Immanuel Suttner   

 

Recycling

The night sky
is a big black plastic garbage bag
into which some yawning galactic worker
having spotted it on the floor at the end of their shift
has carelesly gooied
the earth
and in the places
where a child of the universe
has punched holes with an interstellar
bic pen
little stabs of light
seep in
and right on the other side
perhaps from overuse,
is a large gash some call the moon
they tape up the hole but each month
it slowly falls apart
and in the morning a different worker
blinking and rubbing her eyes
rolls up the bag and
stuffs it behind
the sun
ready for the night shift
to use again

_______________________

gooied - Afrikaans for 'chucked".Pronounced chooiyed, the ch as in the Hebrew letter chet, or as in the end of 'Bach"

 

 

 

I was sent to the headmaster
for misbehaving
I stood there,
looking down
at my scuffed shoe and
trying to stop my left leg
from trembling
stealing little glances at
Him
behind the desk
He seemed huge, He filled the entire
universe
I wanted to say
"You made me what I am"
but I was too afraid.
In the distance I could hear
the buzz of a lawnmower.
The clock on the wall
ticked into the silence
He shuffled some papers and rose.
"You come and sit in my chair" he said,
"then you'll see things as I see them."
He made space for me to pass
helped me up onto his chair
fully adjustable, with a high
back and padded arms
the Throne of Glory
I spun round and around and around in it
‘til I was old and a headmaster
waiting expectantly
for a little boy
to enter and greet me.

At one-ment

I met this woman in the park
her dog was a serious chap I
fancied he took a liking to me
A cross between a Jack Russell and a Pug,
mistakenly I called him a Puggle
she explained it was more correct to say Jug
and thus as people do
we began to talk
she told me about her 39 year old
gay son
who is making a lot of money in New Zealand
with FIFO work
and I told her that my one son
has my face
and the other
my baby toe
and she told me how she looks after the Jug
for some other people who separated
and how she too split from her partner
when their now 39 year old was still young
and how this ex died last year
The little Jug
had softened a bit by this stage, although
still refusing to smile, and he and my Ella
our love ball in a dog suit
chased each other
on the cartoon green grass
in intersecting
and diverging lines
spelling out the letters
to remind my default sadness
Eloheem
the Lord of Separations
hu Adonai, the self same G-d
of meetings in the park.
______________
FIFO – fly in fly out, usually on remote mines
Eloheem hu Adonai – the aspect of Justice, or limits, or boundaries and the aspect of Mercy, or infinite possibility, are two sides of the same essential and unified reality. The reversed expression - Adonai hu Elohim - is chanted seven times at the end of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement