| We need poems when we...
see
a blind man point his white stick at a magazine stand,
an old lady walk against the lights while five cars grumble;
hear
the mention of worms in the ears of fish,
an empty building's bellow when a hammer drops four floors;
find
a week-dead fish in the refrigerator,
a hessian-skirted church tower,
a dead tree in a public square's brick planter;
understand
an icecream in the mind of a child,
cornered coffee tables at knee-height,
two minds at one table unaware,
space between a pillar and a window where no child can squeeze;
discover
an untouched swinging lightbulb-cord,
toilets beneath the street down bleach-cleaned steps,
a boy concealed in clothes three sizes too big;
realise
literacy is for the spiritually-impaired.
learn our inability to walk in another man's shoes,
taste another man's wife's cooking,
wait for a blind date who doesn't show,
thrust too many oranges into a supermarket bag,
know the inability of the human hand to encompass a banana,
wear black clothes without a funeral,
find concrete block motels with orange plastic cups and tasselled
bedspreads. |