Indulgence

When was the last time you fell in love with a word?
With its contours and the suggestions of its contours?
And the nuances and crevices of its meaning?

When did you last make love to it?
Explore all that it was?
And all that it could be?

Did you ask where it came from?
Whether the journey was eventful?
Or tiring, amidst the flash bulbs of allusion and abstraction?

Did you take it to pieces?
And find functions for each part?
Or did you break your heart
On its elementary wholeness, its ability to be
A wall, not a door, nor anything you could unlock
With a key.

Flower

All flower metaphors
Have been written to death
And on their death beds
I undertake
This last cleverness.

All flower metaphors
Have been used
And abused
And in their defence
(And that of the greeting card companies)
I make
This last attempt.

All flower metaphors
Profound roses and aristocratic tulips
And common chrysanthemums; in short
All flower metaphors that are, were, and will be
Are wilting and in a desperate bid to stop the decay
I break my time honoured oath
Never to write about flowers
Or flower metaphors
Or both.

Rhyme

There is a poet I love
Not Neruda, not Millay
This one is closer home.
And he finds no strain in rhyme.
Given a little practice and time
He says, anyone can rhyme.
Well, you can see I've been trying
But I cannot help sounding a little forced
Too obvious, too divorced
From what I really want to say
Simply because of the way
In which I wish to say it.

Hallucination

Everyday I sail to work, all kevlar sails and fibreglass body
And performance and a shining brilliant ambitious tendency
To spot the subtle comedy, the palatable unreality
The almost drug like quality
In the neon nuances and the psychedelic psychoses of the techie
There is a delusion of grandeur grander than most
The metrosexual hallucination that came home to roost.