Three Poems

Prizes

A cold wind. A clear sky. Wet branches
sizzle this morning in the sunlight.
Take no notice of the man behind the curtain.
You can always get back to Kansas. If you know
where home is, you don't have a problem.
Consider this lonely man, unshaven, smiling.

Pissed tonight, he grounds himself in the riches
of poetry, and puts away his angry fear
of being forgotten, alongside the hope
of prizes: knowing those blobs of glory,
are trinkets in the jewellery shop window
which is the human imagination of eternity.


Tbilisi

Skewered lamb with almonds, champagne and Lermontov.
Poets loved Tbilisi in Soviet days. They flew south
...