“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas

Dalí’s Clock 5, 6 , & 7 / 7

5

In a distant ward,

an alarm bell rings.

White rabbit

with a syringe;

dark tunnel

down which

I must plunge;

bitter draught

I must drain

to change

my life

forever.

I wait for Dalí’s giraffe

to burst into flame

and call me

with its voice

of fire.

6

I grasp

with fingers of gorse

at moon and stars.

Everything I touch

turns into gold.

Sleek

aureate plumage,

bright tiger’s eye

of this yellowhammer

chipping at

his block of song.

7

When I lose it, whatever it is,

my fingers pick at seams,

tissues, skirts, shirts, jeans,

or strip a label from a bottle;

or they break bread, or

there are so many things I can do,

personal things.

On the table,

a vacant cereal bowl,

a silver teaspoon in a saucer,

an empty teacup

returning my round moon stare.

My hands terminate

in pointless needles.

They unpick stitches;

then try to knit them

back together again.

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas

Dalí’s Clock 1 & 2 / 7

 

 Dalí’s Clock

 1

I have folded Dalí’s clock,

draping time’s dressing gown

over the foot of her bed.

An elephant with a crane-fly’s

spindly legs

stands on the bedside cabinet.

Is the human body

a chest of drawers

to be opened and closed

at will

and things removed?

On the operating table,

a sewing machine

and a bread knife

wait inside

a black umbrella

for their next

victim.

 2

A hedgehog caught in the glare

of onrushing lights,

she has curled herself into a ball.

My words are wasted

movements:

lips, tongue, bared teeth.

Limp kites

with nothing to fill their paper sails,

they hang like abandoned bodies

on the old barbed wire

stretched between us.

A metallic sun

gashes harsh light.

The needles in her arm

throw an ever-plunging

sea of shadows:

bruised sunsets

on a purple horizon.