I.
Strange birds, songstresses, seamstresses, albatross:
That old cartoon, that smelly old carrion.
Carrier pigeons, those few months of loose morals,
that various playing field, played (out) and oh,
I just remembered another, the one with Keats' lips.
Keats' death mask, we called him. Number one.
The boy with the rose still waiting, legs dangling
on a slip of paper edged into my hand, left on the bar:
"nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands."
That really happened; I really knocked that one over.
Look into my eyes. The foreign traveller, pale and
with certain scars I traced, crisp, clean, collared shirts,
seaside blue, still starched and toe-headed, so silent,
serrated edges when fingers raked. I forget his hands
but his skin
and moist, a bit too much elastin there feel
the cool damp
II.
and everyone wanted to eat their flowers
wanted
to
watch the svelte fall
of the torso, the flat
expanse that breeds
nothing but undulates
the bone underneath
underneath's stillness
in stillness. This one
is german, this one
has gone grey.
watch, settle down
like the dust in the jar
after the jar has been shaken
take care, jar
it's been grand
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