Alchemisland

CV tight and concise Neat hair, ironed suit and tie First in line, positioned prime At the fruitless tip of a recruiting cliff.

His flagging body a bank vault of tension and nagging tautness Slumps as taught at the sedative’s intervention A tip off from a relative he won’t bother to mention Save saying that’s one skeleton he’s didn’t expect to credit In this indelible – uneditable – working of his miserable life’s grist Into something edible for…

Elocution lessons I came to regret having expressedly taken for pleasure I tried cutely to lessen their length by feigning faintness But my unpersuadable tutor accompanied me to my outpatients In his vocation’s suede, clean shabby in that bachelor way, Looking like Aunty’s favourite smoke-stained seating arrangements. From mean habit estranged: lean, stringent, kindly, unfrail.…

The omphalos naturally is up higher For a guy blasted legless by shellfire at Marne or Ypres Any barn’s a cathedral with a high enough steeple, enough quiet people Realizing I am my brother’s keeper Another’s esteem can smother; is as steam Which one can covet but cannot cup nor keep; it does nothing Save…