To A Sad Daughter by Michael Ondaatje
All night long the hockey pictures gaze down at you sleeping in your tracksuit. Belligerent goalies are your ideal. Threats of being traded cuts and wounds –all this pleases you. O my god! you say at breakfast reading the sports page over the Alpen as another player breaks his ankle or assaults the coach. When […]
The Time Around Scars by Michael Ondaatje
The Time Around Scars by Michael Ondaatje A girl whom I’ve not spoken to or shared coffee with for several years writes of an old scar. On her wrist it sleeps, smooth and white, the size of a leech. I gave it to her brandishing a new Italian penknife. Look, I said turning, and blood […]
The Cinnamon Peeler by Michael Ondaatje
The Cinnamon Peeler by Michael Ondaatje If I were a cinnamon peeler I would ride your bed And leave the yellow bark dust On your pillow. Your breasts and shoulders would reek You could never walk through markets without the profession of my fingers floating over you. The blind would stumble certain of whom they […]
Speaking To You (From Rock Bottom) by Michael Ondaatje
Speaking To You (From Rock Bottom) by Michael Ondaatje Speaking to you this hour these days when I have lost the feather of poetry and the rains of separation surround us tock tock like Go tablets Everyone has learned to move carefully ‘Dancing’ ‘laughing’ ‘bad taste’ is a memory a tableau behind trees of law […]
Notes For The Legend Of Salad Woman by Michael Ondaatje
Notes For The Legend Of Salad Woman by Michael Ondaatje Since my wife was born she must have eaten the equivalent of two-thirds of the original garden of Eden. Not the dripping lush fruit or the meat in the ribs of animals but the green salad gardens of that place. The whole arena of green […]
(Inner Tube) by Michael Ondaatje
On the warm July river head back upside down river for a roof slowly paddling towards an estuary between trees there’s a dog learning to swim near me friends on shore my head dips back to the eyebrow I’m the prow on an ancient vessel, this afternoon I’m going down to Peru soul between my […]
Elizabeth by Michael Ondaatje
Elizabeth by Michael Ondaatje Catch, my Uncle Jack said and oh I caught this huge apple red as Mrs Kelly’s bum. It’s red as Mrs Kelly’s bum, I said and Daddy roared and swung me on his stomach with a heave. Then I hid the apple in my room till it shrunk like a face […]
Bearhug by Michael Ondaatje
Bearhug by Michael Ondaatje Griffin calls to come and kiss him goodnight I yell ok. Finish something I’m doing, then something else, walk slowly round the corner to my son’s room. He is standing arms outstretched waiting for a bearhug. Grinning. Why do I give my emotion an animal’s name, give it that dark squeeze […]
Application For A Driving License by Michael Ondaatje
Application For A Driving License by Michael Ondaatje Two birds loved in a flurry of red feathers like a burst cottonball, continuing while I drove over them. I am a good driver, nothing shocks me. End of the poem 15 random poems Poetry by subject Some external links: The Bat’s Own Poetry Cave Talking […]