same identical sun

Anna Akhmatova, the Russian poet so traduced by Lynn Coffey (see below) was often painted by Modigliani, who was also a friend of Cendrars. (They’ve also got cool made-up superhero poet names – something I’ve become interested in since discovering that Kierkegaard seems to have written under the pseudonym of Johnny Climax. Soren! Dude!). I was thinking about this and for some reason I was reminded of a little ebony fake-african statuette there used to be in my gran’s living room. And when I was ill recently it occurred to me that time travel seems at its most plausible in a quiet living room on an overcast afternoon.


wind hill place

future dream of africa, long
neck of wood already furred
with greasy dust by the
time it gleamed and hid

among the other ornaments
what does it have to say, oh
really---------------really
nothing akhmatova slender

if you press the sofa dust
comes up, out of the green
utility matrix, into present
clouds / candle jar / window.

can’t get horizon to mean.
sloppy looking. statuette.
piano / dining chair / gas fire
early spring 1924, and now

everything in this poem
disappearing over
castlemilk, over
cathkin brae