An edit of poems composed this year.
More of my works can be viewed here: dorrellmerritt.co.uk/Dorrell-Merritt-Selected-Poems
Image: Untitled, 2011, Dorrell Merritt.
TFL poster girl.
she smiles wide like the mother of my child, in another reality.
maybe we’d walk sometime, talk sometime if I knew her,
saw her, at least in three dimensions.
in passing I like to guess her name,
waiting for trains; parted brown hair, glaring at gripped pages;
candid with an air of candour,
our arms linked neat in muggy market-crowd,
fresh and shared wares bagged
in slumped shouldered organic cotton, swinging so lovingly.
Bats over The Brent.
Soft shadows swoop over tainted water’s edge,
Fluttering, gathering, circling tree-limbs high,
As hurried buses, cars, sigh, rolling by no wiser
In the deepest night, where I’m but a stranger,
Entraced by the gentle, lightless, hurried dance,
Soaring, fluttering on, like delicate sweet ghosts.
No time.
Hands half-tainted in rank Zoflora
burdened like the weight of a summer
sun or sleepless eyes, unfair dreams
when comes the night, with its silences
orange, black, vast.
strong tea, old milk
is no consolation, no not even close;
adages grow old disgracefully, sourly
alongside love, labour and indeed sacrifice.
Silver teeth & St.John.
I’d dine alone with a silvered row,
Marrow, dug from scorched beef bone,
Perhaps.
A bacon sarnie, cup of tea, or three,
Fifteen minute Madelines for me alone,
Perhaps.
Perhaps, I’d be happy then, perhaps;
Rabbit or Skate cheeks, window seat and
Crumble.
Dante (Napoli, cuore mio).
pulcinella, postcards and paths
worn in time, beside raw walls,
perpetual car horns, that sound
by tratorrias, warm with laughter
roaring within light evening air.
roads trail beneath high vomero,
san’t elmo, strange, as an angel,
looming above a shimmering bay;
guglia, regal, weathered and ornate
like marble, superstitious stakes.
studios, subterranean, secluded,
creep and hide by holy shrines
that line lanes, dotted with ovens,
sacred, tiled, with perpetual flame,
breathing life into leavened loaves.
in dreams, day, night, I am back;
napoli, cuore mio; te voglio bene,
fino alla prossima volta, amata.
Behold the felling of an ivory tower.
I am vengeful, as the old testament god,
Existing in resistance to closed doors,
To towers and plinths and platters,
Gold, old, white, sickly and most fanciful,
Baiting, faking, making the machine hum,
Sums untold, exchanging false hope,
For labor and wager, no nurture;
It’s business, business, nothing personal,
That remorseless adage that we’re told, sold
Like slaves, to wreck hands, wet brows
With broken dreams, crooked necks;
Kept outside like hungry, low-backed strays
And I do not pray; instead I swear gracefully
To fell towers like lofty, angry giants
Deep within the pillage, eating the rich
Like bold savages, salting once plentiful land.
Big Mac.
I’d love a Big Mac,
Perhaps, a good fuck;
Pussy on my mind
Like my worries,
I don’t check the news
Too many bodies;
I don’t wanna die.
Salty large fries,
Or a Double or two;
Three weeks since
Close, real contact,
Ideas, desires, stacked
Up high, precariously.