Category Archives: 1, poem, poetry,

BEFORE

I read the poetry
of the dead

which I would not
recommend
to anyone

for what
business
do they have with us
who live?

what trade in, what purchase
of
    their defunct ideas

for
everything changes
moves so fast you
are no longer left
in any position
to recollect
    things
that were;
all that was

and so
     we are
      so much the better
for not
knowing about them

better
not to let their words
trouble us
let us contrive
                  to forget

erase
    
      take out of
the picture completely

I read the poetry
of the dead

their
dead poetry

disturbing the Hell
out of me

MEMORIAM

too much in tatters
to make a tapestry

so cold it is
this morning on the farm
it takes all
my enterprise and endeavour
to stitch one, two
things together

but
   if poem is mirror

so the farm is a mirror too
it takes and it gives back
gives back
    strangely, crafts
the strangest equations

and me speaking to
my shopkeeper friemd
asking him
    for the meaning of
tte birds’ singing (and
their songs)
in the Holy text
of his religion

and here
      where the birds do sing
you might have found
refuge
for your spirit
succor for your soul

those three years ago
   might have found something here
to change your history, put
on path more safe,
less immediately fatal

and now
    what legacy?

the world knows it now
too well, what
we cherish, but
         what we have wished
to hide
of all thst is darker, bleaker,
all that is
    so explicitly of the margin
the edge

but, as Afzil says, it is
for God Himself the birds sing

this love is what
their song
        was given to express

as celebration
      or in memoriam