Brain Bias, highly commended in the 2017 W.B Yeats Poetry prize.
Brain Bias
Maybe the earth was in a rut
and so expressed precisely that,
the gorge popping suddenly and steeply
apart like a chip packet pressed
precipitously by child palms.
No glaciers were ever here,
no waterfall retreats or slow erosions.
It could only crack up
in tact
even with the residue of a role
reversal incised in the granite—liquid
caught in profile—
saying otherwise.
That morning, we replicated a series
of promises or performed actual ones.
In small penury patches of soil
a billion loans were carried out,
we’d call it a root economy, trying
to proselytise that kinship to our own
celebrated inadequacies, but that’s
not it and that seemed insensitive
amongst a landscape humming
with remote intent.
We read Wind Ode after drying off
from a cold dive we braced for by breathing
like Wim Hoff, patron saint of the blue
lipped and trembling, mitochondrial
philanthropist, anti-inflammatory
prophet, baffler of sherpas,
during which I focused
on a bee but did not think
about it.
Before the ode we roared in turns
atop one of the staggered precipices
I could barely hear you singing
below. Or maybe I couldn’t hear you
at all but since you’ve told me you were
I hear it now between our purging.
After I dove in I was asked
how long can you last in cold water?
The answer, a little longer
each time.