A for Blog

Let’s not pretend that
stuff in a blog
is poetry.

A blog is a diary
upside down, a silo
where notions wait
for processing or better times.

Crammed tight they twitch
in the dark
they long to sprout
and see the light.

Let’s spill them out and set them free
forgotten grains of you and me.
At worst the birds
will feast.

(In memory of Di Oliver who died suddenly on 10 February 2005)

You’re climbing the stairs
and you notice
they’re shallow or deep,

they’re easy or steep,
you notice the landings, the corners, the rails
and you wonder where they will lead.

You take it for granted
each separate step
will be there.

Di was a dazzler, a doer, a doll,
top of the tree
and queen of the stars.

But for many and many
and more than we know
she was also a stair

saying “Heave ho, up you go,
now don’t be scared,
I care and I’m always here.”

I am squinting at death
but death pixillates
into cubes
of coloured light.

I am looking for death
but death hides
her white eyes and bitten nails
behind my shopping list.

I am listening for death
but the voice of death is muffled
by a toddler stumbling
on her cousin’s name.

Friendship slips
out the window
when lovers shout
and part.

It may knock on the door
later, later
when neither wants
nor waits nor hurts.

A small and jolly
coffin shop
family on the footpath
watching

traffic on the riverfront
splashing like
a many-levelled
waterfall.

Seven people
pour
aboard
a single bike.

Family.
Liquid.
Phnom Penh.

Squash a sonnet
to a pellet
with a mallet.
Did it!