When My Heart Is Weighed

When my heart is weighed against a feather

I know the memory of all I’ve written will lighten it

And the memory of the boy who leaves the bakery smelling the loaf through the paper bag

The memory of Noah, who begged me to write poetry on the walls of his ark

He paid me too much for my words

There was no money left for the boat’s headlights

Yet the sailors had cigarettes and dreams of soft skin

Am memory of

Saul ripping at Samuel’s cloak and Samuel becoming naked

‘The kingdom, you have lost’ he said ‘but me you shall have’.

Memories of sore soldiers and blessed swords

The memories of the last of the marble statues- the plaster of Paris’s design is now in vogue

And the time I asked the the sun ‘How do I become a hero?’

‘Who must I offend/defend/make love to?

What offerings on what isle must I make’

The grandfather of me, he was the last of the Lotus eaters

He knew the secret of man and dream

The earth she ate him

Death has no time for the past written up in books

Men! I have seen them, and even now I watch them still

They walk past a pane of glass big enough for a man and two asses to walk through

And they face the wind that is meant to assist

But they furrow their brows and bury their hands deep

Nudging the jewels that linger on my mind in my warmth

Atlas has made a fortune through his literary agent and publisher

While I write words to a population of mollusks clinging tightly to the hull of a boat that no one is game to steer

Maybe this boat will burn

And crash into the only library that contains my words

The Ark of Noah

These memories and thoughts they shall lift my heart

And the feather will fall