by Jack Little
Olympic Mentality
The Olympic Football Final – I don’t watch it, preferring
to observe Mexico City life where I pass vital moments,
a semi-welcomed guest among the bars, bordels of insecurity
(mine or someone else’s) and a sense of belonging
gotten lost, unworldly.
Auxiliary guards carry guns and watch on nonchalantly,
I catch a glimpse of the score and there’s been an early goal:
It has been a disappointing year. I rob red bricks
painted white from the high walls of surburbia, floating,
wishing for a glimpse of the old world I once knew
the dangerous and inviting. My favourite bookshops
are closed on Sundays and the nightclub got shut
down until the fine will be paid to a shadow. Drunken
buses pass, with huge unkempt flags, faster, faster, faster
with no where in particular to go, swaying and surfing
on the rotten wooden floor of a packed out combi heading
for war. Mexico won gold today and nothing will
stand in her way for now she has a “winning mentality”
quite unseen before. Dancing people at the station, cars honking
loudly and there is no water in the taps tonight and the light shall
most likely falter for these are difficult times, the nights ringing bells
of an uncertainty that befell this city not less than half a millenia ago
reassuring yet taxing to the senses, the winners declare
this day to be “a base upon which to build for the future”
On Finding Myself to be Rather Similar to a Cabbage
I read a book on hormones today
and it’s really quite remarkable
just how our bodies work
at attaching new atoms, and breaking them down,
signals passing too -and-fro millions of millimeters
from toe to head and back again.
And then, that got me thinking,
(which can be very dangerous)
where do I fit in, in this body of mine?
am I just the sum of this not quite so tall machine
and unfathomable passing of bodily fluids and electricity
between tubes and organs… A silly percentage made of water
and 47% the same DNA as a cabbage.
So, dear sir. Please do cut me open and find a Victoria sponge,
Placed meticulously in thin layers of cream, cake and jam.
Fourth Birthday
A photo from my back pocket,
a boy in his best black waist coat
like a 1990s snooker player – Don’t pot
the black too early lad – I whisper,
his forehead hasn’t been grown into yet
My best party outfit, my best friends
of turning four fill the foreground
of life passing in cycles, the passing of parcels
the stopping of music. Unpack these moments
and write them down – my teddy bear wears
that waistcoat now
Late August, 2012
the evening denies her promise
of rainfall, a day off
and the excitement of entrapment.
a man blames expectation as his cage
and asks for directions to somewhere beautiful.
the citizen smiles politely in silence,
the ripples of a thousand “I”, ‘I”, “I”s merge into one,
another year now over halfway done.
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Jack Little (b. 1987) is a British poet living in Mexico City where he runs The Ofi Press, a bilingual online poetry magazine and publishing company which organises regular poetry events. His work has been published in 3:AM Magazine, Warwick Unbound, Calliope Nerve, The Bubble, Eunoia Review, Blue Pepper Poetry, Kerouac’s Dog, and mostly recently in Bakwa Magazine (Cameroon). Forthcoming publications will appear soon in Drey, Wasafiri and Ink, Sweat and Tears. In March 2012, Jack read at the Linares International Literary Festival in Nuevo Leon, Mexico. As well as his literary related activities, he also manages the Mexico national cricket team.www.theofipress.webs.com
Photo by Eleanor Bennett
The Merida Review 