An exercise in worthlessness /

A pound of teabags,
lightly used. In general:
last year's projections;
futures on goat milk;
certificates of authenticity
for snoring patterns,
chess moves, nasal hair styles;
Or, back to specifics: sack
of apple cores; a Caribbean
quarter (maybe not: its
flip side's got a ship...);
'Cease and Desist' from
made-up lawyers. Pitted
almonds, sautéed ice-cream,
sanded dates. The breath
of langoustines still moving
on the counter. Kidneys
(you can get one Bitcoin
for the price of five!).
List poems over thirty lines.
Mimes in the dark.
Mark Zuckerberg (except,
for his shareholders).
Ground microchips.
Some strange dude's hateful
comments. What you think
you could have said that time
instead of what you said.
Gourmet dog chow.
Your whole damn life —
unless you go to bed.
(Right. Now.)


@verse by MR

Holy cooked /
contemplating a too modern crucifix

The charred remains of Jesus,
blending with his cross,
fit for a world past nuclear
demise: I search his face for
seared-shut eyes to ward off
the imagined smell of kofta
(or kebab, depending on
the customs of your land) –
and pray, when He arises
from the blaze to leave
the tomb, his gaze be softer
than this stab, the hide of this
cocoon.

@verse by MR

Catjutants /
For my mother

Remember this:
wherever you might be,
no matter what your task,
no matter what your deadline –
at least one cat
has been assigned
to you and me
to dream somewhere
on our behalf,
as if it's bedtime.

@verse by MR

Now post this /

Try to remember for a day:
a war is on. Try to remember
every day it's there: it's there.
Try to hold on to that while
war thrives anywhere.
You will have lived a life
of wars: untouched, un-
spared. You will have sac-
rificed so much, they —
left unscared?


@verse by MR

Woe, awesomeness /

A ballerina trains
for decades to keep
her head up and
her straight defiant
back and — smile! —
when burning at the
stake for the affront
her mastery inflicts
on wretched hearts.

@verse by MR

Misfiring platitudes /

How many people
reading “you’re the
product if it’s free”
went “O-M-G! Why,
I’m a product from a
major corporation!
Move aside!”

@verse by MR

MBA /

Every poet in
Business class
Dreams of First.

@verse

"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable." (Seneca)

I’d fill my sail at once
with prayers and
sweet winds, were I
to know which way
my prow should face,
to hasten me
toward the shores
on which it grew
and first extended
gentle branches to
the moon – before
the shipwright’s hand
had hewn it into this,
the homeless figurehead;
the shores I do so miss.


@verse by MR

Cycling alone
Past Andrew Wyeth fields –
No lid on the world!

#haiku by MR

My granddad’s birthday,
but he won’t get older.
Starting last year,
every summer,
it’s just me.

Out of the corner of my eye:
an open fan. Who brought
the cake? Who took the slices?

Homage /

I didn’t buy Bukoswki’s book
for fifteen hundred bucks,
signed, first edition.
He would have laughed his ass off:
tiny earthquake in Green Hills, LA.

@verse by MR

I asked a genie
for looks worthy of sagas.
He gave me a saggy look.

Oxygen /

Three hundred seconds
spent observing the far end
of your Parisian RER,
the bark-like pattern left
by long-dried lines of droplets
on the glass, the kiwi marmalade
synthetic fabric of the headrests,
rubbings on the floors and corners
left by a fair share of the 47
million tourists (and their luggage)
passed through here this year alone.

Twenty five minutes, only watching:
clouds, the concrete domes
of Charles de Gaulle, the buckwheat
gravel on the railway, the
metronomic passage of the poles,
each one a “now”. The tunnels,
dark on “in”, open on “out”.

And by the time you disembark,
you’re ready to assist your loved ones
with their masks that dangle
from the ceiling.

@verse by MR

And now you have your chatbots /

Back when the words were real:
a frost to break a bough in half,
a wind to peel off walls — a kiss
to make a dead heart catch a beat,
surprised, a kiss to make a city
catch the plague and never notice,
nor regret, a kiss to make you
cry, evaporate and fall to Earth
as rain. Each sentence hissed
and sputtered like a tear
in boiling oil when only steppe
was plain, when clarity could spoil
a lifetime of nuance. Those times
we danced and swirled through
like a night, too short to type,
too singular to sleep,
too full of tongue to bite.


@verse by MR

Don't believe the hype /

Upon these shores
the hunters and the fishers
built their pile-homes,
sharpened arrowheads
and spearheads
made of local stone,
until their Bronze Age started,
something like 5000 years ago.
Imagine those first tools,
made of a flimsy metal:
some would be enthralling,
some — no match
for good old stone.


@verse by MR

Sun Salutation /

The deep East of night
slowly shallows and soon
golf-club lakes will collect
pools of sky, quenching,
drowning the lights of my city —
so present an hour ago —
in the mist of a morning,
and sending me crawling
to bed from my yoga mat.
Fancy that: Sun salutations
have summoned the actual star.


@verse by MR

Pine Scented Night /

An empty pool of frog,
behind a brick wall in Antibes.
A window with a slice of ceiling,
ceiling fan, its groping shadow.
An accelerating van
to rip in two the croaking,
dwindling taillights as it
sneaks together at the break.


@verse by MR

@verse by MR

Night Closing In /

Now, as the sky turns pink, chase
everyone else out of your skin
to see how violet it can get all by yourself
before the pre-OLED screen blackness
puts a lid on us, before
the green spaces release the sulphur
from this day’s recycled waters,
before white glare infests construction sites,
before the Gulf retreats from sight
and leaves the sound to the hotels
and villas squeezing empty beaches.


@verse by MR