Mark Pollins

I'm so free, it hurts;
I'm so free, it's useless.
...

In the trendy Jazz club, in Tel-Aviv,
In the warm kiss of two properly-brought up teenagers,
On the waves of the loud music emanating from the fast, safe cars on highways,
Out in the cool night air, caressing the neatly carved kibbutz fields,
...

Jumping, sliding along a blue rail,
The crow seems at home next to the half-eaten somethings
On plates, in the open-air restaurant.
Another one, cheekier than the first, lands
...

I still blame my incompetence for my father’s death. Is it four poundings to the heart, then six breaths into the misshapen mouth? Should I get a note-book out and notch up each breath? What a mess. I informed the operator in a matter-of-fact manner: “If the ambulance doesn’t arrive soon, they won’t have any reason to come.” Mad dog barking, snarling; while my mother was led off to the bed-room to spare her the last lifeless attempts. But me, I was cool, as if preparing to go out and see a film. It was Friday night, we had to arrange for two Muslims* to remove my father’s body… “unless you’d rather it stayed here until Saturday night”, offered the ambulance driver. The last time my father left our home he was naked, covered by two thick blankets which acted as a stretcher. The two Arabs carried the body out to a big van; they nearly banged it on the back doors. I said, “Be careful with his head”, not fully understanding the implications of the sentence.
...

Fields, run to the fields, he asked of them.

It’s hot out there, we don’t want to, they answered.
...

pleasing November sun
the porters rush in and out
I rest my legs on a bench
...

Ain't no waltz without a mindless war
Ain't no graceful dive of the saxophone without heartless bloodshed
Ain't no democracy without the tyranny of the mob
Ain't no love without sex
...

while taking a bite of my sloppy felafel pita
while wiping the windscreen-wipers of my new car
while lying on the beach in the hot, hot sun
while reading all the right articles in the right paper
...

At the time of breaking of certainties,
When my eyes express absolute truisms,
Shelley’s Wild West Wind seems chilling
On such a hot sweltering day.
...

If I were asked to name a god,
I'd invent one for chocolate.
...

Head on the pillow.
Head on the floor.
Head under the ground.
...

The boys are rocking tonight,
There’s a bonfire they have lit,
Little girls - clutching eachothers tiny hands -
Are dancing around the orange flames.
...

I cling to the handle of the heavy fire-door
that keeps the new mall safe from fire.
The hefty push down
helps push you one further step
...

Living inside my two loudspeakers,
Two immaculate black boxes;
And when the screaming and shouting get really bad,
I climb up into the earphones.
...

I’m one of those writers who doesn’t know how to spell.
One of those sunglassed men – so cool – who can’t stop shaking.
One of those beauties with a smiling face,
When a dropp of opera and a few waves of coffee,
...

Seven hours of television a day are watched in an average American home.
The Drug-store cowboy, replaces the Western lone-ranger.
A picture of children smiling in their sleep,
Seems out of place in a shop window on Broadway.
...

Here I sit, wordless,
Marooned, forgotten.
I let my feelings float along with the music:
Oud & guitar.
...

My moody depression is an accumulation of bad sleep, rotten sleep, bark-shredded sleep, and reports from the ports of hell and the volcanoes of Rwanda – the latest “God was here, but left early” disaster summer-camp. If you are white and bleeding for the black cause, you can find plenty of fodder to keep your hungry conscience busy. Cover yourself up with a blanket, as you continue to watch a live broadcast, complete with natural colours and authentic sound. Even the dead-dying must be spread across your screen in immaculate transmission.
...

Was it plasticine they received,
Or was it mud?
Did they try and reshape the wet concrete of my mind,
Or was I allowed to decide in which directions I wouldn’t grow?
...

He has no arms or legs but how he sings
He is obese and has bad eyesight but he is felt in the heart
He is in eternal darkness hasn't got an inkling
But what stories he conceives and tells
...