Selected poems
The consolation of cosmology
From time to time, the fluctuation doesn’t produce
a Big Bang, it just re-creates last Tuesday…
—Katie Mack
We’re not talking here of
those domestic incidents in the home
that can really spoil your day
(the toaster no longer toasting
for instance) though home won’t be so
particularly inviting anyway
when the whole universe ends.
Katie Mack knows about these things
and we should take notice:
‘These terms like Heat Death, Big Rip
and Vacuum Decay don’t sound
all that inviting.’
She’s understating it. Heat Death
will be absolute cold comfort for anyone
who makes it that far
whereas the Big Rip would be
like splitting the backside of your jeans
albeit on a cosmic scale.
Death-bubbles in Vacuum Decay
could be quite a thing, gobbling up all
substance into the void
into that nothing which really is
a thing to be avoided. It could happen
anytime now. ‘The end is nigh’
a sandwich-board man declares.
Katie Mack says: ‘There’s something
about acknowledging
the impermanence of existence
that is a little bit freeing.’
This is perhaps a bit of poetic license.
It could be poetic justice.
Though not really poetic, Arthur Dent
would say, looking nervously
at the calendar. Not really
anything to write home about, in fact…
Katie Mack might give notice
but the universe is indifferent.
So just get a cup of tea and sandwich,
settle in for the main event.
the send-off
no longer the man he was
he is now more or less changed forever
already so much younger
in the minds of friends outside the church
as we narrate him to each other
all those stories that form the last hurrah
as time and its operations turn his body
into detritus and words
as we speak of someone we once knew
have lost and maybe found
the words drift over the graveyard
like butterflies
something lies dead in the hedge
and informs us so
the usual blackbirds
chip at the edges of dusk
Southern China 2014
Yangshuo
from my third-floor hotel balcony I could reach out
almost to touch the mountain
it seems such a good neighbour
when I walk out by the Li River
the mountain follows me / shadowing my footsteps
I watch the river-boats working
their ways across the current towards night-moorings
the fisherman homeward-bound with his cormorants
in the street the rows of stalls flutter with
silks / with kites and flags / with shawls and dresses
dusk is burdened by the gathering monsoon
redolent of fruit and fish and flesh and tobacco smoke
back at the hotel with Mike the porter
drinking baijiu sweetened with osmanthus flowers
our laughter and the full moon echo down the corridor
later that night the mountain silently enters my room
and kneels at my bedside
I lean my drunken head into its flank
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