The Shortest Distance

How do you measure
the distance between
warm mahogany
and forget-me-not blue?

Should you count the coils
of the double helix,
calculating the length
of the missing chromosomes?

Maybe the question is not
how far
but how near?
Is it the distance that counts
or how the gap is closed?

The shortest distance, then,
can be the width of a smile,
the reach of a hug
or the length of a kiss…

A Martian Sends a Postcard Home
(After Craig Raine)
People do their social duty as conduits
moving liquids from bottles, barrels and cans

to thirsty yawning pedestals. They keep their Gods
indoors and in gardens, honouring them

with food or toys, ritual walks, playful games and,
sometimes, human names on feeding bowls.

Television is a prison with inmates boxed in,
forced to entertain or disappear, off screen.

People communicate with their lips:
a gentle touch reveals white enamel

and a suction hold is considered passion
but a gaping void barks loud disapproval.

Exercise is a violent act, invasive and
accompanied by painful cries. It takes two

and often makes a third appear in almost a year.
The arrival itself is racked with pain

and delivers forth a bloodied body,
screaming at the unjust expulsion

from the warmth and safety of its
bulbous inner sanctuary.

Meanwhile, the dead are stored, mounted,
in two dimensions, displayed in great halls

for respectful visitors and herds of noisy little people
who laugh and jump and shout

celebrating  their mourning.

The Wires Singing

What did you think when you saw my machine,
its fabulous frailty, wide canvas wings,
wicker-bound seat and the hungry propeller?

It was my wooden-ribbed dream: a canvas-
skinned craft with a gasoline-driven heart.

Did you see the flash powder explode the wind,
could you hear the reporters stab me with questions?
I was surrounded by sceptics, hawkers and spectators too.
Which were you?
Were you surprised when the engine cracked
the air with its oil-fuelled cough and the propeller
chewed the breeze? Did you wave as the biplane
nudged the grass, skipped down the field
and leapt for the sky?

Did you pause, holding your breath, wondering
what would be next? Or were you part of the crowd
that danced and cheered, wrestling your feet from the mud,
pitching your hats into the sky to join me in flight?

Could you hear the lingering sound of the engine,
crackling on the edge of the breeze?
Did you stare into the depths of the sky, following
the high, thin cloud as it underlined the heavens?

Can you imagine the sights and sounds of the sky?
The sun glistening on the wing,
the cold rush of air through the wires,
singing the glory of flight?

Were you anxious for the sound of my reluctant return?

Did you see me crest the tree-lined outcrop,
feathered, faltering on the wind?
Could you hear the tentative beat
and irregular rhythm
of the engine’s final convulsions.

Tears streamed as the wing sheared.

What did you think as I tilted, span and fell
to the all-consuming earth? Did you run
when you heard the crump of the crash
or did you stand stock-still, planted in the ground?

When you saw the amber flames devour the wreck,
heard the wood crack, smelt the dream burn,
did you contemplate your own journey through life?

Maybe you thought of yourself, or your children,
your pedestrian path or their flight into the future.

What were you thinking when you saw me
fall from the sky?

Jazz

An eclectic audience pause in
anticipation,
as knee-high boots and soft soled slippers tip-toe
across the bridge.
We are caught between tradition and
off beat funk;
the disapproving high-hat and the inviting snare.

We’ve heard it all before
of course,
and what remains floats in the air:
unsaid.
Our fusion breaks chapter, verse and rhyme,
but who’s to say
an old jazz fan couldn’t dance your tune.

Genesis

In the lab a white coated cleric of the new religion
fumbles from genetic theory to genesis and looks
to see the marvel of creation. It’s all wrong,
of course, but he cannot see beyond the glass
lipped rim of the test tube. An empty beaker
beckons and another broken protozoa is washed
away. His wiry frame is folded over the old oak
bench, watching enzymes dissolve in solution
along with all hope of peace and noble prizes.

His dreams on ice, he turns from the cryo tank
and Bunsen brews fresh coffee. Outside the lab
his wife makes and breaks the dinner dates;
children exercise his dog. Under a grey sky
the college tower reflects then pirouettes in the Cam.
But he will not cast a shadow or be seen to shine,
his career remains organic, not crystallised.

