The Cinnamon Peeler Read Free Page B

bars in a dream of escape
    those who moved round the dials of imaginary clocks
    those who fell asleep and never woke
    who never slept and so dropped dead
    those who attacked the casual eyes of children and were led away
    and those who faced corners for ever
    those who exposed themselves and were led away
    those who pretended broken limbs, epilepsy,
    who managed to electrocute themselves on wire
    those who felt their skin was on fire and screamed
                                            and were led away
    There are ways of going
    physically mad, physically
    mad when you perfect the mind
    where you sacrifice yourself for the race
    when you are the representative when you allow
    yourself to be paraded in the cages
    celebrity a razor in the body
    These small birds so precise
    frail as morning neon
    they are royalty melted down
    they are the glass core at the heart of kings
    yet 15-year-old boys could enter the cage
    and break them in minutes
    as easily as a long fingernail
RAT JELLY
    See the rat in the jelly
    steaming dirty hair
    frozen, bring it out on a glass tray
    split the pie four ways and eat
    I took great care cooking this treat for you
    and tho it looks good
    and tho it smells of the Westinghouse still
    and tastes of exotic fish or
    maybe the expensive arse of a cow
    I want you to know it’s rat
    steaming dirty hair and still alive
    (caught him last Sunday
    thinking of the fridge, thinking of you.)
KING KONG MEETS WALLACE STEVENS
    Take two photographs—
    Wallace Stevens and King Kong
    (Is it significant that I eat bananas as I write this?)
    Stevens is portly, benign, a white brush cut
    striped tie. Businessman but
    for the dark thick hands, the naked brain
    the thought in him.
    Kong is staggering
    lost in New York streets again
    a spawn of annoyed cars at his toes.
    The mind is nowhere.
    Fingers are plastic, electric under the skin.
    He’s at the call of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
    Meanwhile W. S. in his suit
    is thinking chaos is thinking fences.
    In his head – the seeds of fresh pain
    his exorcising,
    the bellow of locked blood.
    The hands drain from his jacket,
    pose in the murderer’s shadow.
‘THE GATE IN HIS HEAD’
    for Victor Coleman
    Victor, the shy mind
    revealing the faint scars
    coloured strata of the brain,
    not clarity but the sense of shift
    a few lines, the tracks of thought
    Landscape of busted trees
    the melted tires in the sun
    Stan’s fishbowl
    with a book inside
    turning its pages
    like some sea animal
    camouflaging itself
    the typeface clarity
    going slow blonde in the sun full water
    My mind is pouring chaos
    in nets onto the page.
    A blind lover, dont know
    what I love till I write it out.
    And then from Gibson’s your letter
    with a blurred photograph of a gull.
    Caught vision. The stunning white bird
    an unclear stir.
    And that is all this writing should be then.
    The beautiful formed things caught at the wrong moment
    so they are shapeless, awkward
    moving to the clear.
TAKING
    It is the formal need
    to suck blossoms out of the flesh
    in those we admire
    planting them private in the brain
    and cause fruit in lonely gardens.
    To learn to pour the exact arc
    of steel still soft and crazy
    before it hits the page.
    I have stroked the mood and tone
    of hundred year dead men and women
    Emily Dickinson’s large dog, Conrad’s beard
    and, for myself,
    removed them from historical traffic.
    Having tasted their brain. Or heard
    the wet sound of a death cough.
    Their idea of the immaculate moment is now.
    The rumours pass on
    the rumours pass on
    are planted
    till they become a spine.
BURNING HILLS
    for Kris and Fred
    So he came to write again
    in the burnt hill region
    north of Kingston. A cabin
    with mildew spreading down walls.
    Bullfrogs on either side of him.
    Hanging his lantern of Shell Vapona Strip
    on a hook in the centre of the room
    he waited a long time. Opened
    the Hilroy writing pad, yellow Bic pen.
    Every