Transatlantica

It was
a sketchy
memory:

it started
with
entrées

and ended
with Leslie
in knickers

nibbling
biscuits
and sucking
on a fag.

The winter

They say there might be a war 

     but I don’t know, I mean,

I can hear all the big guys

     saying crazy stuff

but I’m just not sure there are

     enough of us nowadays

willing to head off, hey ho,

     hey ho, it’s off to war

we go, and watch our own

     innards unspool on our lap.

Whenever it is winter

     I am young again,

the cold air is the same air

     I inspired the time

the trees first spoke; of course

     there’ll always be a bunch

of god jobs blowing themselves

     up but I’ve got a hunch

that they’re a dying breed.

Summer in the city

One degree, two degree, refugee, four;

Here are the honeybees stacked on the floor.

Chittagong, Jakarta, Hamburg, New Orleans;

Progress is a million men in metal and glass machines.

Here is the smiling billionaire floating off to Mars;

Here are the endless satellites we thought were shooting stars.

Here is the mountain shifting, here the acidic sea;

Here is the way we have been told it was always meant to be.

Here is our intelligence and here the final bird;

Here is every former thing and each redundant word.

There is a hand that guides us and all is for the best;

So kiss the fist that loves you and put the kids to bed.

And so

you go back

to the well

not 

because

you

want to

but

because

you thirst;

character

they say is

fate

but today

I woke

in sunlight 

trembling

ants

on the table

were eating

a wasp

I had

almost

gone

almost

to the end

of my

mistake