anskey

Toothpaste and nasal spray made
A Bazooka Joe flavour in that place
Between my nose and my mouth
Which made me think of them somehow
About the possibility that they had
Known quiet evenings
When it was for the sun to go down
When it was absolutely
Absolutely natural
For it to go down
Downer like that hazy
Not for the scrutiny of others
For that circumspect spontaneous
But that hazy drifting to close
I dunno what but drifting
Like yearning for something learned
From books that often passes
For one’s personal whatever
And everybody hated it
When they’d close the gate
At night cuz it made such a sound
Cane bolts of iron portentously clawing
The earth that would cancel
Their drowsiness but they’d close it
Anyway and sniff and cough
And go to their wives who’d take
Their pillars of salt in their mouths
And choke on them and shed tears
But there were those who didn’t
Didn’t no they were fully
How to say equipped perhaps yet
They’d go looking elsewhere I
Even remember one having foam
In his mouth as it was around
His helmet and the sound he made
Not himself but re-animated in
Stop-motion yes that night was
With the battering ram at the gate
Who was it by the way?
Anyway you heard it right?
You heard it right there and then
Bam! Methane sulfur
Too much friction I guess
What?

(After Derek Mahon)

They made sure their faces
Were visible and that their nuanced
Soliloquies were heard at the back
But that was before

Much before they complimented one
Another for taking the same familiar
Steps toward the things that had left

Them already and they never looked back
Or up for that matter when somebody said
‘Thank God!’ when somebody sneezed
And was blessed

Instead they took their time with their
Coffee cups and their silence
And they saw no sandy black dregs
But foamy ochre stains that they couldn’t

Read so they figured
The least they could do was
To walk hand in hand and try
Not to step on shoelaces
Velcro worked better for them

We were eating
Or about to rather
Everybody
Was eating or about to
When he came in
This dude
In denim with a jute bag
And started for
The regulars laying ceramic
Elephants small ones
Together with little notes
On the side of each table
Everybody
Was eating or about to
When he started to pick them
Up after a round tour of the place
After two or three minutes
One of the elephants
Was missing or rather
Found in the hands of a little
Girl that wouldn’t let go of it
No matter how much her mother
Scolded and berated and hissed at her
For touching the small ceramic
Piece as though it was filthy
As though it was cursed
Slapping both of her hands
One of which held nothing
Until she dropped it

Who knows
There could have been no clouds
That day when it took
Place and where

The weather was fine
Descending on white heaps
Of rubble like the moon
And you would even think

That those were bricklayers unloading
Hot limestone fresh from a kiln
In some factory
Lined up against the wall
Outside

The way they stood where
They even had a wheelbarrow
And one of them was told to
Take hold of one of its handles
For authenticity as though
He and the rest

Of them were taking a break
And another one had a rolled–
Cigarette sticking out of his fist
And was allowed to
Light it up and let it smoulder
To a flickering butt

There was one row of them
Not two or three or more
The way it usually happens
When a big picture is taken
But one

And who knows when
And where did that happen
And how many times

In the middle of the night I
Awoke to emanating light

& Bizet’s March of the Toreadors
Coming from my cellphone under

The bed within hand’s reach
I didn’t recognize the number
I didn’t know the country prefix

There were 3 possibilities

Who am I
Kidding you who are
You kidding me
A lie is a lie is
A lie down where
Were you and
Where was I
We were getting
High as two knackered
Kites I’m not telling
You’re not
Telling we’re gonna
Make it happen

Sometimes when you're standing
At a urinal with no other men
Next to you there is that moment
Of stiff focus after an almost
Imperceptible click of a light-motion
Detector when the world goes
Black and it's raining
And you can't do
Anything about it
Till it stops
Wave your hand

Focus on your pants, friend,
It’s the closest you can get
To the truth or else
Wait for honesty
Like a knife

From confusion to Confucius
And back in a little over 9,000
Years and whatnot
I miss avocados but history
Is for repeatin’
Yet I listen with care
Even though I know that
I’m not gonna stay here
In this class
With the solemn conduct of its
Perambulating instructor
But at least I learned
That constipation can pass
For intellectual solemnity
And that the search for
The mot juste continues

A mother sits with the voluptuous
Ease of a heifer at pasture-time
But it happens elsewhere quickly
The tram jolts and rocks her 2 babies
To sleep as a rattle toy slips
From infantile hands and rolls
Under the heavy double-carriage
The mother is calm with the toy
Out of reach but her child is not
There is not much to do
But wait for their stop

There’s a ramp
In front of me there’s a ramp
Going down from which
According to the markings
On the pavement like those
Handle with care symbols on
Carton boxes you can’t skateboard
Or bicycle or rollerblade
You can walk
You can only walk down
Crossing nothing and leaving
Behind a piece of advice
Expired once given

I take one of those buns that
Get soft the next day
Those that you can no longer

Break and have to toast before
Those that happen to be studded
With grey sunflower seeds
Most of the time for me

I take a kitchen knife
And pare them off
So that the toaster filaments
Won’t charcoal them

Then I slice the bun
And stuff the two halves into
The two slots because
They are too thick to go in
If I dropped them
Dumped on a whim

Separately
They ochre
They brown
And suddenly jump out
At me or at one another
As though they were tired of this
Playing peekaboo

Seventeen years ago
Bomberman much like Pacman
Runs on the small TV screen
Looking like a tiny ninja with a white
Ski mask and light-blue overalls
Made out of pixels in low-resolution

He runs around a stony maze of gray
Brick walls and reinforced concrete
Where he is pursued by totem-looking
Enemies (some of whom happen
To be ghosts) and where he lays his cartoonish
Black bombs that throb like hearts prior to
Detonation to set himself free from
The above that make funny low-res
Pixel faces when they
Go kaboom and instantly disappear

