Duncan White

Two poems:

Animal / Fairytale Princess Head

Animal

At age three I wanted to sell roasted chestnuts. At three and a half to teach dance. By age four I wanted to be a doctor, but not any old doctor our family doctor doctor Durand

with his beard

since then

my stock has dwindled

I look for the invisible in the invisible fitting pieces together like a good ghost story. That’s the way it goes. And I can’t imagine each piece moving under my instruction or talking to each other

amicably

No. We live in a world of memorial windows where volumes co-exist like cowboys and indians

Dead from the worrying

As strange accents come up through the floor we run as far as we can ignoring the obvious because it must mean something else

but if I keep going I’ll get angry with God

And then comes to the brain

the oblivious condition

Too soon it becomes clear

I have been imagined by dogs

Knocked out by the sun and starved of themselves

Thankfully I have you today

My lime green chinchilla

Fairytale Princess Head

It’s not because they offer any connection in themselves that I take each box outside. It seems like I’ve no choice in the matter and I can put no real distance between us. So I do just that taking little comfort in the parts or details that can’t be worn at the same time and on the same parts of the body.

I go to the pond and unpick my hem.

We were beginning to be too old to know if what we were seeing had knocked us off our bikes. It’s something we share

With girls doing the paper round afraid of getting too close to the black door. They shout at you as you ride past on your own terms alone and only slightly lost but it’s better than being dead and you take the final bend right out of existence further than the things we looked at yesterday

Shells and cream portcullises with their mistakes built in

At that moment

there is just enough time to look up and see your back wheel spinning

The firmament in its groove with you a new needle

Apparently

I keep sucking

Kelly Evers said she’d give you a ride like that any day of the week

And you have to wonder where it comes from

if there’s time

otherwise you might as well be catching chestnuts in your mouth and calling them frogs.

Duncan White lives and works in London where he writes and teaches film and literature.