OF MAN & SUPERMAN
an inflated question hovers then floats
into his room multiple answers
hang on for the wind to change
for the precise moment to massage
old pains old scores old heartaches
to chorus alleluia
to chant Hare Krishna
this super man who often withdraws
to a tall empty cupboard is the organiser
the ringmaster the shaman
the frontier fighter
he shows off
his latest electronic trick
his voice leaping up
from its music box he never
uncouples his body parts never
ventures outside the weight of his skull
& like a father i’m used to carrying him
from hideout to hideout
THE FALL
nearly everyone
has fallen has felt
the vertigo others
have hurtled horizons
breaking sound systems
crockery windows
eardrums some have become
easy targets
for successful participants
i struggle for a clear picture
2 shop models
are window-dressed for summer
their bodies pressed
flat against reflections each
perpetually shines shows
a glossy facial crown
i hear the heavy fall of a planet
slipping off its equator the
unbuckling of a belt of speeding light
the explosion of a sun flare
looking up somebody
throws me a long rope
of white-hot molecules
RED JACKET
like a stain
the stillness remains
whichever way i stare
the stillness lives
in the eye of an icon in the
mind of the poet
in the red jacket in
the vision of this
solitary audience
of the fire-eater
performing on the corner people stuffing down hot dogs
the contortionist stripped to his tattoos a veiled woman
presses a sprig of flowering wildfire into my hands
whichever way i look
the poet in the red jacket
has something to say
he calls me over
he won’t rub out
he’s insistent
about the peaceful noise
living parasitically in his ear
By Iain Britton
- Since 2008, Iain has had five collections of poems published, mainly in the UK. Recently, poems have been published or are forthcoming in Cordite, the Harvard Review, Mantis, POETRY, STAND, Poetry Wales, Clinic, The Literateur, The Black Market Re-View, AGENDA, The Fortnightly Review, Long Poem Magazine, Molly Bloom, Blackbox Manifold and the High Window. A new collection THE INTAGLIO POEMS has just been published by Hesterglock Press (UK), 2017 – https://www.facebook.com/Iain-Britton-236842853178112/
Hypnopomp 