Sport 31: Spring 2003

Mayakovsky's five-rayed hands

page 246

1.
She loves me? She loves me not?
I wring my hands and scatter my fingers

one one one one as I pull them off.
No good! I need eleven fingers, but

my hands are five rayed,
left
right
left
right
she loves me not.

2.
It is past one o'clock.
She must have gone to bed.

There is no point
in materialising with telegrams,

bleaching out the walls
of her flat.

3.
The sea is retiring, it is late,
the incident is closed.

page 247

Love's boat has shattered
against the frou-frou of the everyday,

we are both washed down the gutter,
I won't be suing her, I'm hosed.

4.
It is past one o'clock.
She must have gone to bed.

The milky way spills across the sky
like a daisy chain.
I'm in no hurry.
One
one
one
one:
I'll pick them off.

There's no point
in waking her with telegrams,

the incident, as they say,
is closed.

I won't be suing her,
drawing up a list of sorrows and pain—

Look! See how the sky holds onto the stars:

you'd almost think you could address history,
and the future would be listening.

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5.
I know the power of words,
not the words they applaud in the theatre,
one
one
one
one,
never breaking out of their coffins,

I don't mean those, I mean when words
discard you, unprinted, unpublished,

and gallop off, tightening the saddle-girth,
ringing for centuries,
sto
ste
sto
ste,
and railway trains creep up to lick poetry's
calloused hands.

I know the power of words,
though they might look (at times) like petals

trampled underfoot.