Image: © Courtesy of Manchester City Galleries
Control
The Pontotoc man
who confessed
to killing his best friend
during a fishing trip
because he believed this person
was summoning BigFoot to harm him,
has been convicted.
The man recounted seeing
a twelve foot BigFoot crouched
and hearing his friend howl
through a drainage pipe.
He claimed his best friend also insisted
on catching a particular type of fish
despite knowing what this meant.
There was a night-mist and the man said
a masked moon had spread down compass rays
to a cone mountain in the midnight haze.[1]
Uneasy, he feared
his best friend planned to drown him
and offer his body to the BigFoot downstream.
A physical altercation ensued
at the river’s edge
leading the man to strangle his best friend.
Appointed defense argued
the man was trying to assert control.
Not kill.
[1] from Moon Compasses by Robert Frost
End-Egg-Grief
Your last periods are rolling in now
erratic and late
like there’s been a major incident further down the track.
Bright blood in the toilet pan
I took as one of our daughter’s firsts
will soon be your last.
What card is in stock
to appropriately commiserate this ending?
Where is the surprisingly affecting pop song
that harmonizes on this?
A new type of freedom becomes
the lack of air in a room.
The sharpened fear of tomorrow
whilst pinioned by lethargy in an armchair
becomes a thing. I need solace
possibly in a new compound word—
the path shinrin-yoku offers,
the calm acceptance weltschmerz brings
because the hurt is known,
because the grief is shared.
____
Graham Clifford is author of five collections of poetry. His work has been chiselled into paving slabs, translated into Romanian and German, is found on the Poetry Archive, was rejected by The New Yorker and anthologised by publishers including Faber and Broken Sleep Books. Most recently his work has been included on Iamb and BerlinLit. www.grahamcliffordpoetry.com