Casina Poems

Eight poems I wrote at Casina del Fiume, Ansina (AR), Italy between 2006 and 2010.

A BARGAIN

On the rail in a Siennese thrift shop,

a jacket in eng-lit-don corduroy,

green as envy, innocence, bottle-glass.

I'd sought the perfect one for years,

and at last this fitted like the proverbial glove.

No price tag visible but

in the bath that night

I found one stuck to the nape of my neck

like a sticking plaster: €22.50

--------------------------------------------------------------

IN THE BLOOD

"Poets continue to be born not made and cannot, I'm afraid, be predetermined."

[Wallace Stevens, Harvard Lecture 1936.]

Slim consolation.

Make yourself a poet by awful up-hill slog

only to feel the wind of some young shit

who was born to it

sprinting past,

scattering your sweatdrops

in his slipstream.

---------------------------------------------------------------

FAST FOOD

I left my leopard in Leominster and my toaster in Towcester,

no more toasted leopard chez nous for a while...

And I'm told that in Eyam

they've quite deserted the old English syllabub.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOT ANGELS BUT ANGLES

Mr Pickering taught us that

"The

Angle

of

Incidence

is equal

to the

Angle

of

Reflection"

(perhaps he hoped to make us his mirrors)

But such an angular truth hardly explains

these burning

diamonds,

topaz, amethysts,

emeralds

sent skittering by the sun

across the wind-whipped surface of our diga.

---------------------------------------------------------------

EXPLETIVES INSERTED

Damn blast fuck shit bollox

I seem to have mislaid my metre meter again.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

CREPUSCULE WITH M

A liquid golden light drips onto the green fleece of our hill

As if the air had turned to honey

or a treacly muscat wine.

Only the mad aerobatics of the swifts suggest

that this viscosity

is not in the air

but in my mind (and perhaps in yours?)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AGRO-HAIKU

Amid the tobacco,

a fencing match - watery foils

swishing and swerving

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

VULGAR THOUGHT ON MONTE NERONE GLIMPSED FROM PIETRALUNGA (A PORN-ODE )

The planet lies sprawled with her green furry legs apart

her great grey tits point to the sky.