Ian Kellett Poems

I was always born in June,
And on the seventeenth.
It was always afternoon,
And the fifth day of the week.
...

And the man I saw came closer,
With weight in his eyes and sloth in his step
And double in his back and bone in his head
And nakedness that fed the air with an air
...

There’s something afire;
The tale of a loved one,
A messenger’s fright.
A strong under wire;
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You give up and could die,
An incurable,
But live and wonder why,
Uninsurable.
...

My emotional content has most surely been dulled,
By the repeated abuse of anyone’s alcohol;
It swells and produces more depth in my brain,
But my scale has lost timbre and my range its terrain.
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I wouldn’t want to take my fingers for a walk in your hair,
Washed in apple juice,
With orange roots,
And wild life living there.
...

There below the level of the logs,
Where a proper little island ought to be,
Swam a lovely creature with a face,
Tenderly rejoicing in the sea.
...

We moved along the lines
That mirrored the opinions
Of the life and sundry times,
Until the furthermost thoughts
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I’m not going back,
Not even when desperate loneliness speaks
I will not return,
If ever my absolute only-ness peaks
...

The chatter about,
The whispers of disparate tongues;
Offshore sounds of the morning
Inland after lunch.
...