Poise

The cycling craze is upon us.
Living in our skin of Lycra,
Therapy in repetition of our knees,
The road’s song and its scholar
Teach us a halt

Is not acceptable; for if you stop
You have only your legs,
No matter how shapely, to fight
Inertia.  The lead unto temptation is inevitable
Running lights, runaway, through
A mechanical economical gradient
Down to imaginary equilibrium.

Punctuated.

I cannot hate you I am prey
To it myself.  But if you cannot believe
My evolution, I cannot credit yours.
The climate of opinion values a bushy
Authenticity because of too many facts
Statistically getting in the way of the truth.  The truth is
I am sick of you.  You cant you box you
Ride triumphal through the arches –
No hands, Ma –
While we stand mesmerised by the drugs
You do not have to take to crash
Or crash through our living
Rooms. Your ambition at once too big and too
Small.  Just whatever it takes to get you
Through the amber lights.

Organ donor.

There.  I am losing it just like you.
Let us relaunch our poor poise or
Be just history.

Even Fear Grows Old

for Donald on his 60th

Every child is an oracle
Telling the present;
While you rub the sleep from your eyes
They park on your chest.

Ambitions are accidental.
I mortared my want
Round decisions found like rocks in my shoes –
They read as a list.

What wasn’t possible
Is now old and frequent.
No matter what the fat man whispers,
Never mind the schoolboy fears,
Collect these paper scraps of prayers
And burn in the west.