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New Poem By Todd Swift

August 1982, Lac Bridgen

Last how memory won’t come,
Late how the trick doesn’t snap.
No click of it, some snag at back,
Come on doll, whistle again later.

There’s fur on the feathers,
Suntan on petals, rust in our soup
And a ladder by this window.
No one withers at the ledge

And a sedge shivers.  Quit smoking
Or dig up the rubbish for a shortie.
It was hampering rain on the tin
Or ten ton hammering up the foil.

All the oil on the lake from engines
And loons honking out of season;
Not able to look that one up mother.
Boxes of Penguins; murder mostly

Wearing a girl’s clothes silently.
Shade-lust.  Not to admit mice
But there they were, hopping
Beam to beam mad as veins.

Stone stabs the water with its white.
A black grave when the sun went off.
A lake is like a lid; it hides what it sees.
Not there anymore.  Is thy cabin shut?

Can’t locate lyricism in this head.
The cure has killed off this impatient
If her patient was verse.  What’s left
When form has declined to form?

You have to remember to create.
You have to create to form memories.
What I write down is not only happening
It is making me realise what I have missed.

June 2011

poem by Todd Swift

Comments

Poetry Pleases! said…
Dear Todd

Bob Dylan, eat your heart out!

Best wishes from Simon

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