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Poetry

Watching My Friend Play the Piano

your podgy fingers arch and flop like monks
in their cowls
on their wild uncertain bed
where
even Mr. cat, that old master of life unwieldly,
can hardly put a paw right
your music is too much wine in my head
it distorts me makes me tall or into a little person
gawking from the mirror, losing,
having lost ye olde blueprint of life
I m no draughtsman, but who is, a plan's got
to be drawn up
all the same
just like the North American Indians who got
to [unclear: malvest] man to make their mask
(and [unclear: ot] the best carver of wood)
mo important for the body to be a bear cage
I want to hear
claws smashing at the bars

— Martin Doyle

On the occasion of Robert Creeley's visit to Victoria University.

Dim eyes all of the time
Clashing black hat of green
hair with grey beard
as if to signify
an old mouth with new ideas
Seeking something etc.
Goddamit, old man, nothing doing.

Even you have a hero
Imagine that on this day
you can speak with enthusiasm
You, the uneasy accompanist with
an extra syllable
smoke shroud in all blues rag but
Time waits for no one, old man
Start flagging those decades down.

— English student