davidgoulding84@interpoems.com

NOT TOO BAD

Not too bad
                    there’s a morning tossed away
                    with just an easily triggered smile
                    for habit
Not too bad
                    moist touching hours casually recalled
                    with a shrug dancing with indolence
                    for effect
Not too bad
                    almost serious pleasure is remembered
                    with now dry unkissed unparted lips
                    for safety
Not too bad 
                    a whole earlier life of brilliant days
                    seen goodish without joy by empty eyes
                    for ever
And I
                    on the fence, fenced in emotions
                    for fear of being understood
                    expressing nothing,
                    while my bones nerves and tissue,
                    breathing only through blood,
                    wonder, fall and rise;
                    my dreams inflate and hopes disintegrate;
                    the inner self spins, all frantic movement,
                    to explain, misunderstand, hit out, miss in,
                    give up, accept and with another Gallic shrug,
                    unwillingly admit again at last that it is all, all, all:
Not too bad.

THERE'S NO FUTURE IN IT


       There’s no future in it.
             How long is future?
            Seconds or centuries?
Has the translucent fragility of an April butterfly
     less future than a summer swallow?
A forgotten sunrise more than the immediate setting sun?
A buried tulip bulb more than a fiery, dying, autumn leaf?

Not just time or measurement?
Maybe a future
             has a known, well-ordered pattern
             that will be followed through (to the very letter)
                   that can be plotted out
                   that can be held responsible
                                    reliable
                                    repeated
                                           relentlessly
                                           ad nauseam 
            with no surprises
                                          ever?


But that’s only imprisonment stretched into time.
So it is just the ticking of hours after all.
          It’s physics. Now apply it.


But how can I even accept the existence of time
                 when I am touching you?
How can I kiss your face 
                 and think of clocks and calendars?
or hold your body counting revolutions of the moon?

The earth might move
          but to infinity
               not to the tedious completion of another day.

One day it won’t, we’re studiously told:
              No future at all then?

Forget it, let it go!
And, at the last,
              with the future too much on your mind 
     you may miss the present only to find
that you have never had a past.

From your enormous un-recited future
                 give me just a little present: now!

NIGHT WALK 

I walked one night in town, 
Passed 50 men if they were a day.
Glared past one who hated his wife.
Danced past another in love for the ninth time.                                               Stared red-eyed at the tv watcher.
Grinned at another without any money.

They all get hungry and eat.

Winked at the suit who’d come from his mistress. 
Scowled at the prim one just because it was Sunday.
One was boss-eyed – perhaps I’d been drinking.
Dragged past another who lived like a habit.

They all get thirsty and drink

I jumped past the one who was getting promoted.
Had a job getting past the one with eight children.                                                                     I smiled a bit at the man with no clothes on.                                                          And I think I made the man with the dog itch.

They all get frightened and hate

 MORNING BLUES

        Get lost:

                     old morning blues who invade me

              far too often.

         You may be

                      gone by nine but you can really

              mess things up.

         You’ve got

                      a grip like a lock-jawed croc

              after a hunger strike.

         Ten minutes

                    in my gloomy head is long enough

              to screw up.

         I can

                    misery someone up all day

               in no time.

         Striped toothpaste

                    does not clear out the bitter taste

               of poisonous words

          Spat sharply out,

               and misses out some toast   

                    that, extricated later

               reminds me

                      at eleven,

               of the crumb I was             

                      at eight.