There’s a sink that needs cleaning,
A festive wreath to pack away;
Death essentially demeaning,
I can’t see beyond what you did today.
Meanwhile,
The pure agony of existence
Is on the peripheries
Of oceanic ferries
Towards bliss, or heaven.
I can remember every moment,
Pernicious and horrible;
Impervious to me, terrible,
Memories in their tsunamis
And their oceans becalmed,
Crammed into the ecstasy
Of my every waking thought.
All those before who fled,
What did they do to me?
They poured their troubles onward,
Red blood could part a sea;
Still, you’re in untended plots
In a quiet corner of Cheam.
How far I looked up to you,
A child at the endless bar,
We’d walk across midwinter tracks
When you couldn’t drive a car.
You tended donkeys with more care
Than family bruised and scarred.
Adults sometimes shed the skin
Their parents dressed them in,
But you glued your self to mine,
Inheriting your chin-chin.
Each evening when I’m drunk
With words, I think of you,
Hoping this is not the last drink;
Without words what can I do.
My journey is only beginning,
Slowly with songs we are winning.
He told me I was broken,
And truth was simply a token
He stored beneath my tongue.
Truth received a bung
In case I could be opened
Without him here to co-depend.
Self-kindness looked away,
A village willow with dismay
Silenced Spring with all the same
Fragile leaves of falling blame.
He made a ladder with no rungs,
Butterflies flourished in his lungs.
A cat unpicked my mouth devout,
And now the coins are falling out.
Seven Hundred Jisei 