David McLean is Welsh but has lived in Sweden since 1987. He lives there on an island in the Stockholm archipelago with a woman, five selfish cats, and a stupid dog. He has a BA in History from Oxford, and an unconnected MA in philosophy, much later, from Stockholm. Details of his available books, chapbooks, and over 850 poems in or forthcoming at 370 places online or in print over the last couple of years, are at his blog at http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com. He never submits by snail mail since he has little money and since he loves, or at least doesn't have anything against, trees. Among things forthcoming is a chapbook called nobody wants to go to heaven but everybody wants to die from Poptritus Press in summer 2009. Early 2010 an anthology called laughing at funerals will appear with Epic Rites Publications. A 50 poem chapbook from Epic Rites called hellbound is on sale now. For Epic Rites he edits the chapbook series and the e-zines lines written with a razor and the thin edge of staring, as well as selecting works for the radio network.
if you lived in me instead of memory
forever time would wake easy
under a comfortable sun
and there would be mountains to climb
called lives and things happening
in a convenient graveyard
under water - there would be eternity
and maybe i would sleep and dream
evil in the mourning skull
if you lived in me instead of memory
there would be a heart in me
and it would be full
but as you live in me memory
the heart in me and mourning
comes undone
the dreadful snow smells like forgetfulness
where all the children died once
tall mercy
i wanted to lift them from their history
and cradle them like babies
but they mean nothing to me now
(i have animals inside me)
and we dredge up ice from nightmares
where dead people sleep
freezing forever
like time's clumsy retreat from Russia
with frozen toes, final silence
the sad snow knows
we solicit the empty
since it's inexpensive
like minutes slipping
from dead fingers
when kids listen.
we solicit the empty
instead of living
minutes in it
and listening
like children.
the children seem to like their deaths
and haunt here almost happy,
they stand in the windows mostly,
gaunt ghosts
that never had much flesh,
they tell us nothing comes next
and all the absences the dead men
ever expected; they had childhoods
and mothers once,
so they like death best
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Updated: 12 August 2009