Tag Archives: poem

MOTHER OF SNAILS (catfish)

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2013

—

See the big black one?
It lives in tropical South American rivers
and floodplain lakes and it says here
it’s called the MOTHER OF SNAILS
(catfish).

She’s a TITAN in her tank!
Plated powder-black, sat still,
watching with a milky filmed eye,
obscured to protect your sanity
for what good it may do.
You have come to the basement aquarium
and you have seen the LEVIATHAN.

The base of this glass is like the depths
of the Earth. The MOTHER OF SNAILS
(catfish) waits, observing the darting,
open-mouthed wretches before her, weird
like a darker Pluto under water (or a catfish).

oxydoras_niger11

She is CREATOR
of snails
(catfish)
sifting the sands for detritus
and life and spitting it out
with her sort of

funny, Poirot mustache, a-
it’s a catfish.

Man

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2013

—

When God saw the face of man
He thought the man had made the sun.
He knew better, but He swears He thought so
in that moment. He always remembers.

When God saw the man’s hands build
He thought it was magic and He gasped.
He thought there were wonders He couldn’t touch
and He thought He would reach forever.

When God saw the man’s eyes up close
He thought they were windows to paradise.
He saw a halo and the light of colour
and mused about what might be in the black.

One day God heard the man speak to Him
and He thought He would never be happier.
He waited to hear the secrets of everything
until He slept, and smiled, and it died.

Spider Spiding

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2012

—

I saw a spider spiding
and you know it saw me too.
You’re not supposed to see them spide.
They always know when you do.

You’ve seen them spinning thinning
wettened strands of flattened flax
and standing, guarding statue-still
like soldiers by their cracks,

those black cracks in your paint-peeling ceiling,
the ones that used to be yours
until the spiders came and stayed
and spided and left you the doors.

You know what spiding is to spiders
and you know you’d never admit it.
We all pretend they’re just trappers and catchers and
crawlers and creepers and nothing else in it

but they’re spiders. Voracious with it, traitorous,
pernicious and vicious inhuman little
blighters with their spiding, biding their time,
day and night as they wait, saving their spittle,

saving their flies, slavering hideous bile on their smiles,
disguising the spindle sharpened taloned legs they’re hiding
behind their manifold red eyes and fangs and other rattling swords,
there just to dampen the sickening silence of spiding.

If you see a spider spiding,
they’ll always see you too.
You know they like their spiding secret.
You won’t know what to do.

Dream Serial

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2011

—

If we’d never left Eden, dreams wouldn’t be
what they are: teasing and muzzy little clips
out of David Lynch films, clumsily halting and cut
as sarcastic parental warnings,
elastic metaphorical taunting from a part
of our minds too dumb or too scared to impart
what it wants to, to us.

They’d be serials. Flashy and marvelous
chunks of adventure, no more ethereal visions,
conjecture, departure, just cliffhangered,
thrilling big-budget six-parters, beginning
on Monday and taking a rest for cartoons,
cheering us up, making us laugh until
in the morning we take a cold bath and complain,
‘Aw, dad. Pirates again! I wanted cowboys this week.’

In Case of Dementia

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2011

—

I’m the old man with dementia who
used to be an author.
I wrote this before all that happened. I was
terrified

that the books I’ve collected might
still be where they are, neglected,
stained with stale coffee by weary sons
too dry-eyed to read.

Carers now urge me to rhyme as
I did, as if I could, and loved ones
suffer,

pushing back their lives, putting up with
mine and their passive aggression
(as they know I would for them if
I could). Wishing I would die as

now they mouth ‘thanks’
to a carer, or a lover with a petrified smile,
trying to help. Let this do
for memories.

Henri Rousseau’s Safari Park

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2010

—

We visited Henri Rousseau’s safari park when the wars
were done. The place was overgrown, left
in such a hurry.

The leaves we could see in that little clearing were choking,
splattered into wet root husks and mud,
turning deep and greasy as they bent into heaps,
churning the rain into thick, dark colour.

No animals were still in sight but the really frightened ones
with the biggest teeth.

The branches were thinner there, beyond that sole glass
window that stood there, constrained to its case
but rattling in the winds,
where the ticket office had been.

The park must have been beautiful in the moment,
when the bombs were cracking the city around it,
after the gift shop and before the peace time.

When we finally arrived, it was too late.
The zookeeper had moved on, left this stark storm behind him.
Europe was safe for one more generation.
We got in our car, wiped our glasses and left.

The Wasp on the Window

by Chris Buchanan
Poetry, 2010

he beats flaps of film,
no more than shed flakes of skin to Him,
more advanced,
He who wonders at his easy flight
and brushes breadcrumbs from fat lips.

He backs away,
as if that tiny blunted point of abdomen
could wound
this other, with eyes larger than his being,
eyes in subtle, soft, insidious colours.

The bastard takes mysteries for granted, guttering
loud, slow nonsense over sputtering.
Helpless scrabbling on invisible surface,
reflective, while he watches perfect.
he waits

and watches the fuck,
legs moving like tools to prime,
mechanical
lifts to lift him away
if He tries to crush his fragile shell.

If He tries then weak venom strikes, spikes,
spills his mind and fills his pike.
he moves in faster planes, HE flies!
He cannot fly! HE can fly, HE will FLY!
HE’LL kill!

A move is made and he backs back a bit
to the strange safety of confounding surface, flits
into air
unsweetened by jam and sweat and mammal.
he escapes, transgressing transfixing panel.

Tomorrow it will play out again.
He dares to take his air
and offer His sandwich.
Tomorrow HE’LL win!
He’s more scared of him than he is of HIM.

A love poem by Steve Martin

A love poem by Steve Martin: renowned comedian, banjo player and personal friend of Johnny ‘the casher’ Cash. Transcribed from Saturday Night Live (season 14, episode 20).

—

Every man needs a woman and I need you
to lift me when I am sad,
to comfort me when I am down,
to clean me when I am drunk,
to walk beside me when I want to look like I’m not gay,
to walk in front of me when I need someone to act as a human windbreak,
to kiss me when I’m horny,
to massage me when I am tense and / or horny,
to make me horny when I’m not horny
and then to watch me fall asleep.

I need you, darling,
to clean between my toes when they are not clean to my satisfaction,
to pick the nits out of my hair when I have head lice,
to try milk for me when I am not sure of the expiration date,
to be there when I need you to be there
and to be out of town the rest of the time.

My darling, although it may seem sentimental
I want to take this moment to tell you I love you
because I don’t want to lose half my stuff

and even though you are far away across the ocean
I always have this to remind me.

Sorry.
Goodnight, my love.

Steve-Martin