UNWRAPPING THE MUMMY

I have come across a number of references to Egyptian mummies being unwrapped recently. Apparently there was a craze for doing so in Napoleonic  France. There was not much scientific rationale for do so, but when has that ever stopped people.
I felt that this activity was fertile ground for the poet.

The Unwrapping Party

When I lay there,

having my brain extracted through my nose,

while my guts were pulled out by the handful

and dumped into the jars at my feet,

I did not foresee that my sleep would be disturbed

by anyone less than a God.

I could even put up with the French interrupting my twilight,

but to be labelled a minor figure,

in the political structure of the Lower Kingdom,

while accurate, could have been said with more respect.

This social event makes no pretence at science,

which has come to replace religion for these people,

I am merely a sideshow to titillate the matrons of Paris.

The professor talks his audience through the process,

removes each wrapping, holding it aloft for their scrutiny.

His commentary revealing more of his time than mine.

Then I will lie under glass, naked,

having seen too much,

and my second cycle of waiting will be ignored by the passers-by,

who hurry to see the real treasures of the museum.

This is definitely a work in progress. Watch this space.
Alela Diane has just released a new album.  It's well worth a listen.

Until next time.

OPEN EYED WONDER

Here is a poem about people who cannot leave what they know. 
It was written quite quickly a little while ago and I am not sure it is ready yet.

He has never left his garden,

or walked beyond its boundary

to gaze with open eyed wonder

at what can thrive outside.

It is is true he tends his fields,

diligently kneels in the soil,

skin cut by sharp leaves

of plants he barely knows beyond

the names they give themselves.

Each holds its own promise:

protection, profit, status.

Everything comes at a cost,

in blood, in sweat, in time,

so he has never left his garden.

There could be so much more.

I'd be interested to know what you make of it.

Here is Bill Evans from 1965.

Until next time.

SEVEN REASONS WHY

 

A couple of small poems this post.
The first describes a specific day.

SEVEN REASONS WHY THIS IS NOT AN ORDINARY FRIDAY

The chain of red lights on the ceaseless line of lorries.

Such a sun rise.

The quality of light in the trees.

The corona around the clouds.

The colour of the spring grass.

I coast on fumes to Plymouth because I did not check the fuel gauge.

I meet the magpie in the quad for the third time this week, and think I have discovered her m.o.

She watches me as I walk back to my car.

The second is a brief prose poem.

Later he would claim her husband had hired a detective. This conceit made him feel better, invested the tawdry with a mystique it did not deserve. As if it was not all there to see, all you had to do was bring your eyes.

Here is Fireworks. it's off Ruins the new lp by First Aid Kit.

Until next time.

A FLANNEL SHIRT INFINITY

Here is a poem I've been struggling with for some time. 
It's about Alan Turing, the genius who broke the nazi's enigma code and is credited with being the creator of computing.

FOR ALAN TURING

His was a flannel shirt infinity,

built on tweed jacket equations

that formed in his head, on the cycle rides,

across the soot streaked snow

that gentled the outlines of the bomb sites.

He had served with passion,

when numbers on a chalk board

were the only things not rationed.

Blind eyes had been turned to his difference,

as he strove to break the unbreakable ciphers,

back when he had a value.

The world had contracted since then,

become straight laced with no place

for brief encounters in public lavatories,

and they meant to shame him.

Their heterosexual hegemony locking difference out.

He could see an off/on future

of zero to one and back again,

but the apple is in his hand.

He knows he will bite into

its shiny, poisoned skin

and that will be that.

His death was a huge loss to humanity. 
I still do not think this poem is in it's final form.
I leave you with a sad song: Bauhaus Chair by The Nits.

Until next time.