by Fred Simpson
Owl, mellow in the
Evening, meowing like
A widowed cat,
Reaching for a chord
To free.
CARRION EAGLE
With no residual predator but hate
the eagles fish with impunity,
beyond surfeit, beaming down cloud-high
to target every quarry by the sea
that scurries.
Their juveniles, just loosened,
wearing white sagacity as cover, are
indiscriminate in aim. Their
eyes like oil spots betray no pleasure
in the killing – no quiver.
They capture prey on film, lead-running,
and cleanse; leaving carrion.
“LEAP, FROG!”
Our frog, in the way that he was sitting,
looked comical, not like a frog
at all, and disconnected from his leg
and ledge.
Was he troubled, or in love? Was
a tadpole missing? While we were guessing
a snake snaked her way to
the edge.
Frog was distracted, preoccupied, an
unintentional fool, and his protruding
eyes looked out, but also in, as if
to dredge
the Archaean. But snake meanwhile,
more at ease on land than lake, slipped
by, flicked her lips, then headed for
the hedge
beyond. We could not fathom why she
missed her dinner, why frog was unperturbed,
as we would kill for food, but also for
a pledge.
ECLIPSE 2011
A conjuring god is eating her
raw, incrementally, savouring
buttock-like portions in
invisible bites, using
enveloping ash as a screen.
The audience leans west, tracking
revolution, eager to see through
the sleight, anxious for the
emergence through involution,
of an undigested moon.
SEVEN
Sevenths
HER BATH
She stopped to murmur as he slept, “what is it
that is left? Opaque nails on bleached feet? An
uncaged sac? The promise of a doctor’s visit!”
She cocked an ear and listened to his phlegm
pop. (It sounded anachronistic, like a man
blowing through the stem
of his Dr. Plumb). And then, unexpectedly, the suck
cut. She reached for air and began,
meticulously, to check his pipe was clear, that muck
was not the cause. She even turned him onto
his side and away from the fan
and tapped him, but sensed that he did not want to
breathe; so she left the room to hang a vest spilt
yellow by his soup. At six, when bugles used to blow, she ran
a scented bath; but guilt
again caused her to stop, again to pose
the question; “what is it that is left? How can
I enjoy a bath with a tag tied round his toes?”
BREAKING NEWS
Half a life is not enough, not
to stop the vagus chill
the heart the way it does, not
when spit sets. I still,
despite my age, dart
fast beyond the damning
comment, and contemplate retreat,
escape, even nescience;
But that half, that part
that parries, is much aware that patients’
sense is touch, not word, not gaucherie,
and it, the grey, will feel them hear
the news, and clasp
with liver strength, their fright, their fear.
GULL LEGS
Her red legs were far too thin
to run on sand, thinner even
than a child could draw, and all that
I could truthfully see were
comical wire-knot knees bobbing,
(looking more like eyes caught
in a beam than proper knees),
but somehow connected to the
purposeful scurry of her weight.
It was obvious that she was after
easy bait, (she was arguably unable
to compete for the live stuff), but
what if her legs should break!
What then! As a doctor was it
not my purpose to warn her?
So I shouted above the brittle crack
of the slapping waves: “Stick to the water
Gull and use your flipper webs. You have
no legs to speak of, not really,
and,” (with some sarcasm),
“you could of course still fly.”
There was pause while she turned
with a retinal flash, and her eyes
(they gave me the creeps to tell you
the truth) went black, black as beads.
“My wings will snap before my legs,
and my feet are made of salt.
Do you,” (with some sarcasm),
“still want me to try, or would you
rather I default? ”
She left me with my own thin and
precarious legs gripping the shifting strand,
trying to tease out the meaning of her reprimand,
to decipher what is was about,
to determine whether I belonged at
sea, in air or on land.
ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG PATIENT
I went to sing
for her the hymn of a thousand
boys, the school hymn; to sing,
sing like a compulsory pilgrim
in sweet bellow, borrowing octaves.
He went to bring
for them smoke, smoke-scented
flowers, catholic hope; to bring
for them wafers, wafers and blood, (sapid
blood) to nourish new graves.
I went to wring
from her milk, milk and love
hands, live hair; to wring
from her living, living; but he suckles contented
his aunt, and he waves, and he waves.
LION
If you want a lion to lose his pride
feed him sugar, (soak it in blood if you like
or spike it with fear), then watch from the side
line while crystal sweet poison mingles
and gels with his spit.
Watch from afar if you will, but
peering breath-close is preferred, preferred
to observe Iago at work, leaching, leaching a gap
in his tooth, seeping, seeping into his rage
till his women are split;
then witness your abscess make war, civil
war. Your lion will lose most of his mane of
course, like they all do, live off lame rabbit, and swivel
to fend off sharp giggles from the hideous
cubs that he bit.
Your assessment may be that it’s cruel,
this process. You might even see it as a repetitive, diabolical
joke, a tempt-fork tipped with ridicule
that simply goes too far; but you’ll never still the audience
nor break the lion habit.
MUMMY
She lay, obediently, soon smoke, like clay.
A remnant for remembrance, supine
and heat-still with drawn, wax
eyes, drawn lovingly to simulate
pared death, a dormancy, mere interval.
We entered, all entered into compensatory
pretence, making her more comfortable
by tucking in her quilt, each
giving up his seat, each hushed and
reverent, to sanitate her peace,
feeding sparrows her final bread,
while trolley-clank leant normalcy to grief.
The retina is Mars when seen
An hour after atropine,
A concave Mars, an orange-red
Disc suspended in dendrites that thread
And nourish and mock the optical illusion
Of 6Lowell’s ‘canals’.
And when the retinal plate
is sick with flame haemorrhages and exudates,
Mars is closer still. Sugar, smoke
And pressure may be at fault, but they stoke
A universal and terrible confusion
That tightens the bowels.
6 The Astronomer, not the poet.