He turns to the frost-free fridge and from within
withdraws a tray of genetic alphabet soup.
Pipette in hand, he stalks the cells like a scientific
heron. Dipping here and there, searching for
the secret mix of revolutionary genetics:
man-made evolution.

Stepping through the stanza break

1.

‘The old expressions are always with us
And there are always others.’
Charles Olson

what is the poet to write?    do dolphins plunge bottomward / to find the light? or is it rock / that is searched?     and what of us? You, the reader and me, the eye of the poem.
can we hope to (re)write well    / to correct the errors of history with graceful arcs,
to turn the page, to stop    and begin again,
again.

must we too
dive,
through flights of B29s     under Enola’s far reaching
wings?

that day the sun, stolen from the sky, seared the skin of(f) humanity and took the light by which we write.

what is left    but a break    in the stanza  /

2.

children of the bomb            guardians, we are responsible.
readers, writers, students both     responsible.

not for the old wounds,         the shadows
that haunt our divided selves, forever tugging at our feet,

but for the voice
we must (re)breathe
the line
that cleft atom from atom

and remember
the break in the stanza.

Legacy
(For Gary Snyder)

On the boat of a million years
beneath the great fire
we are.

As Hait-un dances, Taiyang dances
on the waves
we are.

Words
laid down like rocks
are.

Meaning shifts
as the boat of the world
moves through time
but words remain

and

Hait-un and Taiyang
and you and I
will be

forever laid down
like rocks.

David and Goliath

They stood, the David and Goliath of the house.
David’s nerves as sharp as arrowheads, his body
a quiver. Goliath, swaying stupefied at opposition.

Lines drawn, the atmosphere cut and time
the silent referee. One bellowed and roared.
One shook and cried,
resolute to the point of a knife.

I could not survive, but dying would destroy
your life. Ignoble warrior, father, friend.
Unfeeling and untold. Felled by bitter, liquid gold.

That night our innocence died.
The sister watched, the mother cried
and I, a child, stood still. And you my Goliath,
with your anger and rage, denied

Christmas, 2001

The beach was empty beach and I alone
wandered on. The world had changed.
We were never close but now forever apart.
Haunted by my shadow I walked on.
The smooth tide approached,
licked the frost-crowned sand,
then retreated without breaking.
It’s harsh whisper reminded me
of your old gas fire, how it would hiccup
with the spark before settling down to a burbling hiss.
It kept you company,
I imagine. I know I didn’t call often
but that suited us both.

A gull’s cry cracked the sky, as it wheeled
and set a course for the old harbour.
Beyond the battered sea wall grey-green
trawlers ploughed their way through
the rollers. ‘A hard life for hard men’
you said, once, as we walked
between the ice-packed crates that lined
the market floor. Looking back
I wonder, were you the sea I fought?
Or an oil-skinned fisherman baiting me
with knotted lines?
Walking the pale shore I, alone, feel less
than half of us.

Turning, to wander back, following
footprints home, the pale sun threw
my shadow before me. And with each stride
it grew, defining me, as you used to.
Life was hard, as you were,
but as the trawlerman is baptised
in brine so I was cast in your fire:
forged, hammered straight, sharpened until true.
For this I am grateful.
And when ever my strength is tested,
I will think of you.

Economics

The bitter black salty seeds

(harvested from
the Caspian depths
by third generation
river pirates

are a lavish toast to new friends/enemies
as the crescent moon ascends the sickle,
blood-rusted and blunt.

In the East, wealthy towers gleam with tomorrow’s
dawn while the West chokes an oil-fuelled cough,
bunkers
down
in the shadow of Hiroshima,
and
mutes another constitution.

Why then, do the fat gorge themselves
before purging caviar to make way
for the last quail’s egg? Why
is the clean taste of imported vodka
much preferred to a luxurious bloody claret?

The old order of the cross is dying
never more to walk the inland seas.
Cash and Kalashnikovs are current
for debts of blood and faith.