The Michael Toy

Poems and Other Programmes


a poem for ryan


what poem can i write to set myself free?

i can write angry
my friends will surreptitiously tell me
they are angry too
i can write sad,
create space for others to weep,
no longer alone, sad
or i can make noises
and joy and lightness
we all lean back in our chairs
flying for that moment, until
we have to inhale

i have discovered fellow travelers,
i have not travelled.

which words summon the warrior goddess
wielding beauty and power
who can actually take me somewhere?
why is it always
i sacrifice
i invoke
i bleed
i find myself
dancing in her arms
she in mine
i lean in close enough
to feel her breath
it dawns, i have my arms,
again
around death's delicate waist

even this lament names her
conjures tumbles towards the rapture
and surrender to nothingness
existence becomes gravity
drawing in in all three dimensions
to a horrifying shape
that consumes anyone who sees it
the second law of thermodynamics
silently singing the universe
to sleep

a fifth dimension is needed.
an axis along which i can travel
gain the perspective that eludes me
probably not another poem
    about a star that weeps,
surely not
    the scent of a tear,
definitely not
    a salt crystal of memory that becomes a blade.

inside out underwear
sex with furniture
rude tuxedo rodeos
gerbil apocalypse
stabby the page with a bloody knife
songing sonnets to waffle irons
name your daughter ahab
scream at the impotence of your fracking useless fracking poem

impassable recedes
impossible unfolds
at a place which does not acknowledge
height, width, or depth

your self
dancing in the arms
of death, but
now known also as
moving in rhythm with
all that is alive

Path: Metapoetry