One body

But in as much as we all
    have one heart, matching limbs
    and a brain-gut axis

aren't we all, to some degree
    little c conservatives
    who fight our corner,
    move through space

and want, deep down, to know
    what is for lunch;

starch and beans, a little
    fat, that which unites us,
    humanity, schmaltz.

do Do

Waldo Donald was obsessed by geometry to the point where it impinged on his personal life; he was unable to hold down a steady job or to have any meaningful relationship with other humans, preferring the reassuring order of abstract and idealized forms.  Euclid and Onan were his tutelary deities.  To fund his geometry habit he took to giving private lessons but always found it hard to put up with his students’ obstinate stupidity.  On one occasion he was hired by a rich eccentric who fancied himself as a mathematician maudit.  After a week or so Waldo couldn’t contain himself and told his boss just exactly what he thought about his grasp of solids.  Stuart would surely have fired him on the spot had it not been for the troupe of mythological characters he kept in a purpose-built barn.  They had taken a shine to Waldo and the one thing that mattered more to Stuart than his own self-esteem and egoistical conceit was his barn of gnomes and unicorns and fairies.  He decided not to terminate Waldo’s contract but in order to punish him for his insolence ordered that from henceforth Waldo Donald, an inherently prosaic character with a tendency to stammer, would be forced to declaim his lessons in perfectly scanned and end-rhymed pentameters.  Waldo, terrified by his employer’s moods, agreed and has been at it ever since; so solo lover’s verses explain planes to Stuart’s hurt self’s elves. 

hhereenow

My new book, hhereenow, is now available from corrupt press in Luxembourg.  You can order copies here.