TANDEM
I have never known happiness
though I have seen it blink
in the sun-stretched city;
as I crossed New York Harbor
I watched another ferry
headed inward, where one boy,
one girl, lifted by it, jumped
in tandem as if on a trampoline,
sparky as the wake behind
and once at Berlin Zoo,
a beatifical hyena, swollen with it -
twice her own size,
days away from dropping
her sprawl of cubs - at whom
I stared rapt until I saw
she was not looking out of her cage
but into mine; and that
I'd held these bars all my life.
© Roddy Lumsden
GREAT BEAUTIES AND WHERE TO PLACE THEM ON THE STAGE
Carolina at the lacquered upright,
limbered fingers set to play
the black keys only;
Emma, where her shadow dims
the rake, the bombshell news
primed in her mouth;
Constanza in her wedding outfit
underneath a bust of Juno,
thrilled and fretting.
Gemma pacing the apron to throw
her hat, proud with flaws,
rotten with laughter;
Solvicha gazing into a window
cut through the backcloth
(piped birdsong);
Alma on the recliner, upstage,
gazing at the mounted gun
which will be used.
© Roddy Lumsden
CONTAGIOUS LIGHT
That I didn't speak in those times:
the pier spilling out into the sea,
a half-love spilling under me,
the weather saying '70 or '91;
that the train met buffers in towns
my fondest touch ignored,
so little did I need to need that world,
my sorry calculations done;
that a grand parade of light teems
heatless, sacks and sets fire
to chanced-on minor cities of desire
proves all and none.
© Roddy Lumsden
ANGELS HURLED DOWN
An Easter parade. First you hear it -
woodwind from lisping speakers -
then you glimpse it along a side street
and you long to feel that rapture
yet instead fists tighten as you stop
on Union Square; a bitter wind whips
your thinning hair, you watch the majorettes
glad-hand the day in yellow suits
and weather too unwholesomely crisp
for pompoms and thighs; most
daydream of chocolate eggs or blister pads
and boy bands, though one perhaps
shares your desire for a wrinkled, risen Christ
swimming into the harbour.
And yes, that is blood in the water.
What else would it be?
© Roddy Lumsden
