Asteroid wind? Invariably mumbled with final
words as the first - microbic coagulation?
In curdling sludge admiring itself
among still inarticulate stars. Poetry such stuff?

Cast-iron antiqued colander, on board
woebegone small radishes, waiting in vain for
their pa. Or loftier dreams: flayer-toothed jaws
whose breath is all too rank for fire not

to spurt out. Flit-spray, yes! that's what poetry is
carrying on inside wardrobes under lock - bugger
off man, had you but stayed a moth-eaten atom . . .
The close-fitting, cut-in-one meaning worn out

by lightweight crease-linen Sunday-bakers,
being seers of all and more, on own word of
honour. Does poetry keep itself cometically high like
a goose above Ooy? The spark lights up come-down

darknesses, black mendicant nuns piss there
on grey rocks forever floating through the universe
cramful of exalted thoughts on the frailest wee
blossoms. Earth meanwhile lies toiling and

moiling at its test paper while a fat failure
rises to the zenith every day, panting
heavily; our blessèd mummy who purl and plain
knits away at the woolly coms of time.

Translation: John Irons