Poem - Dead Cat Bounce

Written in 2001 in the week of the attacks on the World Trade Centre. World events have only strengthened my feelings towards the need for the people of the book to lay to rest an obsession with the end of history.

Dead Cat Bounce

Away from all faces the angry flicker is

Cornered in the eye.

A few sharp fragments. Like;

Concrete snow.

A second fall.

Dead, dusty, concolorous skin.

No falconer or falcon or sabled wing above

tuneless Jerusalem choked thick with

the language of markets - all freemartin bull.

And caves now at New Qumran with shards of a jar

shedding bewildered ID cards and photographs.

Yet more shreds: frill-cold birds not still

for a minute; watching voices breaking off as

Abraham meets Ibrahim concorporately.

And Grendel comes loping in for

Weak light-minded friable gold.

The centre transudes and still cannot hold or

comprehend the long concretion, urging

the last minute decision of lightning, or protest at

the sheer scale of loving those dead better than

single forgotten bees.

Below the extremity, the bar of no policy,

piss-stained hope streams still in the

freshet tones ringing at the deaf feet of

unconnected ones; of men and women

not yet blind, shooting, or singing.

James A Bullion - September 2001, Revised March 2006