New Poems by Gary Cummiskey

A wave of the leg to Shams

We’re cruising at
39 000 feet
yet with the mountains
so high
I feel I could just put my hand
out
the window and touch
the snow-capped peaks.
I’m exhausted
from this extra-long
flight, but the hotel
in Venice is
still far away. We’re
turning left
into Turkey soon, just at Tabriz.
Give my love to Shams.

Barcelona

He wakes in the darkness
and sees through the porthole
bright lights, frightening,
bringing on memories of teenage gulag,
Kafka torture machines: he panics,
starts sweating, then
laughs aloud as he realises
it’s just the lights of Barcelona.

Fallen heroes

I once had a CD
of Maria Callas.
I hadn’t played it for years,
so the other
night I decided
to put it in the machine.
It played well for two or three
tracks while
I sipped tea
and read Pasolini,
but then
it stopped suddenly.
I opened the machine
and on inspecting the CD
was astonished
to find
on the playing side
a deep savage
furrow
like the torn
body
of a poet.

Silence

The old woman sits
at the end of the bed,
her eyes closed,
with papers
between her hands.
Silence enters the room
then goes out again.

Calling Elvis

Elvis died
while making love
to the shroud
of Turin
and dreaming of a girl
with two heads
but no soul.
She said she
had an
apartment to rent.

Inside

He’s alone.
It’s morning.
He wears
blue jeans and
a light-brown jersey.
His hands are
huge, like
a crab’s claws.
His head explodes.
We need
to get
deep inside.