refining my attentions

In town again today - and couldn't resist the purchase of yet another poetry volume! This time, a very recently published (2021) collection, as pictured ...

... and keeping the general NPD Theme going, here's a favourite taken from within, written by Ralf Webb:


Love Story: Crown of Love

There is too much grass to mow.
It’s better to lie down in from time to time,
And get lost, clutching, for e.g.,
Your ankle, finally fitting a finger
Into the rim of your ear,
Finding dried blood there
From a miscellaneous fly sting
You might have picked at, and at. Show me
Where, exactly, inside of you
I can hide. I am desperate to hide,
Co-ordinates please, Jesus:
This is the most I have ever wanted.
Or, to peaceably scythe every false growth,
and grow again, from the inside out.

The tree-brains are shedding their pollen.
I am shedding all pretences, refining
My attentions. In a moment
Of lucidity, watching a black ant
Move up your knee, I am convinced
We could bury the artefacts
Of our respective sicknesses, back there
In the vegetable patch, to be nourished
By common minerals, and evolve.
Is this bad taste, selfish, the sense that
There are no more problems left to solve?
Nix to the global crises, the endless
Ecological traumas. Just, don’t care.
Let the engines float, then tumble through the air.

What I’m saying is, the chips are down:
I tasted the copper of your body
And instantly handed over all
Of my amulets, for you to evaluate
One by one, and tell me how
To lower my guard. God, I can’t deal:
These sort of sickeningly lovely
Scarlet foxgloves in late June
Arrowing themselves at the house,
Stephin Merritt playing on your phone.
The real, actual, terrifying fact
That we’ve cleared the mesh
Of countless afternoons, and just like that,
Have fallen into it, on your parents’ lawn.

---

Ralf Webb (1991 - )

---