I guess they thought they were invisible
I was around visiting Phil at his new studio
in Oxford Street the other day;
See, he said, it’s even got a balcony.
And we stepped out onto the narrow ledge
overlooking the back lane
with a view over roof-top gardens, inner-city harbour
glimpses and the glassed in roofs of the city.
Not long after I moved in
he said, I caught these two kids
fucking on the rooftop opposite.
What did you do?
What could I do,
I watched them for awhile
but you know
I felt embarrassed
So I ignored them, went back inside
made coffee,
and when I came back out
10 minutes later, they were still at it;
this time the girl on top
lowering herself onto his patient cock.
I guess they thought they were invisible
he said,
as we imagined them
the two most living things in this whole landscape.
Po Wa Yuen
At the end of this flight of stairs
a stream of humanity flows towards the sea
or rather, towards a boat that is parked
at the end of a wooden pier
that is surrounded,
by a bright and boundless sea.
Most mornings I launch myself into it
into the stream that flows
by the end of this flight of stairs
towards the sea, towards the boat
that is parked,
at the end of a wooden pier
that is surrounded,
by a bright and boundless sea.
White
I am being ground to whiteness
at the moment
the whiteness of a white bone.
That is the purpose of my whole existence
and was it not yesterday
a man came to me and said
as he touched a big beard hair
growing out from my cheek
pure white.
Gypsy and Rat
I see gypsy and rat
a lot these days
on the street, trying to score
and when they’re not there,
they are at home
sleeping an dreaming of the street
and the people there
calling them by their names
hey gypsy! hey rat!
Writing from a bankrupt thirteenth principle
WAKE UP SLEEPING ON DOORSTEPS
Just give him a kiss goodbye
I think I’ve seen you in here before
You’re too pretty not to have been involved with the police
Heaps of twenty-cent pieces on the dresser
Smell those things in the paper shop
Pairs of boots tied together at the end of the bed
Writing from a bankrupt thirteenth principle
Doesn’t pay!
Big clumps of hair disappear behind the blindfold
Streets dropping from pockets
A train full of silent almost kissing people
Transparent blue smoke folding over a glass lip
into a room where the sun shines all day.
Point of Standing
Someone upstairs is moving furniture
onto the roof.
They’ve been doing it now
for the last half hour
dragging tired legs of kitchen chairs
(simple wooden kitchen chairs)
out across an expanse of floor
& tossing them like matchsticks
into a great pile on the roof.
I can’t tell where the chairs are coming from
but their uniformity & sheer number
is disturbing.
I’m beginning to think, that as a tenant
(& one of long standing)
I have a right to know what this guy is up to;
but at the same time I fear his explanation
would be far too heavy for me to handle-
for I fear that this man
has slowly, ever so slowly,
come to the point of standing.
The Wedding rice
Still eating the wedding rice
months after the big day.
Not that we needed to
mind you, there was just so much of it
a year’s supply maybe.
Remember the night we spent
filling tiny sandwich bags
neatly wrapping each with crisp
yellow ribbon.
It’s not hard to imagine
there’s still a lot of sweetness there
cooked into these pearly grains of rice
Saved from the summer,
so full of promise,
so full of love.
R & R (Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam)
Under the fading glow of the afternoon sun
the newly acquired Coca-Cola umbrellas unfurl,
flattened against the sky like parachutes.
Symbols of prosperity
lined up along the beach for the sunset
the biggest (the only) show in town.
I suggest to the owner
he paint out the white squiggly bits,
add the proud yellow star
& presto;
the national flag…
No, no, he interrupts
Coca-Cola…
Coca-Cola number one!