AND THE CRANE LIFTED THE HEART

Slowly he fell amongst the sheets
Three hundred metres and a park
From the public library
Where the howling pigeons walk
To forget their feathered wings
He was named for duty
And a poets life
He wore the boots of childhood
With leather laces
That broke with a pattern unnoticed
At the beginning of every May
He enjoyed the warmth of the city
During his extended adolescence
As he grew fond of following aesthetic form
And wearing white singlets with chinos
(the uniform of the swimming summer thinker)
In library cubicles he grew mad with firecrackers
Exploding behind his fly buttons
So had no choice but to leave
Nothing to no man’s imagination
Not even God’s guilt
Then paper and pen
Became the road to paradise’s port
This man with the blue eyes who lived on candy and beer
Knew the answer to the secret ’?’
But would he catch the thoughts of the city’s gulls?
And learn to write it’s illustrations?
Would he study the bridges phallic architecture?
Make love to its poetic purpose?
This man could love his city
No more than his city could live it’s maker
This man could love his language
No more than his language can love its listenets
No more than a drowning man
Can love his last breath
A vague maudlin intelligence
Was the cologne that cornered this man’s jowl
And loneliness was the tailor
Who would make his favourite suits
For although he chased and whispered
And danced with love
It was he not love who spent the energy
And was love who taxed him hard
And often left him silently standing alone
Looking out at a bay
With so many words building a room within
His starlit mind
Blocking out the light of morning
Making him look the poetic fool
So this man bought a ticket
And caught a ship…