20140718

Ken Bolton / September Poems / 9.



11  (Two Blues)


I leave a note that says 
“I’m having coffee at Mr Surly’s”
& go there—
where this poem
‘finds’ me
staring at a sea
I sometimes refer to
as the Aegean,
tho in fact it is
the Adriatic—wondering
why I’m here.
                  To
have a coffee?
Tho I have forgotten that.
(The waiter will
remind me.)  To
do God’s will?  Not
likely.  Who lives
in all those churches,
shouldn’t they do it?
as they’re drawing pay?
God's will, I mean.
I doubt that I am here
to reap the benefit
of my education—
“Ah, Europe!” being the 
entire accrued payout.  
This, this moment,
may not be unrelated—
          #
I never go to Asia.
It is not a firm enough idea.
          #
The nett result of
all this history, the
variegated sameness—the
brands that are everywhere
or interchangeable, i
Simpson, Upim, Kookai—
is to make me feel mortal
& to make the ‘old’ ideas—
humanity, fame, vanitas—
seem plausible.  Melancholy,
& enchanted by the sound
of a scooter motor 
whizzing past behind me—
or seen thru a doorway—
the silence stitching 
itself together,
restoring lassitude; entranced
by the just proportion & calming
patina of a wall,
opposite the arch that frames it—
which I look thru—
(the smell of petrol, the
cheering futility of the desire
that gunned the accelerator
in the first place—
the going nowhere).  “I’ll
have a short black, please.”
Then I add “Espresso”
by way of amplification.
The waiter has shown up.
You would have to say “eventually”—
But I don’t care.
The hill out there looks great
silver grey against the blue,
the blue above, the blue below



 
 
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