Michael Pedersen June 16th 1984 – Birthday The same morning I discovered Plath And Hughes wed on my birthday, my sister’s Too, I started reading Birthday Letters, trudged In
record snows with slight fever, missed the train,
lost You and wrote a poem beginning ‘I am broken Like glass bottles’- which talks of red eyes Pointless ripostes, wrong turnings and black holes; The (poker-hot) cinders of troubled minds. On
my 22nd I flew to Delhi, bussed it to
Vashist Chasing you that cut me loose, from where I hung Content as plant in basket. Could have been Jerusalem, Jaffna, Jupiter, I’d still have gone Still have packed my things inside the bag I
borrowed With adrenalins and stomach sirens blaring: To
red dust tika sunrise, through brimming bead market Where henna printed hands contort for rupees Amongst new shades of Himalayan Light and dark. Within 6 short months of this rescue mission I’d coined a whole new fleet of commotions And there, subverted, you found yourself In
the driver’s seat of a crashing plane Or
thrashing bull (on a good
day). No
panic button, no safety harness So
I understand,
the ‘gone for good’ At
Christmas, then once more the year following When the torment came flooding back Like the panic of blindness under water Like the fear of drowning. You were all directions, plugged Into my live currents, panacea for poorest Attributes. Perhaps that’s not the gospel truth But it roughly fits and I am left shattered: Where should I varsity, now my poetry Can’t take your charity hand-in-hand? Skip together, to where they’re housed together To
where they bleed and cry, unjudged Like things newborn, battling enormity From their opposite corners. I
remember my 16th, unwrapping Ulysses To
discover Bloomsday too, on June 16th Clapped eyes on a brochure boasting ‘Dublin’s literary zenith’: join penchants Of
language for Irish lore, dancing Twirling jig, slip, single-treble-step To
a 6/8 metre, eat sausage pudding Single-treble measure, roost And read in races, voice blasting Open-air, Celtic singsonging. How I yearn to be clean, unharmed Harmless; before the heart’s chambers Were loaded, dangerous like drunks with pistols. Fully promise, I never knew what was coming At
18, iron willed, I thought I had it made This terse diction and I had found a nest, above The tower blocks and tombstones and dark trees Bearing fruit. These sparkling totems fixed All towns’ broken yolks. And then, I saw it Crow-black, gaping shadow… …..In my sun. G-20 In
casual clothes I
walk to work Expecting Revolution Past tweeting birds Twittering paper-sellers And free samples of new sandwiches. At
the convulsing morning Travellers, shoot glares of rancour Seek out the tight-necks And full-blue steamy auras Of
the square-mile scoundrels; But these needy eyes find only smiles Squints and light spring nods; One such gesture sent whistling A
whole four-storeys down By
a friendly Farringdon resident; Clasping filtered coffee He’s contemplating egg-based Bread-based breakfasts Oral love on sun spattered sheets And slurping cocktails through warm July Evenings of trombone jazz. This is some way off from revolution. Outside my building, yellow vested Lachlya greets me in handshake- He mans the doors here Takes business classes at night,
sends letters Newspaper clippings and ‘London
Wealth’ Home to his family in village-part
Nepal. There’s talk of charities Before further hand clasping and
enthusiastic Goodbye waves. It’s like this Every time we meet. Lunchtime gamboling Is me tailing protest chants Until they become booms and barks Some men shouting carbon, some
munitions, some lobby For the market villains to be strung
up With arms out like Christ on souvenir
toys. Scattered causes every bit
beleaguered By the cyclones of constabulary Their stranglehold. I stop to clap a policehorse but am
told off: ‘Sorry’ I say. ‘Would you rather I
smashed a window Or two?’ I would but he doesn’t
reply. After being ushered up and down; marshalled Left and right I get back to the
office ten minutes tardy. It turned out I didn’t need the
Emergency Line Or last cigarette, which like the
whole thing Politely fizzled out. Page Up l Poems | 