Two Poems

by Cai Draper

 

30/4/20 

navigating the comma is like navigating the navel  

inner  

linten  

portal  

sometimes I tickle myself & come out getting egged in Manchester circa 2009 

today I am grateful for the lack of egging 

& the fact of no weed left 

I smoked it all in a kissing gate feeling butters as I said   

I am trying to say exactly what I mean 

the windows remain  

very dirty  

I am scared I will never be able to live with another person again  

this morning I have already had three arguments  

one with my boss about the spreadsheet  

one with my neighbour about British Summer Time  

one with myself about the way the first two were dealt with  

for each of them I was completely alone  

for a good portion of the time  

my thoughts resemble giant hairy caterpillars not of me born  

M says not every deviation is betrayal  

so big up the moments of divine junk  

sometimes I stick my hand through my belly button  

& come out washing rocket down the basement kitchen in New Cross  

sturdily booted Arriva Jesus flailing greased apron & busted pot  

dancing with a broom like Turbo in Wildstyle  

without recourse to clear fishing lines holding it up  

saying that  

I did know a man who walked the New Cross Road barefoot  

& came back to life after an accident  

which cured him of his taste  

but not his thirst  

 

 

3/5/20 

I would write in praise of walking  

if the joggers didn’t rhyme with themselves in my face  

follow the vector to cumulus high 

culminating greys of a bilious  

staunch & stubborn sky  

the inscrutable seated of Norwich  

land of chair 

closed as a library  

sniffing on each sill’s stickiness  

is a step in the direction of you  

my city  

but I ain’t stirring this morning  

I am eating an apple & mooching  

to stay put a lot makes my bellies  

throw a petty fist in the dungeon   

about time we got going 

said the moonwalking ghost to the flesh in its den  

has the concept of structural forwardness  

shut up shop  

its trap  

or what  

coz I don’t know the street from the ant track from the flight path  

from the pipework from the flume from the landfill  

now that B&Q is open  

woohoo  

does the Mountain of Shit feel relief or dread  

do egrets feel breeze to be cleaner these days  

or the cormorants calmer in firmament  

roaming  

a case of inside the horizon  

at the back of the pub where the taps are still working  

I chat a bunch & outstay my welcome

 

Cai Draper is a poet from South London. His work appears in various magazines, anthologies & journals, with recent poems in Tenebrae, Lammergeier & Tentacular. He organises free workshops at the Book Hive and an online reading series with Arts at the Assembly House. He can be found online as @DraperCai.

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