Lakey Comess



Close examination of fuel supply


It is winter—either a gas leak or a dead rat.
Who are you tormenting for pleasure these days?

(Don't tell me you let go of equipment, network, connections.)

Tributes are paid to a three year old boy
who drowned, swept out to sea.

In other words, hearts are broken, never to mend.
Dark frozen cerise sky.

When I think of you I remember too much,
still pick up phrases, up to no (real) good.

I take no responsibility for how you hear it, my friend.
Discoveries drag us back, refuse to take call, hang up with no comment.

Some memories are indecomposable. What is the predicate?



Attempts to explain


                commence with one of us curled into a sturdy piece of furniture,
glass hurled into fireplace, dramatic exit.

It was simpler—you caught up in an old photograph,
both of us forty years younger, mood dominated by night sky before fever,
pitched onto clustering free space, dense existence.

Fears were more tangible then, each day familiar attrition,
shifting borders, bridges opened or closed, camouflaged outrage.

We proved ourselves intellectually righteous,
escaped plan for smouldering itinerary,

mighty fine on the uptake of lines.
Think carefully before adjusting the time-worn plot.

We're never the right age for someone else's morality, unkindness,
anger fanned into flame, on parole, uncensored.



An appeal of poppies


                                                             precedes recollections of shattered glass.
Sable-rooted blond surveillance of unspecified addiction passes in strained,
weakening delivery. That's how it goes in cyclical sycophancy.

Fancy a long walk to another location?
Surrender isn't an option.

Here is a vendor of lies, frequently violent.
Make a calculated leap, cut losses, assume another address, search for awareness.

Danger provokes irrational responses; platitudes,
couched in the vaguest terms are all that's on offer.

Who can still stammering tongue, ease genuine terror?



Do you know...


                he didn't even ask whether he could enter the garden
before extending his ladder.

Manners have gone out with the old pin-stripe suit,
the dodo, the brontosaurus.

New white crocuses today in the park; the heron is back.
What are you doing for pleasure?

Have you recovered the bicycle stolen
from under your ass so long ago?

Do you still wear pyjamas?
Who's spinning on dimes, executing the latest in visions?

What excuse do you offer for that which transpired?
Who's sharing dreams with you now?

I speak to you often. The rest is forgotten.



Lakey Comess, born U S A in 1948, has lived in Israel, South Africa and the Orkney Islands in Scotland and now lives in Lanarkshire. She has contributed to Versal, Big Bridge, Gulf Stream, Milk, Otoliths, Hutt, Hamilton Stone Review, Mad Hatters' Review blog, Sidereality, Shampoo, On Barcelona blog and other publications, also as Lakey Teasdale.
 
 
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