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ARTS AND CULTURE

After eyes tight shut

12 May 2020

Selected poems Social distance

It is like flowers falling at Spring’s end,

confused, whirled in a tangle.

E Pound by Rihaku [Li Tai Po]

We have always lived thus, in our heads

bone domes, impenetrable to others, we

might project animus, animation, add to

Duncan’s questioning, the mind’s construction

in the face, enigmatic, Rubik cube with

sixteen squares on each face, so any signs

I give are laced, graced with ambiguity. Now

we are parted by decree, isolating ourselves

by more than two axe handles apart, too far

to hit a target whether by axe head or spittle,

intentional or otherwise and in true selfless

fashion, better than Marx could have devised,

we share and spread invisible bad karma,

d’Artagnan’s — one for all, all for one —

and then like bowling pins in an alley, we

tumble noisily, quietly, it matters not, we

follow the ball down the gutter for our

reassignment. Touching stuff this non-

touching stuff, as we yearn for tactility

from our memories, they too relive the nerve

tingling of touch, skin on skin, yearning even

for rubber fingers just to touch us somewhere,

anywhere, a shower in a raincoat is better

than no shower at all eh! Time when even

a blow to the ear, solar plexus, arm, was at

least a sign of reciprocity, better than no

touch at all. Cooped up in separate cells,

but no womb like security, more a lost life

laced with memories of touch, gentleness

caress only a glimmer. Interacting with

projected images has the same sense of

distance of cyberporn, plasticity without

emotion, blow-up dolly distance, zoom zoom,

meet meet, hang out connectedness without

connection, masturbation emptiness, no

olfactory awareness, essential shortfall,

like adopting children. Hoarders of toilet

rolls suggest anal fixation, reversion to

insecurity, flour hoarding for security,

homebaked bread, boulangerie buffer,

the French have always known this French

Connection, and still they have died in piles,

in ordered temporary echelon graves.

If I absentmindedly touch one foot with

the other, scratch my privates, is it

subconscious yearning for another’s

motivated hand and fingers, toes, to give

reassurance. We fall like autumn leaves in

a variety of twisting descents to our landfall,

and we begin to understand our mathematics

class, random numbers, probability, percentages,

how we failed each other in our unpreparedness,

our false sense of security, our unwillingness to

accept our ignorance and overweening pride.

Leaves settle on the same earth and the mulching

process begins.

Pastorale

Next door a large square red tractor

and plough is making the damp paddock

darker and darker, ten metres bandwith

at a time, like shadows encroaching from

the outside perimeter moving in, the roar

of the diesel power source buffers across

the autumn stillness, the local ibis flock

have gone to