Tag Archives: poem

THE RHYTHM

it is the
rhythm
that survives

finds its home
sets the edge
gives the tone

survives the centuries
connects the stars

lives
and dies
lives and dies

it is the rhythm
that outlasts
decides
what
stays; belongs

survives
the rhyme

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

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

HORNS

had a wild
dream

you had
grown horns

I had fangs
and wings

as a couple
how we battled
in the kitchen
to cook
  for each other
eat
   together

but kitchen
our Mecca
for solving all
the intimate problems

happening
to surface
in every other room

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

NO CLAIRVOYANCE IN POETRY

there is no clairvoyance in poetry

just the iambic de-dum
thick-skinned drum

and carrying
that beat

stock-
in-trade
image
all ash
and sparkle

yet
when come
to the crunch

tough as barbed wire
hard as diamond

HAVE HEARD

have heard
the fable
of the sticks

lovely metaphor
for unity
            unless
something black
shirted takes charge

gives it a
tighter symbolism,
nastier appropriation

unity
unity
    which ever way
you cut it

for me
    in this not
small matter
of heart and mind

a single flower
owns more power

FIRST GEAR

making hot
stuff with you

raises
my pain threshold

lowers my centre of gravity

tunes me up, every piston
pushing perfectly,
like
    a twelve cylinder engine

a portrait of road
holding, fuel-injected precision,
as soon as you get me
out of first gear

PROFESSOR MOINSHINE

was wearing
my best strip-searched
human face
instant guide
to my moral integrity
goodness of my nature

philosophizing
at the turnstile

life
death
Heaven Hell
United City

activating my consciouness
Earth watch, star radar

derby match floodlight
bathing the stadium

sky wheeling in time lapse
as it got to
penalty shootout

even as Sputnik
circles, Eagle as landed
space roce
      whizzes by

long time long time
(unless already on Mars
conspiracy theory) we
all
   believe we saw

boys shot from sunny Florida
racing in silver dune buggies
back
fron the Sea of Storms
bouncing in that gravity
towards the Sea of Tranquility