How the rhino - poem

Perhaps it’s an obsession –
if such a thing exists
in someone as ordinary as me.

Tucked under the skin, an irritation,
wearing wrinkles in, and folds,
the way the rhino got his skin,
with this grazed remembering
of then.

Nothing visible –
no presence marking the place
where it happened –
so that’s what went on,
yes, I see. It’s evident.

No

stained and rusted patch
of anything resembling hate,
no slimed unease, no surface-caustic spill
that burns and sizzles through
to deeper places.

No, just this mild re-appearing
from the past,

and me
not choosing
to ignore it.

Bohemian - poem

Evening. Cigar smoke.
Your arm around
my shoulders.

You’re talking about changing
the world –

but first I have
to see to the children

Bloodstones - poem

The gems rattle loose
from their settings

clattering onto the much too solid
ground –

vitreous fragments revealed
as truth

in splinters –
and now the glass-sharp
edges

slide
so cleanly
into flesh.