John Bryan
1. Don't think about all the years
 
Two photographs of Wilf Batty -
 
1930: the farm at Mawbanna
will teach an animal to go poking
around the hen house, down to the last,
his own dog, barely standing at
its master's side, petrified by the
spooky oriental pup on his right
in what appears to be the final
moments before its death.
 
1989: with Dr. Elaine Murphy
during the preparation
of a documentary,
arm in arm, respect as is accorded
to an old man
hand in hand with the annals, all archived
in what appears to be the final
moments before his history.
 
he wears the same smile in both
 
 
2. I look through diaries
 
that's why these narcisisstic novels
are written, i've read all kinds of plots:
 
one girlfriend wanted to suck another's hairy coconut with a straw,
another lost her virginity to a kitchen knife, unable to dwell
on her spotty, wet dream of an adolescent suitor discovering,
or cutting her with that thing
 
another who had a dildo shaped in the form
of a Cryptoprocta ferox's penis, perhaps other
animals thrown in for good measurement
another who wrote
i