Drama Studies

Tom Cruise must pelt
in hectic flight
between the slewing hoods
of inimical sedans.
Yes, night is best.

Daylight disappoints.
A mime in white-face
impersonates a mannequin,
has cleared Civic Square.
There is a sense in which
he experiments with time:
his slow, robotic stirring
restores belief in stillness.

page 61

Silk

From a distance I watch
a young man descend
by heart-shaped parachute.

He trims his silk,
I hear a crack,
he speeds like a bird
into a garden pond.

When I reach him he lies
under water as clear
as the best perspex.

How neatly he is dead,
how cleverly I dream
this absence of bubbles.

page 62

The Maritime Cook

Here lupin hides lost items
of the ocean’s rusting tackle.
Beyond these chains and flukes
is a bach I have my eye on,
a shed built into clay
and roosted in drab flax.

Feeney was once in a film
with Ustinov and Mitchum.
When he came into The Grand
it was with a toey shuffle
he made seem heroic—
Black Irish, square-templed,
he had a broken nose
the shape of a pawn or key.

He burned himself to death
with magnificent negligence.
Among the many things I seek,
the many reliefs I crave,
is illusion of the imminence of rain,
the first scant scratches of drizzle
on asphalt or pane.