Sunday, November 30, 2014

HEART THREAD Parts Seventy-Three and Seventy-Four

73.

Stay out of sunshine walk in the shade
I suppose this place an ancient apple tree
older than Eden and ferns grow round it
it leaves me with no answers
I feel glum and businesslike today
accountant of a bankrupt hardware store
with nothing left but the names of instruments
columns of numbers those birds of the heavens
endlessly fluttering past and vanishing
and O the hawk of zero knows my name
inscribable outstretched beneath him
divide by zero and smile for the police.

74.

Some day I'll get this someday wrong
and it will be today, the actual
two schoolchildren performing for assembly
tell of seaweed stars in our flag
what about the starship from the alien planet
why would they bother to come here
why do women wear flowers in their hair
I never wanted to alter your routine
snow or swelter you know better
there are whole cities where the men know less
spell your name the Irish way
then no one can whisper it in local dark.