Mr Universe – Janet Frame

January is Janet Frame Month


Mr Universe – Janet Frame

The speak-and-run murderer is at large
as his own victim.
In the newspapers and the comic strips
the panic balloons are rising like flares form his lips
in deadly simple navigation to express
his need, his pain and cold:
Help, Ouch, Br-r-r.

He is Mr Universe of the gonging biceps.
His brute head when the swarm of thought is over wears
the whistling helmet of an empty hive.
And soon, they say, his body as the whipped steed
of cylinders will ride to neigh at the moon
his need his pain and cold
- Help, Ouch, Br-r-r -
in secret hope of an answer.




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.