Lost (game, set, and match)
The games we seem to need to play,
with their profusion of costumes and
tools,
do not raise us above the beasts, as some
might say.
Beasts, when they play at all, abide by
their few rules
of engagement, without recourse to the
referee.
It’s we folk, in our queerness (as they
say up north)
Who resort to the sly dig when no-one can
see;
our disregard of fairness calling forth
a matched response from our opposition;
cries of ‘foul!’, and ‘just try
that again…’,
inevitable recourse to greater ammunition,
and ignoring the ball, in pursuit of the
pain.
Even the language of ‘lose’ and ‘win’
echoes the concepts of ’grace’ and ‘sin‘.
Lost
(in translation)
All
the edifices are erected: neat,
with
their separate garden plots and motley doors.
Terraced
houses on suburban street,
and
each frank face, each one implores
us
look! And look again - these are my
eyes.
And
there, disclosed behind the curtain-net,
this
one irons and that one plans goodbyes,
these
drink their wine, and others frig, or fret.
And
in each room a television glows,
and
on each screen a disembodied face.
And
in each mind suspicion slowly grows
That
by our separate-ness we’ve lost all trace -
All trace of individuation
lost.
Lost in the translation.
Lost (for words)
I don’t have a poem for her. Words
like love, bled out in lead-hot shower
long ago.
Limbs severed by swords,
lives scythed down; red poppies in the flower
of their youth, terminated.
Wounds picked at by clacking crows.
Life and Love and Breath abated,
yet still the cold blood somehow flows.
Oh, but I loved her.
To the depth and breadth that my soul
could reach*. Lost her
and my self. Stranded, drown-ded, beached, dead-cold.
We Enemies, hearing voices in the mist,
took aim, gave shot, and… missed.
*with thanks to W.S. If one must
steal, steal from the rich…
