Elements

 

Live life, and in living life remember that there is no fear, there is no guilt and there is no shame. Love each other, and love will remove all anguish. 

Or do the opposite and be an a-hole.

Next UP: 

Elements

Poems are opiums fallen for the ocean

curators of the monsters we pretend

to keep safely under the bed

poker set eyes roll the dice

do we open the world up again or

set it alight with one button

opiums are poets in the breeze

angelic poppies offering glimpses

into our museums of pain

tragedies replayed over and again

again until we stop for breath

return to hiding safely under the bed

poems are our opiums of choice

cut down to the vanishing bare bones

volcanos erupt in another room

for other people leading a contrasting life

the world turns at offbeat speeds

it’s when we decide to leave we smile

© 2024 Zac Thraves

Queer Things

 

As if an invasion of pods farmed in a sleepy town is not bad enough, and then turned into emotionless doppelgangers, we have a world seemingly bent on seeing us become such things. We are strange things; we are poor things; we are curious things; we are aliens and children of the universe. We are magical.

We are...

Queer Things

One nostril means latin,

The other means greek.

My legs will be 

little steel rods,

which will continue

trotting after 

I am dead.

My arms are

two useless limbs

when i stand on my head,

(Which I never do).

My mouth, too often open,

will be my despair - 

clogged and sputtering

and drivelling - 

when i’ll be very old (which

will never be)

I hate my head

My rotting head

which will never fall of itself

like any decent pear,

It has the intention

of flying up to the sky,

but it will always trail in the dust:

eating grime and dirt,

screaming erotic songs,

begging all the world

to enter into it. 

Emanuel Carnevali (1861-1930) 

Published with awe and respect. All copyrights are owned by the authors. 

Rice Pudding Blues

 

What is the power basis of a rice pudding?

never ending milk and rice placed to a bowl, or pot

riddled with the blood of a strawberry

pulsed into a fibrous jelly and dolloped into the sea

at the end of the pot, or the bowl, sits the rainbow

waiting for your lottery win of gold and fizz

like one of those Dib-Dab sweets that children 

of the 70’s thought so wonderful, now a game

on a phone that cannot call, but can tell you the 

weather in Nairobi.

Zac Thraves 2023

Published with awe and respect. All copyrights are owned by the authors. 

The Very Image by David Gascoyne

An image of my grandmother

her head appearing upside-down upon a cloud

the cloud transfixed on the steeple

of a deserted railway-station

far away

An image of an aqueduct

with a dead crow hanging from the first arch

a modern-style chair from the second

a fir-tree lodged in the third

and the whole scene sprinkled with snow

An image of a piano-tuner

with a basket of prawns on his shoulder

and a fire-screen under his arm

his moustache made of clay-clotted twigs

and his cheeks daubed with wine

An image of an aeroplane

the propellor is rashers of bacon

the wings are of reinforced lard

the tail is made of paper-clips

the pilot is a wasp

An image of the painter

with his left hand in a bucket

and his right hand stroking a cat

as he lies in bed

with a stone beneath his head

And all these images

and many others

are arranged like waxworks

in model bird-cages

about six-inches high. 

David Gascoyne (1916-2001)

Published with awe and respect. All copyrights are owned by the authors.