Gregory Dally: ‘Sangria, Nick Drake and Something like Kindness’

Sangria, Nick Drake and Something like Kindness

Hopers and the hopeless come
to genuflect at your grin,
accepting silence in lieu
of miracles and curatives.
In the perception of one coy girl, your Tourette’s
serves as a dub-in for being fragile.
Listen to her howl. “G’day” rings through a sneer.
Music has abandoned her orbit of talents.
Playing your suitor, she’ll gush heavens
through ghetto hymns on a spirit you’ve yet to open.
This siren may console you, even as she champions
the right of the unaffectionate to sob.
Empaths would rain hisses on her jive.
She’d take the attention. This girl reminds you
that the godless need those whom they envy
to look with favour on them.
She reckons the heartless, à la her,
can always ditch their faux amour for shrugs.
Is a karmic halo on guard
around the self she likes to condemn?
Illusions are free. Under a clutter of mumbling,
you knit your teeth like an evangelist
and dole out the “Yes”
that could lead her to love you.

Gregory Dally