Coffins, Pastoral - Touch of the Kafkaesque - Nice one, Squirrel & Armchaired in the comic shop (again)
by Philip Wilson
[ poetry - may 05 ]
Coffins
Paul had them going at school last week.
They should have seen the Goths he used to serve
with Chartreuse, down Ben Crouch's Tavern, who slept coffined,
the whole deather gig. Six planks and two boards.
I learned - possibly while cramming James Joyce -
of Cistercian monks on the same kick.
Saves time at the end, just screw down the lid
when the heart at last refuses to break.
In the Clacton Goth Shop I bought you gloves
spun from spider-lace, then we practised family planning
on a slab near a tree
where a cross shadowed your corpse back
and I knelt in Weimar when I was still alive,
when I'd paid my three marks
and had tripped down the spiral staircase
to find two boxes on stilts,
GOETHE and SCHILLER, ready to rise again
if ever the world needs them, though when I told the class
I got no reaction,
no reaction at all.
Pastoral - Touch of the Kafkaesque - Nice one, Squirrel
Let's for once pretend
we are happy in a hidden valley
the Imperial Army has not yet reached.
Let's do the things considered human in the schools
- marry, teach children the way of the teal,
recreate lines of the oak on paper -
and allow autumn's wine to flood the ulcers
we formed in winter
when sun was flayed flesh, when earth hurt.
Troopers are metal unicorns.
They lance boils that are wombs.
First is heard
the pounding of the shrinking world.
You sit and dream it when the evening comes.
I found a squirrel.
Jerking by a cartwheel.
Paws at prayer.
Armchaired in the comic shop (again)
for Shi
Falling free, you still rotate
bleeding steel to rend the eight
warriors, who meditate
in their dying, how their fate
moved towards the way your blade
dislocates the soul. They fade.
Gently in their gore you wade
in this graphic masquerade,
test the colours, feel the line,
weigh your artist's lithe design,
snip at nine pounds ninety-nine.
Raise your soul to heaven. Shine.
