Young Poets

Some bioluminescence

“ale-brown algae / that exclusively blushed / luminescent blue” — Isabel Galleymore, ‘Luminescent‘

here, blue may also mean toxic, and means a defence

mechanism for when a predator nears—as if the many whips

attached weren’t enough already—the sudden blue of

dinoflagellates on proximity (read ‘flashes

of blue’; read ‘warning sign’) at night

creates for some an imaginary monster—

say a justified reason to maintain distance (the ocean anyway

is vast and now only growing)—

this ale-brown algae: also poisonous to some, but otherwise only dizzying

(and who cares about some dizzy fish

                        high on shit in a faraway water?)

and then this blueness is carried into food—

for predators, and us (read again ‘predator’; read ‘which causes bowel problems’;

read ‘causes food poisoning’)—and all of this, increasing

with pollution—water bodies as waste paper baskets—

and with climate

change—

Important neglected things

watermelon seeds—dog hair under the doormat—dead

bird in the backyard—a smallish sticky note

near the study table, reading ‘For some,

the very worst thing has happened’, as in

time pauses, as in the next bad

thing couldn’t still be worse—but is it? how

does a reference point work?

is it just there like a lazy dog is:

lying down, dozing off; like a blackbird, not knowing what

to do again and again, ‘changing its mind

about what to do next.’—are we just here like lazy

dogs?—is it even a question?—it is not recommended

that the feathers of a bird be sewn in an instance

of accident: this is to avoid infection and added weight,

and to prevent further damage; there-

fore, wildlife rehabilitators prefer ‘imp-

ing’, from Greek emphuein, which is ‘to im-

plant’ as in to add, where a feather is borrowed

from another bird—such little selfless acts of love—

this is what we forget—not an evening beer, not a

toupée on a coat hanger, not a boot

for midwinter—and tell me this:

are we sane today?—is that even a question?— it is said

questions answer questions best

Finches

Darwin

was possibly the finest of all sales-

men. Popularised diversity when the rich were still in need

of slaves. Finches—his evolutionary poster child:

‘abundant’, ‘small’, with ‘short lifespans’ and large

beak ‘variations’—ideal for long-term field studies.

Spoke a lot without having to, implied

the finches ‘evolved divergently (in a divergent

manner)’ because to survive one must

prioritise, reorganise, segregate and/or dissociate—that

competition is unhealthy for both the predator and the prey.

Notes: ‘Important neglected things’ borrows ‘For some, / the very worst thing has happened’ from Jessica Traynor’s ‘Ophelia in Ballybough’ (Verseville); ‘changing its mind / about what to do next’ is borrowed from Hugo Williams’s ‘Birdwatching’ (The Poetry Society, 2016).

Pynchon Paranoia & Prose (Comp)

As I watch the rainbow disappear through four collapsing windows

The apartments fold algorithmically

Apocalyptic origami

Looking straight up at the sky

Like a period on paper

A doll gazing from her bedroom

A die spinning on its nose

I think of Pynchon and paranoia and prose

Burnt-amber on the brickside

Scraps of prisms on the floor

Eye Hauntology

The eye of the ceiling fan pulsing through its circular momentum, the black hole eye, the loose-sketch eye on notebook paper—red lines receding over white and charcoal-gray—daydreamed by a schoolgirl in a bored fugue, nowhere else to look but inward

The eyes on the back of my head, the concave teaspoon eye: the evil, the benevolent, the always observant eye—from above, all-around, within; the star-chart eye, the eye as cycle and spiral and prophecy and fate; the flying eye of the biblical angel; the pregnant eye, teeming with life—little red egg eyes

The eye of death and rebirth and empty man in the middle, the human race’s eye, the stranger eye, the eye of predator and prey. The earth as eye, and sun gazing down blinkless, the moon eye: the eye which winks at us as soon we look away, the eye of the dare, of the State’s dare, of a monkey paw

The clock eye ticking restlessly, inverted, a routine spasm. The apple eye. The ink blot eye. The eye of love winces in a flicker, opening anew with envy. The blossom eye, porcelain eye, the eye piercing the eye called the iris. The atomic eye mushrooming in its onlooking apotheosis—the bullet eye’s flitting immediacy, burrowing in chests

The eye-womb of mother, the eye of the empty void, the million-eyed abyss. The unseen camera eye, the screen eye, the abstracted, filmic, oppressive eye. The eye in the palm of the hand, the churning eye of industry. The alien eye, the eye of God, the telescope eye, through which we are watched, cheered on, derided by the dead

The tattling eye of younger siblings, the disapproving eye of the father. The imperceptible eyes of molecules, infinitesimal, virulent, amorous. The absent eye of night. The scandalous eye of day. The eye of the coiled snake, the vain eye in the mirror, the docile eye turned downward, elusive eye of the other—eye of the law.

The wound eye, the gash eye. The birth-mark eye of idiosyncrasy, the black eye of clogged pores. The fatal and the fertile eye. The eye of erection, of volcanic eruption, of grace, of gravity, of horror all too familiar, all too base. The forgetting eye. The pearl eye. The eye of return, returning. The eye of irony: the eye of all-consuming irony.