|PART THREE|
THE EMPTY SECOND
BECOMES AN
EMPTY SPACE
When it’s all over
forget about courtesy,
grab hold off a shooting star
and ride it all the way
until the photons say the
last word with a pulse of light
The man is no longer doubled over and
Observable from the window
As a result of his fifty-eight years
the equation of his life
All comes to zero
Whilst the mocking ticking and tocking
Of an old clock knocking minutes like
Nails into the wall—
He disappeared in a puff of smoke,
The ice in his glass melted and the woman picked it up,
Drinking it in a single gulp, the glass comes down as if
Magnetically drawn to the floor, the floor,
Where she lies silently and stretches her body
To get some release, she rubs her face against
The carpet, nothing matters except the next second,
Eyes, behind a blink or two, dart to another part of the empty room
She couldn’t think any further ahead than a second at all
And the zodiac crashed open
the ram sent stars flying
the crab snipped the string that suspended the stars
mars took some flak
and finally the sun was burst
by the horned goat
and aquarius held it
like the final fluid sphere
Stars, burning across the sky like the striking of a match
Those wishing on shooting stars
couldn’t decide what they wanted
many of them flying as there were
As well-known monsters
Weighed down by human hope,
clear out our night sky,
Leaving not a freckle to observe
Telescopes now point into bedroom windows
Shadows portray a sort of life,
Shadow puppets depict death through
Tragedy and lapses in timekeeping and
Obsessions with vanity
Life spends some empty second
Inside your lungs,
Continues on it’s way
To resuscitate a slowly fading knife attack victim
Or shake the hand of a minute,
Time is ticking laboriously by
The light, motherless and lost,
Spat out at as the sun was burst,
It looks up to see
the unveiling of the universe,
Finally,
the oyster swallowed the sea.
*—I didn’t want to be a poet by any means. After what happened working on the lifeboats I couldn’t go near the sea, so in a way I chose which parts of it I wanted and wrote about them. It terrifies me and fascinates me at the same time. I fully believe I will return to it only as ash...
Part Nine (3) of The Man Who Longed to be an Oyster