Tag Archives: writing

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?

BREAK

BREAK

so much fragility

things collapsing
falling apart

nothing as fragile
as a poem,
                   however

even

         the        lines

    break

LISTENING

LISTENING

am listening
waiting to hear
what you

have
to say

all ears
but do not ask me
to press this numbered
button or
the other

as if a golden time
will suddenly dawn
wealth
    will be released

if largesse came my way
would not know
what
   to do with it

ditto
kindness

outside  spray of flowers
drooing from a tree
steal all
   my attention with
their cerise intensity

such that
       words get re-defined
beauty in my
linguistic ineptitude
poetic
    incompleteness

press one for
whole picture

           two for duality
if you happen to agree or
strongly, poisonously
                             would adopt
a position
   entirely contrary

as contradictory as any
reader might be

LITTLE LIZARD


LITTLE LIZARD

“The Tyrant Lizard, the most incredible monster in history. Sign this release. Anything happens to you, we’re not responsible. Those dinosaurs are hungry.” Ray Bradbury, A Sound of Thunder

I am a little lizard
in a time of final, feral dinosaurs

they shut down the children’s  library Mr Bradbury,
where I first read you

i think that they imagine
if they lock the doors
they burn ideas

children it seems
     do not need, should
not have
their minds expanded

no sublime terrors to
enrich the joy and horror
of their being

if I ask them regarding
the evolution of mind,
the fulfilling of the species

they tell me

      this is not my place
this is not the time

bite
    and swallow

there is no legend of a carnivore
greater than the nation

and my dead end is
a supreme blessing

       to those who dictate
the terms of all illiterate life.

ONE DAY ON MARS

ONE DAY ON MARS

Mars bars
Mars bars

the man has been
eating far too
many
Mars bars

his brain
is reaching
escape
velocity

reading too
much Martian poetry

I blame you
Mr Wells, blame
you Mr Raine
blame you Schiaparelli

dug
  all those
canals
in is brain

and above all,
I blame you Mr Bradbury
filling his head
with Martian mushrooms,
telepathic Martians
losing a war
of colonial conquest

most basic parallel
with Earth history
a writer
strolling across
a desert
      plain
munching
        on a Mars bar
(overhead the irregular
shaped
      Phobos and Deimos)
might feel compelled to make

Sent from my iPhone

HEY POEM

HEY POEM

hey poem

    structurally
speaking

are you
    wrestling? are
you
  striptease?

looked for you
in Barthes mythologies

did not
    find you

maybe you are
not a part of
any
  system
  of signs

have
nothing to do
with culture
at all

MANUAL

MANUAL

this is the manual
that goes with
the reading
of this poem

it is not a manly manual
since it has to accept
shifts and slides
facts seduced
and opening themselves
up to
surprise reversals and
ongoing (nigh bottomless)
process of
constant interpretation
leading to
infinite possibilities for
re-
reading, rethinking, reinterpretation

and yet
even though metaphor
is itself a metaphor
is shot
through with metaphor

I do indeed need
to get my meaning across

this stanza break first up
but then
from me to you

so that you might run
with it, or perhaps walk
or at
least crawl

tenor vehicle literature
is a machine says Mr Calvino

but would
not wish for you
to stumble and fall
before
you are behind the wheel

before
you get the feel

before you are writing poetry for yourself