Gather around, Misery. Let’s play murder. To start, we want them young. Let’s relieve you of your burden. That parasite. Eats you to death. Let’s watch them grow into thin. Twirl, ballerina, twirl. Fall as Ophelia fell. Let’s dance off the edge of the skyline. The news said you shone. Brilliant. Down to the murk …
If I Could Wander the Earth as a Duck: A Poem for Dreamers
Duck Dreams
If I could wander the Earth as a duck
I would keep swimming until I’d waddle.
Waddle and waddle. To make humans laugh.
That’s all I’d want. To make humans laugh.
To share a piece of their world.
From my wet, wobbly corner of quacks.
I will keep wandering until I find one.
A duck friend. To make a quack orchestra with.
To swim two by two. To waddle then and more.
If I could wander the Earth as a duck.
I would keep on swimming.
The Portrait of Beautiful Flight: Inspired by Musee des Beaux Arts by W.H. Auden
As evening dropped off the clock an airship dropped out of the sky. In a menagerie cage a monkey sat, sniffed and was still again. A child laughed and pointed at the monkey, the father smiled and suggested ice cream.
The monkey sniffed. A trail of smoke sailed to the stars between a warehouse, turned into a spilled puzzle of some thousand and five pieces, possibly once labelled Number 55, according to half an edge of a wood painted sign. The other half of the sign had added a jaunty hat to an algae crusted ironmonger ship from some fifty years earlier, planted at the dock poking into the equally muddy and disused river.
The monkey sniffed. Somewhere a child giggled and undeneath it all, including various pieces of aircraft, two words floated to the top of the city.
“Oh damn.”