Two Poems by David McLean

thought gets tainted

thought gets tainted by the darkness,
like Pearl Jam say, and what you see
is determined by your capacity
for seeing, what lives free in front of us
and each shard of shattered nothing
that is there for us to touch;

and i would rather die than be a dead man
living his weakness, his pride and his stupid
weak children

thought gets tainted easily, except
where whales swim in us fragments
of nature, something at any rate
untouched, some body better
than man to love



a gross bundle

life in the too filthy flesh
is a gross bundle of rags
and stupid illusions,

a lump of psychic ugly,
a hairy monkey gibbering
under a dead man's bed

and up the staircase goes love
a reluctant foot, broken bones
and radical homelessness

wherever we are, lumpy
little bundles of fat flesh, death,
whitening scars,

life has wandered much too far