white lotuses

and of blue.

My father sought to spare me

from the realities

of suffering, age and death

but drove me to escape.

My journeys over years

were as a common man.

I was drawn to Benares,

a colosseum of steps

flanking the arena of the Ganges,

smoke of sandalwood pyres,

smell not as in my father’s palace

but of roasting ghee and flesh.

Each day I saw the ashes and bones of

one hundred men and women

scattered on the river

and each evening

souls set afloat

on leaves with candles

as the river drifted towards morning.

So I chose Benares

as the place

to preach my sermon.

THE PASSING

By about eleven it was clear

that another day was improbable.

On Friday he appreciated

the huge moon rising

and likewise the sun

on Saturday morning.

Being on the fourth floor

heightened his perception

of these natural things

and of course

the clearly recognised end.

Under the plastic mask

bubbling oxygen by-passes

his closed eyes. He mumbles,

coughs, automatically readjusts

with his right hand

the IV line:

She responds,

plays a little

coaxes him –

cat with

captured sparrow.

We’ll all

feel differently

tomorrow.