Category Archives: 1, poem, poetry,

POLE STAR

POLE STAR

Poles apart
and that gap
widening

though the melting
of the floes
bringing us closer.

So much
love in the air

you feel its warmth, are
suffused with care

drifting under
star clouds where
a break
      in the grey

like you
are last chunk
of ice

once
a glacier, berg formidable

soon
    to disappear, unable to
save a desperate bear

clinging
   for dear life from
death by drowning

BY A THREAD

BY A THREAD

my poem
is running
with the wolves

running
from the dogs

poems
always seem
to end up
chased into the forest
running from the dogs

sheltering
beneath the tall trees
trees stocked
with good wood

springy, workable,

chop/chop
                  /chop

and there you have it
a gibbet born of craftsmanship
set to hang

unless
      we cut out the middleman
let the trees themselves
do the culling, catching
chasing

me meanwhile
so desperate to
deflect
    win hearts and minds
counter-persuade
them

   I am repentant utterly
reborn to turn
over a new leaf

doing my best to change things
before the last line closes

leaves us
   between turnstiles
frozen in limbo

hanging
      by a thread, by
a single thread hanging

CANOPY

CANOPY

catch me
in the treetops

dodging
the attack butterflies

buzzing out
of character like
angry 109 Messerschmitts (someone
having stirred up
their nest to a frenzy of
National Socialist fervor)

below the canopy
burnt out hulks
civilizations scrapyarded

threatening the promise
of sacred, peaceful,
untroubled,
          no bumps
in the night sleep

parachutes
opening formally, things
mushrooming with
a wide radius

dreams as thick as dead leaves
as the last days of Northern Autumn
everywhere you look
littering the forest floor

NILE LESSON

NILE LESSON

I am doing my level best
to teach the art of poetry
to the Queen of the Nile

knowing that
the slightest pedagogical
mistake might turn
my body into
a pincushion for arrows

and so
words hang back, prove0
extraordinarily reluctant

stick in my throat
like fat scarab beetles

even as
a real, intrepid scarab
attempts to
  cross the palace floor
for which gross violation
and fatal impropriety

she does catch
    and crack it open
its
  carapace
being no match

and me left
thinking, wondering
if there be
a metaphor here
to elucidate
    for her desired
edification

but then
when (Isis-inspired)
I ask her to regale me
with list
   upon list
of words whose sound she loves

those lethal eyes dance

her voice
goes gold filigree

mind
    rises to the moment
as if
   a thing of fine silver
housed in bluest
lapis-lazuli

is all, she is all,
softest of waves
about
   to crash on the shore after
crossing the Mediterranean

I am, for my sins,
trying my utmost
to teach
      the art of poetry
to the Queen of the Nile

FULL FLOOD

FULL FLOOD

a sacred cow
came floating by

following another, followed
by another

a whole army, but dead,
which I looked in the eye

presuming this to be
a wake or a procession
or a disastrous offensive

(some gunners
holding strong points
having a field day)

all of which I presume
just the vanguard
for a plague
of frogs swimming
for the far bank

each
one entrusted
to carry its
personal scorpion

safely across
which
     traitors to the cause
sad slaves
to their nature

desperate to inflict such
unkind fatal wounds
as only the truth can

POEM FOR SOME VICE CHANCELLOR

POEM.FOR SOME VICE-CHANCELLOR

was not
gravity apple

not
fruit in any size shape
or form
   forbidden

to give the scope and
agenda
    for every Ph D

more instruction manual
set of templates, list
of prescriptions
         essential to
your throughput
as bags and
    sacks of
ball-bearing steel

no serpent to
shift paradigm but
     discovery that the tinies
of the Universe
were quits with tape measure

and then
exponential took
dimension to town
(coming up
    with twenty-six last
time
   happened to count them)

needing
    to gauge what
(if any) might constitute limits

time
    and motion study
.
on the revelation of self