MOMENTO MORI (FOR BURKE)

For something old, something new,
something for everyone —
take a look in the cemetery shop,
the 1878 Edinburgh Collection.
they've begun flogging
old bodies on the cheap!
all that good stuff we cop
but don't keep.

It's a sight to see, vitals
glowing in vitrines
like an old-school pharmacy
all the insides out and most
at a half-price discount

Already, the hard work has been done
six to eight feet underground
all that sifting through lily mulch, rose crap,

the dirt work, the boxing and repacking,

lowering us down, up and back again

check the discard pile, you might find a friend

I wouldn't put it past these fine

resurrection men

Ha! I'm getting carried away with myself

selling it like I work there!
I don't. 

But see anyway, amongst the deadware
there's a window display
of delicately painted fingernails, teeth
blackened like onyx, lacquered under
intense pressures, old and new.
and with next day delivery,
you're adding weeks onto the longevity

Small relics on offer, intact too
I bought a flap of rare tattoo
a Maori dragon, replete with blue
Chinese text, you know —
mantlepiece material.
No idea what it means.
chest or belly? you tell me

I guess what pleases me most in that place:
it's good to see we're not
                                     going to waste

JANUARY HASTER

On stepping out onto the porch
you are coldcocked by storm brunt
the door slams shut behind you
barring entry as you backpedal
aghast, the brash wind hooks
at your loose jaw. The dog yowls.

This is not a day for anyone. Crawl
deeper into your coat. Grog-
eyed you watch as blackbirds
rise from hedgerow,
making their break but to where?
They slip, bob and weave for nothing
and are roundhoused on rooftops,
the face of the flock bursts
like a split lip. The   dog   yowls.

Breathe it in, loosen the leash,
dance it up - in this surge
if you don't shift, you don't move.
Lifted up by the shopworn pines
see how the entire horizon's upended
gouts of seaspray sting your vision
and where is the dog?

all this, you think, all this and more
how glorious, what majesty
contained within these landlashing
moments, blow by blow by blow
and while the ring of England shrinks,
hear the roar outside the ropes.

DOING THE ROUNDS

I
I'm no grumbler, make no bones about the hour

II
but this ticker on my wrist
is a chain around my neck

III
chemically, I am so wound up
constantly held awake by trebled tick
by double-bass tock

IV
Bollocks to this eternal present
straight from one job to another
better to get it right twice a day
than right for all time

V
hurtling around
this place all-day
I've been watching this old oak grow
even that fucking hunk of wood
has more to show than me

VI


VII
it's not like anyone
is pleased to see me
I'm the fleeting second,
a hole between the minutes,
conductor of an hour's malaise
how long do I have left
how late I am
how soon is now

VIII
720 deliveries dawn to dusk
each climb ends in descent
and each drop in a climb
not one can be late
free and lanced to the spot
time for myself in the evenings?
I can hardly lift my arms
with the weight of the day

IX
I've been told to try church
but all those bells and wheels,
doesn't it freak you out - that we might
go on forever? that this end might
have no end?
God is a manager
docking your pay 
for each passing moment
you spend away 

X
I reckon I'm losing it,
this each day being the same as last.
Out on the rounds,
you ever see yourself
passing yourself?
my sense of déjà vu
is wild, millions of me
cascading back and back
held fast at each moment
each step locked under glass

XI
my mind grates on me, I'm told
you have too much going on. Try
finding release in the present
they don't know the half of it
If I slow down for myself
they would slow too
and if I were to stop...
doesn't bare thinking.
life in the gig economy
a contract we enter into
unknowingly

XII
believe me, no time
to search for other work,
there's no escape
no stepping outside of yourself
to get the measure of your metre
I tried it once, they knocked in
my bloody noggin
said I was kaput, finished, done.
coward that I am,
that maybe we are
all end up
dancing to their tune