Les Wicks


Opposable Thumbs

Once I sang
I cool blueline
drenched in wonder.

But gave it away to the fingers, they
touched the bleak edge
of an unmoneyed future
& I saw it
like some untethered boat
react with a fingertip nudge
just float away
to the open sea of a stranger's way.
That was so simple.
What else?
Fingers wash
stroke
they fight, fuck up & fix.
We wait
as their batons rule the beat.

It's them who work the guns,
take us down from trees
to their shitty little that
chon a beige savannah plain.

Glum
under the thumbcommute between fingerfoods
& a hand signed repossession order.
Our minds sit locked
in boxes made of muscle.

*Previously published in Bluepepper, 2006


Snowbound, Waiting For The Hearse

Directions:
If & when freezing Mum she’d want to know
that all the pleats were tidy –
hair done, the best string of pearls.
The deep freeze must be thoroughly scrubbed
then scented with 4711
vanilla
orange oil & hospital grade bleach – effect
eternal but tidy
both practical & kitchen based.
Her hands should be folded
but eyes propped open…
she will scowl at you through all the blizzards/
the frozen xmas bird of mother-love.

*First published in Sugar Mule


Free Dark

After air,
only darkness is free.
The police had spotlights
on the body, a plain white sheet
covering less than planned &
the blood was a gloss to burn fire engines.
The television people were there &
the official lighting was a blessing because
there was a truth to talk about.
Diana was buried tonight
Mother Theresa & this
just support acts
but pulse lost
just as firmly.
Death shrinks
but him
in young-guy clothes on Saturday night
fits the young guy victim profile
like 501s & attitude footwear.
He was my first
& deserves more distinction than that.

*First published in Stories of the Feet


Sipped

Sydney wanted fresh
but sick and blemish
had etched that day.
Then our eyes were healed -
drank the black tincture
of a harbour seconded by night,
fettled under starsplay.

*Previously published in Verses


Ascent

It's a click in the head,
a shunt in the marshalling yard as carriages come apart,
small ruptures
in the weeds of ganglion.
Then I am flying.

Like a surfboard
but less devious turbulence
no chafe
or clutter of the tribe.
The air supports
& insinuates.

No flapping of imagined wings
or contraptions that ordered souls can fabricate.
This is simply me
without the gravity,
habits of the feet.

A mind let loose -
one part reading atmosphere maps
thermal tracks the gossip of jetstream.
The rest is gasping with unfixed eyes
at human life made tiny -
a mosaic of colour, congregation.

There is no distance, though touch becomes
a convention dropped along the way.

This is the time most alive
though I suspect I am asleep.
That stuff of bodies & the real
is a debate left
beside friends, money/
the mortgage & pets.

I am waiting
(some steps closer to empty space)
for solar flares, epiphany/
a collaboration of crows.

Or the southerly change to send me
crashing back to flesh.

*First published in Famous Reporter