Gavin Lucky


Poems Written on the Back of a Napkin at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport

It All Goes On Your Permanent Record

The easiest way to talk
about nothing
beckett says
is to pretend that
it is something
and the easiest way
to talk about people

is to talk about
them like they were
termites
just skittering around

the easiest way to talk
about things that
happened
is to talk about
them but pretend they happened
to someone else

a friend of mine’s cousin
 met a guy in a bar
who said a nun told him about
this thing that happened to her
uncle

I don’t know how else to convey 
that this is temporary
that I’m trying 

	to enjoy myself.
    
    
    
Executive Functioning

The romans
would put up tigers
	it is said
		at the crossroads
crucified
as a warning to other
	wayward tigers
on the same principle
today some string up 
	rabbits
or leave dead insects where they fall
	in a small village 
	north of manila
	around the vernal equinox
		men are nailed
of their own volition
	to pieces of wood

and then some hours later
the crosses are lowered
the nails are removed
first aid is administered

what message
does that send
to the animals?

what do the pigeons think?
    


Breathe In, Breathe Out, Hold Your Breath.

you can hear it
	late at night
when you lie on your left side
which side did they find Auden lying on
when he died
	when his heart finally went
		in the 70s
he wasn’t that old really
	but all those years of seeming to be some 
sort of ancien objet had gotten to him
	that and the smoking and the drinking and such
	a lot of things flew away
in the 70s

		what a stupid thing to say
but I’d rather say it
		than listen to my heart
	that imperfect engine.



Limited by the Parameters of the Self

Tempted to get 
one more tea
to pass the time
someone somewhere
is being
wined and dined

I don’t know
why I should
be thinking of this
and not that

the ocean
in the distance-
a palm tree mirage

I’ve been coming to this
airport for decades now
the years
piling up
	lost luggage.

Gavin Lucky is a peripatetic teacher. Previous work of his has appeared in Otoliths, Shot Glass Journal, Riverbed Review, and MacQueen’s Quinterly.

 
 

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