the blue crane

there are times i wish

you weren't so literal.

when you didn't

become the coroner,

the forensic doctor

and slice into your flesh

and dig around for it

for the words, the poems,

the entrails of phrases

and make them seem

such a hopeless lot.

the type you would

sign off on deaths,

with a definitive

yeah this one

was never saveable



and i wonder why

you even want a woman

or remember the one

who took your insides

and stitched them to hers,

while telling you lies

about how it hurt her eyes

to read your words

and why you even needed

to write a poem on her

or two or three



or why it takes you

more than three times

as long as anyone

to work out you are

still breathing and

still walking like a

blue crane does,

stumbling through

the waterlilies in africa.

how you don't care,

you've never cared for

why the children die

and why divorce is

made more for women

as if the man is always wrong.

the reasons you look to fight

when even the biggest guy

doesn't want to raise his fist

not because he doesn't care

but because to fight you

is to prove it all correct,

that you are right

and no one has any

redeeming value



it's a love of

saving creatures,

of wading in to mud

a thousand mile deep,

plunging hands in

to see if anything

can be pulled to the surface

and i don't want to be

visiting you next year

right beside Bukowski

who said 'don't try'

and yours which will say



'thanks

i didn't'