Tag Archives: Viking

FUNERAL PLAN

FUNERAL PLAN

they keep
phoning me
to sell me
funeral plans

somehow they got
my number give me
their spiel
so want
a “yes” for an
answer

but as death
capitalism goes
nothing here
strikingly imaginative
deeply inventive

not
a single offer
of a burning on
a pyre
    compressing into
a diamond, exotic
ship burial

talk of
days in Elysium
drinking pure ambrosia

flying through
the clouds eagle-
winged to
commune with
the Great Spirit

on take
the escalator down to Hades
consoling Orpheus
swopping tunes
lovely threesome with
his darling Eurydice

or
speaking of wings,
winged helmet things,
being
   swept up to
Valhalla in
the arms of a Valkyrie
there to eat
meat, drink mead and
do
   my Viking thing

wondering why
I
  denied myself
such wicked joys

believing saintliness supreme
kind of life
     and mode
of being

a host of Valkyrie
working on me
                 doing all it
takes
   to shift that perception

now that
is what
      I would call

a funeral plan

HONG KONG ZOOMED ME

HONG KONG ZOOMED ME

Hong Kong zoomed me
loaded with questions
about my
Viking heritage

don’t know
if I waxed lyrical

don’t know
if I spilled the beans
since we
are old friends,
philosophically cannot
say we
chatted like
old friends

jabbering, joking,
exploring the very
concepts of
difference, sameness,
myth, reality
and construction
of identity

a dragonship longboat
out there sliding up
the river
as requested

what is Viking within me
having first
claim on my soul

Hong Kong zoomed me
questions seeking
me out
finding acceptable answers.

VIKING

VIKING

when a Viking
turns the
other cheek

it’s to show you
the humongous scar
where the spear
went through

and let it not be said
that Vikings lack forgiveness
many a crazed Viking
has stayed
   his hand somewhat
dealing out death
with much softer blows

lacking a poetic culture that
would civilized certainly
and thus unable
to write
   their side of
the story

I therefore on their
behalf appoint myself their
spokesman to the
rest of us
    ordinary, somewhat
shocked and
non-comprehending members
of our species

since I am no Viking, or
by my reckoning, as
much as half
clearly isn’t

THE OARS DIP

THE OARS DIP

the oars dip into
the water
pushing the boat
down the fjord

such are the propulsion
means of history

something stirred, stirring
here that may
in the deep image of
time
   come to fruition, arrive
to embrace me
and confront me

relic
   revealed

the sea
   itself an ossiary

untold bones down
there already

     an every bone a lost
a told story

and amongst these intrepid graveyards
   so much rusted metal
which once flashed terribly,
proclaiming itself
as
   bright steel

my steel
      I find it hard to
bring to memory

as if I could just step into
such a life
   live the life of my blood
and extreme legacy

or am I
being too harsh with myself
missing something
not finding
     the tell-tale, been
here all this time

I see that Ragnar axe
scything through the air
cleaving
    the head off my shoulders

swinging sword of this line
piercing my belly
        Ah, yes this
is it
the very
Ppain I feared

Valkyrie here
on schedule it must be said
carrying me up and off
to beloved
        beerhall heaven of
forever belligerence

or
   insane idea that out there
gliding in stealthily
dragonship
   with my name on it

nearing my shore
        me to
take
     my place

the oars dip
into the water

IN VALHALLA (ALMOST)

IN VALHALLA (ALMOST)

In an anteroom
to the Halls
of Valhalla

the poets sit
drinking tea;
eating wafer biscuits

the sounds of joyous warfare
emanating from
deep within
occasionally driving them
to put pen
to parchment
write a poem

on some heroic theme
though this has not happened
for many
      a century

hard to glorify
cliuster bombs
and multi-barrelled
machine guns
psi ops
and assassinations

bullets from
silenced pistols
to the back of the head