Kit Kelen #1446 - 61

1446

61

poem on his birthday

number with little clout

on inching

today when I can’t be criticised

or put foot wrong

mustn’t lift a finger

not a number to boast of

more ‘how did we come to this?’

still they add up

to a fortune of years

as for the sake of argument

is it billions of cells in the body?

you’ve got them too

let’s google

I don’t even know all the organs

and so many going so well

the universe is everything billions

was and will be

towards eternity

one feels more and more

the respectable speck

a kind of mind drift stocktake

you get into

kind of number makes some numb

women of this vintage

often will keep mum

look down

look up

a self in feats

and wonder who’s that calling

I know there’s water in those clouds…

swamp birds tread the nothing mud

now here for the objective conditions:

(first part of the forecast)

and call my kingdom dust

dry day, tending proverbial

gather my weather here

with smoke

stay out of the mirror today

61

it’s nobody’s lucky figure

oh but it must be somebody’s

a day or two away the heat

these riches of time

like water in the tank

on perfect days

show nothing

no news good

barely remember to be here at all

it’s the cat’s birthday too

in housie rhymes with

monkey’s bum

such empty mouthings

I call prayer

more words than point a stick

watch starlings’ shadows

where the garden was

and then a little sneeze

61

nor is this auspicious, otherwise

unless ‘so his race was run’

in a year like this

invisible as parents

reliably at home

rambling on

and no one

listens

no one’s there to

(you can’t blame them)

treat the place like a hotel

our lives as well

it’s tinsnips to the toenails now

the bastard file

I’ll have to polish some part of me

pumice and erupt – he’s smooth!

turns out all along

I was polishing the stone

(not grinding sesame at least)

takes a while for a thing to sink in

pick up the penny you’ve dropped

61

after the Senior’s Card, the Ancient’s

still waiting on deification

I’ve owner built my own pyramid

(cynics would say pyre)

living as we do between great fires

always summer on the birthday

but it rhymes with fun

now I remember  

in google

turns out to be 37 something trillions

we’re really rather well endowed

bounded in a nutshell

and something Borges’ library

every one of them full of still deciphering

that’s more than the world’s annual military budget

or something like half what it would cost to fix climate change

over the next thirty years

give or take

… mainly it has been take

merrily merrily

that was appetite spoke

or rather crooned

(on your birthday you can

it’s like a day in the shower)

it’s nowhere else around this sun

you’ll find one more amoeba

be a while checking nearest stars

thirty seven trillion

just cannot imagine

and into the morning stretch

61

better and better at forgetting

I learn something new every day

no exception

today when I can’t be criticised

mustn’t lift a finger

can’t put a foot wrong

peel me a grape, won’t you