The cancer the iridologist spotted
in my speckled dead give-away iris
kept me wondering about the private
school, the company car, the how-to-succeed
posters in the lobby – those saturated
prints shot on a Florida golf links – the hints
the boss littered about his latest
Monday briefing, about analysts excess
to requirements. And kids; our precious kids!
Our sweet high-Summer headlines
suffocating in the car boot, while we circle
the block, calling out their names, Jason, Matty,
our dear little Children’s Television Workshop
tie-in buying, our wild Bill
Steamshovels, and how I started out
a poet, ambitious, thinking my wit’s
the very gimlet for jimmying the public –
their mostly static gimcrack
notions – started out against all myths
on the purpled main, but this hectic
myth of my own. Well I’m startled,
frankly, at my pencil and all it wrought.
Now I’m scoffing down lunchtime novels
like a trencherman teacakes, trying
to remember, to recall. . . while all about me
brickbats and backpats punctuate
the void. Still, I wouldn’t subject you
to a reminiscence.
First published in Heat #15.