Presence of Mind
After Magritte
You always were the patsy, heavy-lidded,
fish-mouthed: an outsider on his perch.
Falconmanfish, quicksilver of scale,
sharp of suit and tail feather.
Did they trust your trinity? In the
zoo you were loved and triple-fed.
The school trips, coach-loads and family
groups; gawping at your indecision.
When they let you out to roam the streets,
at what crossroads were you given a genus?
Walk/Don’t Walk, Fly/Don’t Fly, Swim.
Your unique agony of choice.
From the book depository window, a view:
the river, a street and vault of sky.
My god, they’ve shot the President!
The knoll’s talon, fin and thin black tie.
Born in 1963 in West Hartlepool, England, Martin Malone now teaches in Wiltshire. A winner of the 2011 Straid Poetry Award and Wivenhoe Poetry Competition and the 2012 Mirehouse Poetry Competition, his first full collection – The Waiting Hillside– is published by Templar Poetry.
I was twenty years old and a university student in Seattle when that happened, Martin. Your poem is vivid, the event having occurred the year of your birth, an odd coincidence. JFK’s death was the seminal event of what became a most disillusioning period — not yet over, despite Obama’s idealistic nostrums. Still, your writing is stark and very strong. You have captured the mood of that day, its horror unforgettable, in only one line. Well done!