don’t call it a dream

i let summer take over the house
for however long it needs
and what is it
about the clawed opening of dawn
that makes me want to call it that

if you can’t do the crime
don’t do the crime
and don’t thank me for the birthday wishes
please
just let me grow my beans

how good

in my room
through whatever windows we can find
all the sun that we can see
is setting
like a table

it isn’t barbecue weather but
even that won’t stop
some people

i feel good like a person
holding flowers on a train
feels dumb

in my room
you tell me
that the hole in my pocket
is just my pocket’s own
much larger pocket
and i feel good
like burying a spade

like stapling a tree’s leaves back onto it
is bad

like holy water
on a hedgehog’s back

every decision we make
is a vote we are casting
for the type of world in which
we want to live
i say this
and you frown
and i feel good
like the stains on your sleeve
wherever you care
to have made them

like the space station
its various randy astronauts
making their way from meal to meal
across the sky

i feel good
but how good can we even feel
in a world where thunder and lightning
are back to front
where more time now won’t mean
less eternity later

how good can we even feel
when any minute
our life together could be ruined
by imagining a lobster
wearing jeans

there is an outside
which is everywhere we aren’t
and through whatever windows
we can find
the sun has set
like an alarm

i look at you with my finger
in my pocket’s pocket

things are obvious
once you know

what do i know

i love it when poems
are dead
and the light
creeps under the door
and not too far away
something important
is about to be crushed
by that beautiful truck

or when poems are dead
and a blade of shadow
wipes itself across the yard
with the nettles as strange
as you want them to be
when they worry your legs
i love that too

almost nothing
is any of my business
and i wish even less was

i brush my teeth
like i hate them

at last
poems are dead
but what do i know

all i know is that
no child should ever have to wear
a bib that claims they are
the world’s best anything

all i do is gun fingers
at a moth
in the dark
and what can i say
at least we have given up
completely this time

i love it when that happens

your inbox gently fills

this hospital
could use a hospital you think
while the world feels big and spooky again
and back at home
your inbox gently fills

it’s not quite true
that every car should stop
while a poem is in operation
but try to tell me
it wouldn’t be nice

Photograph © half alive – soo zzzz

These poems are taken from Crispin Best’s debut collection Hello published by Partus Press next month. Don’t miss the joint launch party for Crispin Best, Naomi Morris and Pain poetry journal on 1 November at Hannah Barry Gallery. Register your free place here.