An edit of some poems written during October.
More of my work can be seen via my website:
https://dorrellmerritt.co.uk/Dorrell-Merritt-Selected-Poems
Image: Untitled (2021), taken from Terminal 5.
To sleep in the shadows of monoliths.
Selfish thunders crack a torrid sky,
split with silver, then a dull flash,
softening horrid structures bent, tall,
decrepit, gentle, towering over wilderness.
Silent are cattle, lambs and men,
rivers full, like fervent veins, amorous;
as small as an ant, a grain or lonely babe—
rolls on, the night, murmuring dark to
stone.
Aesop & Skagerak.
I have working-class bones:
grease-wrapped chips,
trips to Wembley Market,
now dreaming latent of racks
spent on Skagerak racks,
shipped from Denmark,
slate plates, eames chairs,
or horsehead philodendrons;
slow-day Aesop splurges
amidst the art, dogs, babies;
babe with the CDG,
YMC orders like a hoarder,
reworking the parquet,
reworking the ceiling borders,
aeons from beginnings,
blunt, humble, most pure.
Spongebob.
Well-dones always at the back,
combinations stacked, if different,
but the salt makes the difference,
plenty, with pepper, in a mist.
Four turns and a prod, patient;
three and a half, I call, all in a row,
hells-hands with the final press:
like Spongebob with the spatula—
fat leaks a sizzle, grilled and seated.
George.
Waiting lowly on the garden gate,
for me, every other day or so, or more;
black baby beauty with tiny mews—
we’d chat for while, while he balanced,
staying often after I was gone and warm.
I remember my birthday visit well—
or me in the garden, potting cuttings,
sunning with me, on weathered old slabs,
while I shovelled, molded, hopeful;
or scooping him up with a loving arm.