Two Poems by David Briggs

Vanitas

Jaw-down on the bracken in Little Stoke Woods,
The top half of a badger’s skull, greened by rain,
And I guess it must have lain here maybe a year,
Just mouldering quietly in Little Stoke Woods,
Where I’m out walking after my 50+ check-up
With N. — the health centre’s “vein whisperer” —
Walking to enjoy my numbers (blood pressure,
Liver function, cholesterol) in woods which,
Today at least, are lovely, dark and deep,
Sans Oxford comma, just as Frost preferred —
The darkness and deepness being the things
That rendered those woods lovely. Frost didn’t intend
A list of three equally weighted qualities, but
A dependent clause. And as I bend to retrieve
This curved upper half of a badger’s skull
From the bracken and fungi of Little Stoke Woods,
And hold it aloft in a parodic memento mori,
Like some rustic Hamlet, I twig that this moment
Of whimsy is a gift derived from my numbers.
For my numbers are good — a surprisingly healthy list
Of equally weighed qualities — and I realise too
That I could view this badger’s remains
In a different light, read along the more obvious grain
Of their meaning, like whichever editor it was
Who added that superfluous comma to Frost’s
Otherwise perfect line. The same man who
Had it re-inscribed after Frost’s return to dust,
When he’d become merely a skull incapable of protest –
No choice but to suffer that mad knave to knock him
About the sconce with an Oxford comma.
A whole badger skull might be thought by some
To resemble a full stop, but here, today,
In Little Stoke Woods, I hold merely the upper half —
A curved head bone dangling by its eye-sockets.
And as I let it swing freely from my fingers, I see it
Hang on that horizon visible through the foliage
Of these lovely, dark, and deep woods
Like a comma — a superfluous Oxford comma
In an otherwise perfect line.

Hauntological

How many hours spent scrolling through
Other people’s glamorous online schticks?

Or loitering in the photogenic purviews
Of the image conscious and attention rich?

But only with the listless, disinterested style
Of a midlife man on statins in the dairy aisle.

For while you may not be midwifing turtles
With the kids on a sun-bleached archipelago,

Nor surfing in Rincon California
Or Rincón Puerto Rico;

While you’re not slouched with a cocktail
Across the varnished-mahogany taffrail

Of an acquaintance’s luxury yacht,
Nor padding barefoot through Ankgor Wat –

At least you’re not chained to a second career
Promoting yourself on social media.

You couldn’t concoct a parallel
And improved self in HTML

If your livelihood depended on it,
So be thankful it doesn’t. Instead,

Extend the emoticon of grace
To those compelled to monetise virtual space –

To the freelance precariat doing what they must
To survive in neo-liberal Albion;

Those hustling for gig or grant; those who trust
They’ll find their moment in the sun

As marketable phenomenon.
Salaried, you pour another thumb of bourbon,

Slouch in your Eames chair, and rewind
To Stage Door Johnny’s, circa 1989,

Southampton’s vintage clothing store,
Where you’d blow your wages from shifts

In hospitality on trying to appear Left Banky –
Roll-neck, tweed overcoat, Rimbaud quiff,

Silver-plate cigarette case, silk hanky.
The analogue world’s theatre of identity.

The simplicity of that time! Those friends
You probably won’t see again now

In real life. And who did they all become?
Are you haunted by what you might’ve done

Had you believed then what you now believe?
Or is it, perhaps, that you grieve

For that parallel you you almost meant,
Had you not been too myopic and slow

To separate the trivial from the important?

David Briggs has published four collections with Salt. His latest book is The Odyssey Complex and Other Poems (Salt, 2024). His work as a songwriter and recording musician – David Leonard Briggs – can be found at Spotify, Bandcamp, Soundcloud and most streaming platforms.