Tag Archives: poem

ONE

ONE

was introduced to death
by a Ms E Dickinson

late of Amherst, New England,
a word mistress of sorts

somewhat
   impure in speech

not privy to her
standing however
     I do remain clueless
in terms of her value
as per
   stocks
        and bonds

and with Lord, who does
all such measure
        down to the last
grain
    be it gold, salt
or sand

and after
     breaking the ice, whose
depth almost glacial,
formally, with decorum
               as only this miss
shapeshifter can

death and I spoke ghost,
conversed
       in plain Indian

so many tongues and indeed
histories of
    this place, all places

sweet in sad sublimity,
     rolled into one

CEMETERY ROAD

CEMETERY ROAD
“may not mean to/
but they do”

I’ve read that
this be the Larkin poem

by any metric
it’s a real shocker

give it its due
painfully spot on
must have
   begun somewhere

with Adam and Eve
tragic trace elements
springing out
of the big
bang
catastrophic for
the happiness of our species

and so me
      not yet teenage

about to be whisked, nay,
catapulted to Africa
and apartheid
South Africa
at that

far from this little British
cul-de-sac
        joy there in the sweet
English place of
pastoral they
call
   a pastoral

where my father dutifully
taught me how
to ride
a bicycle

not much interest in my
life

     this broken life

after which
my father’s little dream
of upping
roots, defining
his Empire

       somehow not
translating

finding purchase, believers,
means of manufacture

will not
     let this poem end as
dead at
    point blank range
as Larkin’s does

HITHER

HITHER

I wandered through poetry
thought I knew
this place
well

looking for wisdom
looking for humanity

my outlook by
no means negative
      though by no means
expecting
wonders
        miracles, transformation,
soul-shaping
life-
defining metaphors
and sadly I must add
conceding
   no possible hope
for love

which is exactly where I found you
    chatting to my Muse
(why is
   Muse never lover?)

man
     most well-measured
not a syllable out if place
but your
voice
      your voice

I do not hear
       perhaps it is just too
comfort-zone, risk
averse

   agrophobic
when it comes to

to the beyond, the boundless,
our freedom
           in a nutshell

shattering it to smithereens
with the force of
poetic pressure

and perhaps
     the poet too

perhaps
we should stay contained
work like
jewellers do
in miniature

for this is a dangerous age
bad time
      for words

and I, for my sins and
pretensions of
truly sinning

have wandered so far
of course, too
far away            thus
with
    grace

let me leave
             you here

for who
would now come hither?

LUCKY MAN

LUCKY MAN

lucky you were
to survive
terrible things

you did not bomb Dresden
or Hamburg

or all the towns
and bridges
in Japan

prelude to
that most terrible
of all
invasions

in avoidance of which
they removed two
whole
   cities off the map

writing me into life
and thd whole of history
a bit differently

and you
      not plunging to Earth
fear and panic-striken
in a crippled Lancaster

symbol of war’s
    terrible fall from grace

the Icarus
in us all

the suns, twin suns
they dropped

casting
        such a shadow

lucky you were
        lucky your life in

regard to terrible things

COMMUNION TIME RHYME

COMMUNION TIME RHYME

The God we share
like food and wine
as we do bond
and bind
and indeed commune
spirit,
    soul
       and life

now finds himself
under lock and key
(remember keys?)

thing
   least like to hoard
and
   privatize

yet
    here we are

what could be more
pleasing than
to pray

for abundant
         store

he who closest to
the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit

rich thrice over
in his
prosperity gospel.





SO LET ME

SO LET ME

so let me
try to understand this

you write stuff
different form and
better than
anything better than
what I could write
more valuable to
the human race

than anything that I
could
    or might write

more truthful
to our
human
condition

than, you are sure,
as a principle of faith,
anything my ilk
could
    ever have written

when, truth is,
this stuff is incidental,
peripheral to who
we are

of absolutely no consequence
except where
in its excess, in
its call to arms, plea
for
    essential truth and
species transfoemation

a huge threat and danger
an evil setting itself
against my and
   all other’s
way
     of life

for which we must not
neglect our dury
to destroy
      you and your kind completely

no place in this world
for so insane a practice
and.
   pernicious conspiracy