Visions of Orion Poetry

Editing Natural Selection

Editing Natural Selection

I secretly enjoy the rigmarole:
Even though it’s like self medicating
on words after arcane dental work,
or playing mediator for a train wreck
of a mixed marriage between
a CNN reporter & a Russian diplomat.

I’m hell bent over foul papers
at three in the afternoon – shuffling
arbitrary shorthand symbols & similes,
until it’s time to tango; time to start
dropping assorted liquorice in the snow.

At the end of the day a clean slate
would suit me fine – throw in
the towel and just go for silent gestures.
Let the emperor’s new clothes
assault the catwalk, as some
kind of not so subtle innuendo.
Maybe the editor would just smile,
play along and pretend to get it.

©️Orion Foote

Dying in Third Person

He doubles as despatch rider.
Blazing in with grim omens
squirming inside satchel’s womb.
2B pencil droppings – those faded
by the furore of fiery light,
mix with those of a darker ilk;
not for the eyes of another.

When the chosen appear above
echoes of fire & morning bells,
he reaches for sidearm & scissors;
spares no expense of thought
for the fallen, who always return
at the dawn’s last post.

Isn’t it bloody, my boy
When streetlights glow somber
beneath a broad light of day.
When sleep cycles twitch
like leaves before slow paralysis.
Isn’t it bloody, my boy
when words huddle in trenches
that heave under a pasting at dawn.

On changing gear, he curses at HQ.
Where Generals sip tea – bloated
on Belgian slice; their diverging
word threads propose
all in good time – as time itself explodes.

©️Orion Foote

Well Meaning

His words evaporate like fog
in mid morning on leaving his mouth.
I’d love to drop a few
micro hints over a lager or two
with him – quickly avert my gaze,
so as not to assume pontiff.
It would be over in a brief episode;
as quick & as painless
as a flick of the scalpel.

I’d pass him a slim volume
under the table, like in some
BBC espionage & intrigue drama.
Alec Guinness would chime in
with a few pointers to boot;
briefly reprise his signature role,
while smirking straight down the barrel
with a smug glint behind thick rims

We would both hone in for the kill.
Share our little joke with secret
hand signals – at some point
we’d read him the riot act;
rearrange things as they are
to make them seem more real.
But I have to wonder, if he
would even notice the difference.

©Orion Foote

On Any Other Day

Perhaps it was no different
than any other form of misfortune.
Like waking up with a screamer
of a cold, or Bells Palsy on the morning
of a GQ cover shoot – bad luck,
but there it is in plain scrawl.
Died by the visitation of God

It was the accepted lingo;
a way of embodying the lyric.
One way of getting it off the books
before cracking on with parish
semantics and other dark business.

God likes to swing by unannounced;
straighten things out with a big
stick in these grave times.
He would have come a cropper
anyway; irrespective of the hour.

©️Orion Foote

Book of Hours

For an infinite second
there are two of her;

a bathing suited twin
hovers over shifting ripples
like a saucy double exposure.

Bullets of light shoot holes
through skin—piercing her
doppelgänger in lunch hour’s blaze.

The watery canvas dissolves;
waves distort her gaping
mouth—threatening to devour
my parched eyeballs.

©️Orion Foote, 2023

Rediscovered Episode

I moon over skin gradients.
Digits probe—bluff their way,
like it’s my debut night foray
on a fretless bass without dots.

Audio gibbers—tracking the action
in a blow by blow commentary
like a satellite voyeur on heat.

The universe falls apart—just
for a while—until it returns
to pick up where we left off;
rattling the bejesus out of us
when dawn gate crashes the room.

©️Orion Foote

On One’s Arrival

No doubt you seem bug eyed
when you wash ashore
towards starched sentinels
of five borough hives.

Your hopeful flesh cuts
thick air in quick strides
over silent ones below,
who dream through another lens
in the full light of dark
and who cannot see us.

Trundling forward with hope
carved from brownstone rock;
your eyes swallowed whole
like the hours in time’s cortège.

Remixing the Outtakes

It was like turning the house
upside down—rifling through
the lost & found in search
of optic enhancements—only to find
them lounging on my forehead;
propping up the frontal lobes
singing I told you so through a mic.

I had forgotten how to roll
with shadows; like a shot southpaw
with retinal failure—his sinister hand
stabbing at diversion & quicksilver.

These days it’s somehow enough;
like learning how to dream—plodding
over snowdrifts through day’s
blinkered light. Fine tuned antenna
eavesdropping on high alert—twitchy
finger ready to pull on the trigger.

©️Orion Foote

On Rewriting His Plaque

On Rewriting his Plaque

Three months shy
of a brief three score,
I come to your river pew
in midday’s yellow blaze
to wait for the trill
of river songs—for circling

valley hills to wrap
around me like the pale
slope of her arm,
that drapes across my ribs
as warm light sneaks
through waking curtains.

Days that remained were never yours;
were never promised ours to hold.

©️Orion Foote

Timely Entrance

Bleating telephone bells
shook my eyelids—threw back
the covers and screamed in morning’s
over exposed high key racket;
like a sharp rap on the front door
after a late night blunt in reverse.

The awkward stench of fading organs
took issue with the sickly sweet
of her perfume—it threatened
to break the ice. His head tilted
back on crisp bloated pillows;
the gaping mouth set in time’s

perpetual yawn. It was like
he didn’t know where to look.