My thumbs on the joypad already start
To ache but there are only 2 more levels
To go yet Bomberman can only
Go vertically or horizontally and never
Both ways all at once

Elated and pensive that the game has
Come to an end and that it’s time for me to
Hit the books and learn a few things
By heart for tomorrow’s quiz I remove
The game’s cartridge as the TV goes black
And stays like that until I run
A channel-scan to get a signal

The reporter stands crowded by haphazard
Bystanders paramedics wearing
Yarmulkes and police-officers that huddle
Around empty gurneys and stretchers
Carrying them in and out of ambulances
Some of the eyes that catch sight
Of the camera are vacant as well but you
Also don’t get to see what happened
Only the faces the hearsay that constitute the after
Is what you get and you don’t have to
Believe them if you don’t want to
Because you haven’t really seen the kaboom
Just the blackened hull of another bus
Already picked clean for the scrap yard

You’re out
Going about your evening
Knowing that you still have
Time to kill and that this here
Place is where you are supposed
To meet her yeah that’s it
That this here place is the one
Fine and cozy and the taxi back
Home won’t leave you in trouble next week
Everything looks fine really
Only that your nose is itching
Like there’s no tomorrow
And you rub and scratch
And chafe the bejesus out of it
Till you feel a swollen spot
Right there that’s it
That this here spot is the one
On the bridge of your nose
And you already know that
Its colour is red
That annoying hue of pimply red like those times
When you were rubbing your magic lava lamp
In your youth and you know you ought to
Find a mirror or a freaking reflective
Surface or something to take a look
To take a brief look at it and see
How it looks like
So you try out a few shop windows
Murky and nearly transparent
As if you’d really want to check out
What they’re selling even though
It’s 10pm and they’re long closed
Then you try out the scraped silvery and copper
Window frames but they’re of no use either
Though there are cars parked cars
By the dozen right next to where you stand with
Their side mirrors right there
But you pretend to take no heed of them
Cuz you don’t want to come off
As weird to make things way too
Conspicuous for people in the street
So you continue going about your evening
Till you enter the closest bar and soak in
The fumes of distraction and bump into
The closest waitress who fleetingly
Eyes you from top to bottom and scurries
Away bringing back your doubts tenfold
But you’re not too worried since the john
Is right there and you enter but there’s no mirror
Not a single mirror just white tiles
Glittering and grimy you leave the place
And know not what to do now that
The time has almost come
You reach for your pocket to check
Whether she texted you or whether
You might have missed a call from her while
You were trying to find a mirror inside
Cuz there was probably no signal
Or you simply didn’t hear it but somebody is
Calling your name and you already know it’s her
But you didn’t know she was coming that way
You hug her and give her a quick peck on the cheek
While she eyes you from top to bottom
By the flashy entrance to that closest bar
Where she points at and suggests to go in
And the place seems fine and cozy
And the taxi back home won’t leave you
In trouble next week
Everything looks fine really

By the Lennon Wall
A palimpsest to free
Thinking a group of travelers
With one-way luggage
In their heads have taken
Their last prescription pills
From back home to augur
Prozaically not to stand too
Far apart cuz they know that
The Mesoamericans for instance
Had stuffed themselves in
Crammy stones to be preserved
As bas reliefs so that the others
Would have more space and
The others by the Lennon Wall
Tonight say that they have
Shrunk too

Is a game of the steppes
In which the opposing
Teams of horsemen strive for possession
Of the headless carcass
Of a goat
And here’s a
Cut-
      -up ad
Vice
You are
Instrumental to &
Temperamental because
You are
Too deciduous to decide
Share learn
Responsibility man
Don’t let them
Play with your
Head for pennies
That stink
Or bzzzzz
With the flies

In the early hours of January when
Every Xmas spirit has already frozen
Up and X’ed into a new new year
I pass by the familiar corner of an archway
Under a flyover where high-school
Kids roll snuff & joints & smother slinky
Giggles on warmer days when I’m half
Sleepwalking to work instinctively lost
In reverie about long johns their wooliness
And how good it is to wear a pair
In January when every Xmas spirit has
Already X’ed into another year I pass

You measure me with hazel gleam
Up close and likely out of focus that
I’d almost think you’re wall-eyed
And obviously you know that
I’m all hazel nuts and that I won’t
Mind your spooky nibbling of earlobes
And sniffing thaumaturgies
Your choice is always velvet
You never take it off and
It never wears you down you
Really don’t need much
But your affectionate stability
Is pivoted on these surroundings
The cobwebbed corners and
The creaking wardrobe
Not me that’s all

                    An empty street.
There was a house.
                    A private house uphill.
His arms were rising in the air
                    In front of it.
Her arms were fixed akimbo
                    On the windowsill.
The picturesque
                    In this, however, was
Betrayed by shifty wind that spoke
                    Through thinning foliage
Of autumn standstills or
                    A human surety of that
This wasn’t a first time.
                    This wasn’t their first time
And no rehearsal either.
                    The bundle landed in a cup of hands
Made out of clanging rings and keys
                    That hurt

When my toes & pinkies go numb
I can hear your reticent murmur coming
Through that sinuous grille unobtrusively
Your polite rush of steaming water
Reminds me of a toilet tank about to get
Its fill and you know it just occurred to me
You see that back in the USSR practically
Anybody had the chance
To find themselves on a pedestal
While attending a squat toilet
With a small retrofit installation
But anyways you weren’t there and you’re not
A toilet and this doesn’t concern you in fact
I don’t understand a word you’re saying
Even though I sorta speak the local language
But at least I know you try to keep me warm