.:ELECTRIC VELOCIPEDE:. Poetry

We miss the animals we’ve been:
sometimes we swerve into lights.
In your fridge, a lost moth stills.
You pull out the milk, sour and fragile.

Sometimes we swerved into lights
but even the weak-winged goose knew freedom, falling.
Now you bring out the milk, sour and fragile
and we’re blunt-toothed things, we lie supine.

Even the last goose knew freedom, falling.
Even the rat, scars and scared eyes.
Once we were sharp-toothed things, once we swallowed life whole.
Once we could lie dormant for years.

Evening falls—scar clouds, scared sky—
and in your fridge, a moth congeals
but us, we could lie dormant for years
missing the animals we’ve been.

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My Past Lives by Beth Langford

In my past life I was a cartoonist.
An American, from the 50s or 60s—
cellulose acetate and gouache.
I know because
every time I see a bug-faced space man
I remember the future we had then:
bright and bleak.

Before that, I was a peasant child
in central Hungary.
My mother was frail at twenty-three,
my father was afraid of wolves.
When I sleep in total darkness, I remember.

In Egypt I was not Hatshepsut
but an advisor; careful,
noble, loyal, and poisoned.

And I was a trilobite, not stone grey like fossils
but when I run my hands across them I remember
all my multicolour cousins.

Back further, though, I remember only a viscous world
in which I beat cilia against saline currents
too strong to outswim.

When the lamps are lit by KJ Bishop

We called all night—
There was no answer from any dream,
Not even the easy one across the road,
Double-glazed and serene,
With matronly vintage fins
Tightening the counterpane
Whose reversals seemed to say a lot—

In time the flow slowed to a trickle,
Like difficult peeing;
Then it was over.
So, how about cards, or a baby?
Would a baby be an excuse
For patiently abiding, having picnics,
Letting the cutups loose?
The hard one’s gone already, though not
To die. Moss will cover all his hurts, maybe.

Reports of a unicorn in the outfield
Patterns in the corn
A miracle in the otherwise stable
Night—You, nightwatchman, what happened?
Nay, but I was sleeping like the gnomon there on the lawn;
My dreams were full of fish and spies,
I don’t suppose you saw them?

And so we have to listen to this tedious gent,
Who parted company with reason long before
All this nonsense started,
Recount the follies of a false life
Where infinite belongings were his stock in trade,
Adore the flight of the riparian bird,
Worship something found in a cave,
Tie parcels with string,
Avoid the beach rubble,
Although it looked like Cornwall—

He woke more like Osiris than a taxpayer,
Unable to forget that he was king, once.
Nay, but I was sleeping like a kite dipped in silver.
Into my mouth swam many things
All alight, incendiary, flailing,
Came to rest in my care—
Here, this one’s yours, you can have it—

—while a tram rattles back to the depot?
You were mistaken, mein Herr. We shall have to walk
And slip like children back through the fences
Into the world of infallible dunces.
Chances? Where are your dice,
You said they were Limoges, or was it Limburger—painted
With handsome twits and twats from that erotic book your mad ancestor wrote?
(What was the title—Egypt, Still Wet With Spit?)
They are not in your handbag?
Well, that’s nothing to do with me.
You can go back and look for them.
I have to go to an opening sale,
To purchase more exquisite, delinquent things than you
Or your dark bird dreamed
In chalk-cut twilight.

But we must wind down to the corner again;
By all means, we must go home
And take a turn around the question of the decorations
And your plans for a rocket.
We must get out the melodeon,
Ten times blow into the dirty hose,
Wish upon the black Porsche;
Salaam the dog’s grave under the apple tree,
Do penance for violence—

Then what rompish, darksome, magic character
Might spring, high-stepping,
Out of the cobra box on the summer lino?
And then what hordes, departing through snow,
Dressed as bears and lords,
Might draw whoever needs some convalescing
Time, or sexual leave, to holiday shores
Once painted by Watteau?
I prefer Epping Forest, or even the Augarten—
Best of all the Jardin du Luxembourg
As it was in the master’s time,
Dreaming, and silvan-haunted.
That is to say, I want to go in, not over. But look,
I would paddle a boat in the shape of a swan
For a thousand and one diaphanous afternoons
To hear one reed from the isle of Pan
Amongst the rumours bleating through the crowd
And the music blasting from the stores
Or lose my shoes once in the park, twice in the street, thrice in the sea—
And your Hessian boots, dear Excellence, and your sealed books—those too
Will have to go—and your servants, and the plans—
And yes, even you, Milord—
The diamonds you hoard in your navel, your title, your hand…
We have to part, like the red balloon and the world.