names of books

The poet writes a poem containing
only the names of books.
I consider whether, upon leaving the bathroom,
it were best to turn right or head
straight. The kitchen
has dirty light this time of day.
Last night the black cat flirted and I
wasn’t necessarily unhappy.
Mornings are worst.

If a culture were to be a thing
of value, preserved solely through
practices, at times, writing, sometimes
names, then I am a small and colonised island.
I am lightly framed and I walk
differently to my pale visitors.
But my gait is getting certainly more frail
and the kettle seems such a violent,
confident blue of late.

Tight-lipped, I shimmy down a muted hallway.
I avoid tasks that state that they are tasks.
‘Wandering like lost men’, is a kind of invention
and having a Greek name, makes me watch it.

A certain pattern of colour on ground
is enough to guide a pair of eyes around a room.

It’s not that youth is shifty. But really.
Six bunches of flowers and a kind of
‘life-coaching’ boost to my esteem
would have anyone waking up
with their face streaming
confusion. It’s my duty-of-quiet-care…
Toast. Quince juice. Rice. Pebbles. Beans.

In a round bowl, heavy heads
bend redness towards a slippery floor.
A sheer ribbon divulges itself
in clumsy crossings.

It has been weeks now.
Just weeks? Longer perhaps, where
the bed is both a place of solace
and one of threat. You should get
thirty seconds of bright light into a head
dreading grey. Get it in: extended flash.
My aperture lately has been way too
diplomatic, too conciliatory, bref blasé.

A fragile thing would seem so strong
when seen close-up. Structures made
of hair, skin and leaf-skeletons
can appear akin to compounds
that would have been
quite deliberately engineered.
Metals, plate glass, unnamed stones,
bamboo, polished to gloss-veneer.
But they are not.

*

Please understand:
I have no need to
leave the building.