THEN I SAID

By the entrance to the tunnel
they gave him the choice of
orange juice and something I couldn’t
hear. From a large blue bag
they pulled a sandwich and
something other I couldn’t see

He sat covered in a flimsy dirty
blanket and these men looked
sinister but they must have been good men
spending their evening helping
and comforting the less fortunate
one of them sporting a moustache like a naval officer

I picked up a bottle of Rioja and doubted
the choice, its label like a letter from the bank
Then the night passed without helping or
advancing any cause
and surely today would be no
different

This poem lets you wonder
as I wander through the pageless dusted light
I don’t want anything to do with any of it at all
Please understand
this song takes my will away
this journey takes my will away
I only have one
And without it?

America stop calling my name in the morning
all the gallons of water in the sea
stop looking for me

I pick up my cup from the table and walk over
to the windowsill where I listen to this song

Please song, don’t stop without me
I’ll do what it takes
I know what it takes

Daylight is 500 times stronger than strip light
that’s correct needing no correction
when waking up and feeling the need to readjust
and doing so with the aid of certain well-tested
chemicals, taking away the pain, but not getting at
the heart

That’s when a stanza or a page stands like a man
next to reality, juxtaposed, arguing, but friends
amicable lovers of the truth that’s out there
and I know, on corners, in nooks, pretty much
everywhere, reality and fiction, lovers and
friends

It takes, it seems, something so unfathomable
as four seats on a full Boing 747 perched over
Jan Mayen, in relative standstill, I suppose
to shake me into a dream I’m certain I’ll leave
turbulently, and then, for what
is very very unclear

1. Pathetic nations of the world (all)
2. A memoir of my twenties: “the roaming twenties”
3. Flowered tattoo (friendly design)
4. A pick me up (101)
5. To avoid being gone
6. To lie more comfortably
7. In any bed
8. ok, that’s it

No matter how many times you ran
across that lawn
they didn’t see you
I’m in town to see you
lifting those concrete laurels
rushing past cathedral heavens
poking your brush over and over
again alone
well worth the effort
and the time
here there is much to be excited about
and I am
my name in ink wherever
I go

She used to have a coffee
and then a burger
reading the International Herald Tribune
before taking off her bath-robe
and slipping back to bed again

I don’t know what was on her
mind those days
I mean what might have
made her do the things she did
I never asked

and didn’t really know her that
well. but she kept
braking into my thoughts
surely not aware
but nonetheless

she was there a lot
leaving the house at five
in the afternoon
or like once on the subway
listening to headphones and wearing a cowboy hat

me and my friend too shy
and arrested by her tough
and all too real demeanor
off Broadway or somewhere
special that night

Today I realized by drilling
the well-kept bowels
I only sear closer
to somewhere bearable lying you
to where I think naught
I liken it to driving
alone playing
choice and chance against
what I know I must
find life simple
enough

Where have you daydreamt to now?
earphones and cigarettes
brake pads leaf through the moon roof
and the one and all staring at me now
know this:
puzzle or not, don’t solve it
sing me vowels and bring me tarmac
I feel hole with the bitterest sweetheart
“when this puzzle’s figured out”
will I still be around
erased and
accurately named

Manufacturing centuries
measurements entire
fictitious entities in real-time at
half-time he asked for corrosives and sedatives
without shaded doubtful brows
how can you expect any kind
of faith on my part

The ticking of blood pumps
echoes amputationalist thoughts
fates of human Societies and involuntary
meetings for coffee
mostly lunchtime at undescript
places
I’m taking up running again.

It’s your right she insisted
I knew all along that if
a spider crawled my shelf for
the roof. The best thing would
be to let it
But we never got along
that well

Bottle in hand Life in hand
egg and bacon on whole wheat
ridiculous thoughts in head
the day doesn’t start at twelve
it starts at twelve the next day
You see, I had to kill my darling
a rotten poem of a stinking
situation embarrassing I’m sort
of waiting for a train of
thought to arrive
here
Do I have a grip on this vice?
I’ve been taking way to many cabs
and the tones up and go vibrating
free of a major coil
I’ll be walking down Prince
Catch me if you tincan

We trudged down
to the water
to the whole
we’d made
in the ice
as thick as an elephant leg

this nothing as
real
as anything
made for us
to enter

sickness
and tense muscles
wash off
in the wind in the
dark of the mountain
lake

Toddy in my 28th
year holding the
centre, sitting well
as the thermometer
froze to the edge
making us snap
the white thin string

When I come back to this room
There’s a part of me thinking
I’ll soon live by a great lake
It comes from something I read
Five or six years ago
When things held together

There were men in cars circling lakes
Picket fences and wispy trees
And they drove forever
That felt pretty real I thought
Although by the great lake
I’m sure the winds would tear me to shreds

There were no forests or deserts
No daffodils or jilts left behind
Just another voice in the car
And a flat land opening up
It’s good to feel the lake
And the drive, now more than ever

By Craig Beaumont