April 23

Lunch

A cafe
a child of maybe 3 or 4
she’s there with grandma
she’s tyring to work out how to add ten million and ten million
grandma’s got it sussed
first she asks
“what’s 4 plus 4″
“Eight’ says the child
“and what’s fourty plus fourty”
“Eighty”
says the intelligent child
“and what a thousand plus a thousand”
“Two thousand”
She was doing well so far
“and a milliion plus a million”
“two million”
“so ten million plus ten million is….”
” urrrrrr…” she seemed stumped on this one
” twenty…………million”
“Right very good”

What’s grandma’s story?
why is she here
what has her life been?

The man to my left
eating a couple of bits of toast for lunch
ignores all this
he just pours another waterfall of tea
and butters his slice and gets on with life

I saw through my steak
I asked for medium well
I think the cow might have a tale to tell
of standing too long in a grassless field
the meat’s pretty tough and refusing to yield
to the rasp of the knife but I keep diving down
rasping away as If I’m cutting down
a two hundred year old oak.
Chewing I find is easier than expected
no mechanical digger needed
as imagined
the salad is crisp
with a dribble of dressing
balsamic and olive oil I’m guessing
Those shoelace fries seem to multiply
every time I move my knife
or look away
but they’re good company
for the rest for the meal
at the end I feel a little full
and it’s time for a walk on the beach

A walk on the beach
On the parrapet
there’s large woman
she’s carrying a lot of meat
her oversized breasts
nodding to gravity
I wonder about the inevitability of aging
is that where I’m going?
Is that the end result of our slowing metabolism?
So, should I be getting going
right now
exercising daily
developing a regime
bar bells
rowing
Ab – King Pro-ing?

A large truck tries to negotiate
along a very narrow street
it’s a cork in a bottle
juice in a funnel
that won’t flow
He’s riding the side of the curb
trying not to disturb
power lines and other vehicles
but to me it looks impossible

So here I am
taking my leave
on a deserted beach
and I find I’m thinking about domestic things..
cleaning the carpets
paying for light fittings
seemingly innocuous things
but they have to happen
and they require planning
it’s all about organisation

Have I so soon
become immune
to the beauty of the water
seeing it over and over
for the past few days
Am I now bored with the greens and the greys
the triangle dance of the waves
Seagulls darting and dancing
just over the tops of waves
suddenly changing direction
flapping their wings
riding the course of the breeze
riding on thermals
large ones small ones
a lone wolf
shooting by like a Mig jet
much higher then the others
it’s found the secret breezes
the others are just followers
and don’t do their own thinking
of course.. I admire the lone wolf

Internet shop

At the computer shop
I access the internet
the only place it seems on the whole island
$2.50 per 1/4 hour
I’m thinking it won’t be busy
But I’m most surprised to find an unending stream
that there’s 15 PC/s in the queue
to be fixed
that there’s all different sorts of internet plans
using ADSL 2 and even dial up
A blue cat 5 cable
makes me able to post all these thoughts
across the ocean of ones and noughts
we know as the internet
and all these things get stored
somewhere
with a bunch of other numbers
‘The cloud’ is that lastest I hear
where you don’t really need a computer
it’s all stored away in the ether
you just connect in your brain
at this point still through a machine
but one day
one day
my favorite part is playing at the end
somehow someone
has managed to convivnce
Avril Levine
to masquerade as counter girl
and I look into her eyes and fall into a world
of dreamy deire
for a time I was younger
and how she might have been able
to meet my hunger
but now I look at her and think
“she could be my daughter”
funny how things chaneg like that
as you get older…