Old Poems II

In Luther's chair

He finds himself in a room in a chair
Between his fingers is a cigarette
poised over a jar lid on the armrest

He is exhausted, tumescent
with the cigarette’s bruising rush
He cannot remember how he got here
His history and that aching need to be something –
all is in anxious remission

Outside,
beyond the terylene strung across the window,
is another world, soaked and darkening

Glimmering streams mark out the roads by which
the myriads make their obdurate ways home

And the city, its tower lit in the clouds,
becomes a palace of light
nestled in an enormous bowl of stars

The wind, harbouring winter, coldly rolls dark cloud
reflecting at its base, the city’s fevered blush

In the pale lit street, sodden leaves paste the gutters
beneath the ancient birch, their boughs
are full of mynas and their tuneless chatter

There’s a foul taste in his mouth
He wets rough lips and takes the last dry pull in the dark
Its smoke singes and there’s a sudden urge to take a piss


LitNet: 12 July 2006