On Bull-Headed Art
(Twelve Random Shots)
1
Nothing
Surpasses the length of art.
Nothing, not even
Earthwide stretch of dust.
If fear is the ware you
Bring to town,
Go sell it to the marines
And to terrorists.
They are the ones
Who tramp around
The earth to headbutt
UFOs or strut
Around homes,
Throwing bombs
Like confetti.
Poets know fear too
Intimately to buy it.
Fear is nothing. Art is
Wild beyond the ken
Of left-handed gods.
2
The long fingers of magic
Stoke the sun.
We have grown
Coloured ears
And eyes in search
Of grand and new ways.
We are bull-headed. Who
Will dare once more
To inflict an old urinary
On a Poetry Expo?
O dare: we shall
Make sure of the piping
Right there and we shall
Take aim and pee.
Just to test the function.
O dare: we have grown
Deep ears and eyes.
We have sown ‘We’
In every ‘I’. O dare and see.
Nothing beats the Muses.
3
The last time a poet
Made poetry
On wastelands
And cranky old men,
We went there
To feed our eyes.
Closer home,
A fisher-poet laments
The apotheosis of
A glowering rat. There
Is no limit to the twists
That occur in poetry.
A rat bars a city
From recovery?
In other news,
A Nobel hero chants
About Night.
Too much crabbiness.
But it does not drag
Spirits into morbidity.
4
In the room over there,
A sad poet, inspired by
The earth’s ordeal
At the hands of
Its heedless children,
Recreates the Mother
Of God, praying
For us. A low tune
On iPod, Pussy Riot
Of all bands, steadies
The sad poet’s spirit
As it fires through
The rainy night.
Come to think of it.
How did those girls
Come by such a name,
Pussy Riot, of all names
In a finicky world?
Bull-headed through
And through.
