Cusp

by Graham Mort

  numbed hands thrust up stiffened from

  their self-dug grave All this from simply

  fiddling with the fusebox from fumbling

  blindly in the dark! Who’s there? A

  shaman a sadhu a sheister a bombshell

  a barfly a lady-killing crooner a Janus

  faced cruiser a queer cunt a crazy coot

  the delivery guy with a pretty smart

  cookie Enola Gay Fat Man Little Boy

  Hiroshima Nagasaki Oh fission fusion

  fission! How to choose? You peeled me

  like a yam squeezed Armageddon till the

  pips squeaked vaporising everything

  to blind energy pure milk of darkness –

  E=MC2 – Pure jazz! Everything leveled

  polluted razed humanity’s house poisoned

  to its half-life beyond the reach of memory

  or hope that malign moment un-redeemed

  your light-etched shadow fleeing its

  melanoma staining the city’s ruined skin

  That didn’t stop you arrest halt or faze you

  it never gave you much in the way of pause

  for thought now did it? War is peace death

  deterrence waste disposable Now you have

  your own concrete shrine your Sunday-best

  sarcophagus Chernobyl’s hat tipped over a

  scorpion You don’t need me to tell you how

  all this could end in tears Enough now Enough

  Let me soothe you by saying that I’m merely

  what the eye lets in shocked off the retina

  for the brain’s collation – solid edges liquid

  shapes movement colours textures of hair

  or skin or bark a pewter sky a sunset a

  glass of Bordeaux the grey-toned rain

  lulled sea steel’s chill a human voice or

  face you recognise the instant it recognises

  you I’m fact illusion fantasy this moment

  and all time melting to anticipation retro

  spection Now The way you are A million

  chemical subtleties of thought that flush

  into those gaps blanks interstices I linger

  in then reach across to make your life worth

  living to make your living life I’m the past

  and its future that childhood flux your

  mother’s smell of lavender talc and sweat

  that lies half-kindled in memory I’m her

  touch the down on her cheeks the blue

  sash she wore that row of Welsh poppies

  planted at the garden border I’m her dry

  throat swallowing last words playing their

  regrets into your ear I’m light to the touch

  a conjuring trick your father’s hands

  mending a broken toy halving an apple

  rolling a cigarette I’m his scent of beer

  and sunshine his hands pressing dock

  leaves to a sting I’m his skied six volleyed

  goal his tie-breaker fizzing with aces I’m

  the illusion it mattered who won anything

  in the end anyway I’m the afternoon of

  that lost day you recall meeting a lover

  when rain drizzled after a missed bus and

  fog dripped from bare trees and you held

  each other for the first time tangled hands

  noses lips tongues made clumsy words

  and love in empty rooms the bed sheets

  cool to memory’s touch A vase of lilies

  pale sepulchral their smell of death and

  sex lingering on your fingers the way they

  lingered later on the switch to bring on

  lights against the night If it’s still there

  still happening in your hallowed God

  forsaken human head it’s happening

  because I’m here to make it so I’m the

  impulse of innocence the way children

  stumble towards everything the way

  you run to the future for solace shelter

  redemption Let’s admit it – I can be a

  real gobshite a charlatan an inveterate

  wanker an incorrigible fraud a tight

  fucker a fair-weather friend When

  you die I’ll leave without regrets won’t

  stop to pack or take down curtains or be

  bundled with old clothes into a carrier

  bag or hauled to that High Street shop

  that smells of age and old folks’ piss

  and stale concern I’ll simply split move

  on find another gig That’s me! Can’t

  sit still only out for myself I’m genesis

  imagination impulse Art I’m the soft

  machine the well-tempered klavier

  the novel the sestina the sonnet the

  nocturne the painting the human torso

  lost in centuries of river mud I’m the

  dance in the dancer’s head happening

  only just before she parts her thighs I’m

  Mnemosyne and her daughters – Manhattan

  Tokyo Athens London Paris Dubai Rome –

  your golden miles dazzling exciting

  electrifying I’m the world as it is as it

  was as it could be I’m the moment and

  its after-shock If there is a future for you

  then it will be mine I’m out there in that

  elasticating universe (or is it shrinking or

  merely changing shape?) where God is

  shaking out a duster of stars stirring

  that dark matter dark energy invisible

  in all the space of Space I’m the human

  mind on the verge of collapse the human

  spirit gaseous with unspeakable joy I’m

  catatonia a black dog depression freedom

  and servitude I’m an eye-shining mania

  the suicide’s coin rattling in the meter

  his light to see the darkness by life’s

  unpaid bill the surcharge the bright

  Exit sign the torch of death the very

  depth of life crackling in the gentian-blue

  air of Earth Come closer You with so

  much to learn Me with so much to teach

  Come closer Only connect!

  Acknowledgements

  Acknowledgements are due to the editors of the following magazines where some of these poems first appeared: Poetry Review, Envoi, Poetry Wales, The North, The London Magazine, The Long Poem Magazine, The Rialto.

  ‘The Work of Water’ was commissioned by the Cumbria Floods Project and displayed in the town centre along with the work of other poets in 2010.

  ‘Drought’ was commissioned by the British Council Switzerland for their anthology Feeling the Pressure, 2008.

  ‘Electricity’ was originally commissioned as part of the Creative Scientist writing project at Belmont Arts Centre, Shrewsbury in 2001.

  Also by Graham Mort

  A Country On Fire

  A Halifax Cider Jar

  Into the Ashes

  Sky Burial

  Snow from the North

  Circular Breathing

  A Night on the Lash

  Visibility: New and Selected Poems

  Touch (short stories)