Light as a feather that fails
to excite the hippopotamus
in my mind’s eye,
Blind as a bat that breaks
whenever it strikes out
in my baseball bowl
So do the words
through my tongue
Into the microphone
Of my desire.
Green with damp,
Drizzled down
the neck of the verse.
Weathered the space
between gestation,
articulation
and dimples.
The way a dung beetle
saves civilised & uncivilised
life.
Beacons.
High as a kite that soars,
slips and slides on a draught of thin air.
Low as a blow from a black bird,
from a messenger
that delivers tidings,
from your mother’s,
mother’s mouth?
She had her own microphone,
her own mouthpiece,
her paragraphs.
Light and blind,
High and low
Hippopotamus and hippopotami.
It’s the way verse is written.
From Bath to Cork with baby Grace 