Z

 

[Z]

 

Z is for Folly. Z is for Blindness.

The president who acts thus plays the Fool.

His walk-on has Kyiv in its sights, like cool.

A walk gone zigzag, stranger to kindness.

 

Laugh at him, he’ll shoot you out of the skies,

a streak of Z flames for no good reason.

You question his script? So, what’s your poison?

All in the delivery, zillions of lies.

 

Z too, was class clown turned president

inheritor of the oblast Wormwood

inventor of the stunt where he dams the gash

knows it’s for keeps, infinite incidents

go nowhere fast as only farces could

stare at the end, the Z, the dead, the crash.

Image: ST(Z)P WAR. Graffiti in Shoreditch High Street, London, made by Matt Brown and posted here at The Londonist: https://londonist.com/london/art-and-photography/ukraine-street-art 

Z (May)

May 4: the Hurstbridge line re-opens. The rise starts after the Ellesmere bend, closer to the station than locals feared. Effortlessly smooth forward acceleration takes the elevation over Lower Plenty Road. Rosanna platform extends across the road bridge, a nice touch, though gated from ‘customers’. The station, still under construction, now provides views across the valley’s golden treescapes. The new tunnel through the Berg is considerably quicker than its 19^th century counterpart; ditto the trains. Alphington-Fairfield has become a concrete cutting, effortlessly smooth, the old Anthony of Padua jolt removed. It’s ripe for graffiti murals by X, Y, and Z.

Z (February)

Z is for zip of breast pocket, zizz of beer can opening, zzzzzzz of a sleeping cable. Minor sounds, almost no sound, our breathing when we are thinking of something else. Tap of coathangers in our search for a shirt, tap of trapped leaf on windowpane, tap. Humble aitch sounds, as when a timber house cools after intense February days. The click of nail clippers. A is for away, the sounds ah! we see but do not anyhow hear. Sound of a plane that’s only a glint at 35,000 feet. Friday night restaurant seen from our passing car. Our heartbeat.

Z (September)

It’s the end-of-the-evening letter. Bill Evans on the record player. It Might As Well Be Spring. The cats curled up upon the sofa. Sofa so good. Starless if the rain approacheth. Did anyone really go and wave? At the parade? At footballers? It’s the drowsing authorial-voice letter. Peter Porter going round in the head. The unfinished paragraph. Marcel Proust in his cork-lined room. Your Facebook friend is doing the washing. It’s the last-button-on-the-remote letter. The box-set of Downton Abbey. What is a weekend, asks Maggie Smith. As we drift off into the weekend. It’s the sleepy zone end-of-September letter: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz