MTC Cronin

The Brain Cake

for Vivienne Mohan

Too delicate for the egg beater
though any spoon or whisk
often feels aggressive enough
to murder the little eggs.
For example, why the supermarket?
Keen headscratching
and craning to see where
the mountains might have gone.
Or, didn't I use the same recipe
yesterday so why today
is there insufficient darkness
for a night and so little jouissance
in the scrambled light of morning?
Somebody said mood
was written on the packet
but I wasn't making a packet cake.
Or a golf course, not to mention
avoiding bulldozing a pile of fill
into a swamp and squeezing
a whole year of fashion and lifestyle
into a single press release.
No freeways or land
and house packages because
I was going to make my cake
the slow way - food for thought!
A glimpse of the truth.
Not having to be told
the same thing twice
or three or four or five times.
This brain's got a murmur,
a whisper, a rustling and can still
recognize something that's not
a brand or a slogan sung
to a silly song.
It tastes a bit like what's acquired
without being bought
though the increase in traffic
around the place and the urban
turmoil created by development
generally seems to have provided
some with the excuse
that they don't have time to cook.

Pah! The freshest ingredients
are constantly available
and it's pretty easy savouring
a brain that will always rise
to the challenge.

Flesh-Breath (Hyphen)

I fill my chest with the bulky trills of birds.
Mountains are feelings.
The plain a dying heart.
Suddenly, a moment of hyphenation!
Horizontal and vertical lines of the world intersect.
A slim golden feather flies straight to the sun.
In its place I found the sign.
Screaming roots with a green memory.
Breath.
Passing away in the flesh.

The Ash Sentence

A fingertip rubbed the length of it
The sand lions trawled through
With their paddy feet
Old men's eyes turned corners
A bunch of them sitting around
Trying to work out why other men killed
Secretly wishing they had killed
Among them a single lover
Always the same woman's voice
Tears in the other room
Many times the door opened
Snakes passed to the left and right
Evidence in the valleyed sand
Sun fed them new skins
A tree held the ground in its strong hand
Watched in its seasons
The woman's palm was full of sobs
He asked her for her liberty
She judged all his life
Their effort seized them
And carried them to their graves
His right arm became ash
Her pelvis fell as a ring of dust
A little track left by ants wrote
The story that could not enter them
The sentences are in love with each other

Someone Like God

Someone like God
Re-entered the room
After being asked to leave,
Under the arm, a goose,
The miracle, for this
Was a gooseless world,
Slight in this person's
Heart, rancour, because
Goddish there's not much
Room for bile and dirty
Work though in the creation
A lack of ability to think
Clearly might appear
As the joke that can't
Be laughed at, someone
Like God though meant
Well and dumped the goose
Slap bang there where
The table measured
In every direction
The same distance to
Its edge and said This
Is a lesson in brevity and
How long do you think
It's going to last after which
They were asked to leave
As even the stupid can't be
Expected to tolerate rudeness
And, after all, it's not geese
that bleat.

©MTC Cronin, 2005