Lord's Prayer for cooks

Ah, the sound

came falling down

into a bowl

I mixed it round

with love and soul

turned up the heat

with sugar sweet

- a lemon cake

was handed round

though overbaked

it fed a crowd

and Ah the sound

came falling down.

Big Log, Brighton Beach

My story is deep rivulets and currents.

Never will you know me: desert

blue and silver sand untwigged me.

I have no sap left for insects;

no pith will ooze your palm. No.

I toppled long ago and now you rest

soft meat here – talk and chew, talk, chew;

not knowing what you do.

Lay hands on me and feel my deeper scars

fleshed with aeons – dead – and yet,

like all illuminated souls,

waiting for my sea of resurrection.

Unlike Rumi, Andrew has no ear

for music. He

can’t distinguish

a minim from a

quaver, or a

minor seventh

from the major.

Although he does

know how to fashion

many notes

with his fingers;

dance with them as

a cat or dervish.

In a word,

a log splashes out,

floats down the raging river

and I shout goodbye.