Peter the Great


If this is all it takes to make us forget
       a book we thought would help and want to write
                                                       murder into the pages of whoever asks for help
too late
                                         Passing as myself, then aren't we expected to catch you
       sagging under the thirstiest faint grains of me
                         assembled like the worst of them (eating apart
and babbling unable) to recognise without you
             how I came to sit here in such a funny set of limbs for a book to describe
                      it's always the middle as long as we want
And myself until I tried to describe
                 my agreement honestly as a cleaner
                                                     looked back over her shoulder from her flushing
 to correct my list of what you had to have tried to understand without blushing
before it came to this.  All we had broken like bread between us turned to grunts
           Then was it from sleep to be raised just to get the week done
                     while underneath as pure sound they come back
expecting you to fall over yourself from one gallery of rubble to the next,
                              So that with clarity of conscience you can regard them
                          standing for others ripped faceless
                 was it just to be returned to themselves
                                                  by a single open mouth
                          found tapping under glass you say
                                          so many polite explanations from innocence and home
Who do such hurt in passing to perfection
trained behind doors with one too easily known
sounding dramas interlined  with the whole thinking world stood claimed  before
It sinks hard into the evening how much
                  is that darkness of a morning already known.


Waited on his laugh, did they just until his face forgives you.
       Remember, morning and evening until the thing was straight,
no longer need he recognise himself, or did he dress up when through
       them his name hewed, atavistic to the too clever, shorn and remade.
He never once failed, was it said, to recognise himself in any
       of the looks or laughs he earned in passing morning and evening,
until the thing was finished and away he clutched the same money
       as the worst of them, of all memories these hardly deserving
to turn out voices in his head.  And himself until they settle one
       heart beat too many drained for the comfort of a comfortable bed
was never too much to ask when did he just as evening began
       sag extraordinary under the weight like ships subjected
       to hapless waves of forest found morning and evening elected.