#32 - three poems

Saturday 1^st February, 2020

32

three poems

first sightings

blur from where

catch light’s curtain crack

then day begins

unpyjam-ed

upon

wallaby (2)

rabbit (1)

walking birds (sundry)

kookas (triangle of)

others up (too quick to count)

breeze catching me – shone

a pond, sunspread

then the little cloud comes –

least that it can do

a little wrestle with myself

and mystery of am

who’s down?

who’s in the limbs of tangle?

in time return

there’s where I was

and all the same to me

no, not

piano plays against

guests have sometimes

been an excuse

call conscience

watch the illiterate whirl

and wordlessly join in

we’re not even looking out of the windows

they’ll just have to find us

here I am in my own life strangely

to dance is all the body

you’re the silence listening

I’ll travel till I’m gone

hey bud

not leaf by leaf

but all at once

not the tree

but all are back

tribe of up

and drought for fact

a song towards

not seeing through

heights of a vanishing

nakedness now

the getting

and letting

of light

all empty past

in tips of it

the birds trip home

which is the vast of blue

#31 - notes towards the young

Friday 31^st January 31, 2020

31

notes towards the young

with whom beauty aches

unclued as to direction

bitten and yet to itch

made bleak with much must

and yet to, chained likewise

to a destiny, though this

cannot be known, up in

one another’s skins

each mainly to own little world

and far to see through shaping light

unfrittered though, both ends at

holding candle to a phrase

climb, mostly self-inflicted

and here comes a chopper

fresh as roses, a rage with all the hours

at, again survived the miracle

no time to tell their tale

their sleeps are forever

up a tree and in a hole

a wail with little woes

world’s serious with them

of so few parts, ill fitting

in the mirror shrunk

from what we see

the young are preyed upon for virtues

unaware, innocence foremost

drunk on becoming, the monuments

of generation, a flurry of insensible

the pigeon park all plays around

soon they will remember when

at their old caution of wash

won’t feel the grip of time

first hearing it, but drown

they are a charm themselves

and take a pill, who knows?

truth stands up straight

just as it find them

so quick with the thing to learn

still flit, and fleet of heart

at home they can’t have built

seasons of fiddle and still they survive

it is a garden of them

they fly to the light

and burn

#30 - the commuters

30th January 30, 2020

30

the commuters

I know them, scented with passage

neither here nor where they make

like their means, alone among them

on an errand, am I? could be

following, crosses to bear and I see

voices too low to touch

nose in often news, buried

in the week somewhere

expressions? determined, resigned

finger, eye and taken

seasons miss them yet they dress

each lit with night forgetting

so gentle rock and carried away

each is singing elsewhere also

they are the avatars of it, of all

power source, factory and fashion

gone under own steam

some come to the cough and go

each one melodious, bound

in cadences far known

meet half meant on my stroll

and catch the eye or else

reminding me of striving

what time of day would they (?)

you ask, made as the minutes

are, of them

I have these steps to myself

heavenly at home 

#29 - a wretch like me

29^th January, 2020

29

a wretch like me

I keep a box of faraway

for long ago

where you have me

that’s where I keep

call brightness by letters

and numbers, a guess

who was I once when we were so

or half of me at least?

whom I never met or saw

this picture of you when

always another side of the family

someone disowned, forgot

so many stories till the truth

a secret tells itself

my eye a window open

requires another colour

the unforgiveable – cross to bear

to dance is all the body

imagine – touch and touch

you’re there

a little box of faraway

and where we’ll keep

is it for good – voices

never heard, languages unknown

names pile up for the dead

now forget them

like stars then measure for time

we go back a long way

all those tribes no longer wishing

and just the one was me  

who was I once when we were so?

look in the mirror, wonder

how love makes foolish too

tobacco tin or biscuit

old trunk of the voyage in rust

it only took a generation

for nation to betray

there was no imagining

pogroms – call them something else

but someone got away

that’s when you were with me

thousands of years we were

in the book and out of it

burden of each soil

a wretch like me, bright shining

and someone in a muddy trench

someone up against a wall

imagine the funny accents

what dangerous strangers we must have been

and then the not remembering

telling so much but not, escape

with this skin or leave it behind?

I saw the rabbit again

the rabbit from my mother’s dream

it was her waking end, real as

did she remember her mother’s once?

and so on, back … I sat in her lap

on sunshone steps over the harbour

spun on, the way a fish must swim

and all their silence mine

who was I once when we were so?

look in the mirror, wonder

#28 - painting the whole world into a corner (poem for a friend)

28^th January, 2020

28

painting whole world into a corner

poem for a friend

I know you’re in a hot place 

frays the nerves

lately I’ve had time to think

what if it all burns down (?)

this is getting to be more than theory

there are big things wrong with this world

I’m disappointed with it too  

its wrong direction, but which one?

it’s true some few of the victims are missed

and we should sing for them too

thanks for the reminder!

I think of the Swabians in Yugoslavia

all that they suffered won’t make Nazis nice

the laughter of boots in blood, smashed bones

and so they sing along, tomorrow belonging

but now we know how this goes

the ripped off feeling, the ‘I’m ignored’

the ‘what about my tribe, skin’

as if justice were the enemy

argument all at me

at a certain age perhaps a feeling

left behind, as all will be

I get it too – I didn’t win the Nobel Prize

they’ll never make me king

a pattern? do you think there could be?

of privilege and lack

you’ve seen both ideas

been given them to live

and love has disappointed you

we disappoint ourselves sometimes

the whole world’s too hot now

I blame myself, don’t you?

it’s all gone wrong – why didn’t I do more?

our cause must be to save the world

it’s simple – you’ve got kids, you can see it

a cliché only gets more true

but bitter mind’s a tangle

it takes perspective down

the ironies of a resentment

drag us a long way under

fear of abstraction for fuel

and we can still wake up

have you no admiration now?

but we have still for you

still Chopin in your paws

a wagon wheel, a coke

some setting alight

and let’s go watch cartoons

what guilty innocents we were

when everything was new!

to advocate for the voiceless

that is a noble thing to do

but never makes the two wrongs right

who is it is not heard? remind me

some dark force whispered in your ear

open your eyes – brush the smoke away

a crime against humanity sits smug in the dock

‘I won’t recognize such a court’

‘not properly constituted’

wake up – you’re smart, you see through that

these little pockets of ‘bad behaviour’

if unfought, indulged

they become a movement, a regime

we’ve seen it and we see it now

this painting the world into a corner

where does it leave us?

no prize for a stairway to heaven these days

still there are some teddy bears

no need to choke on your own vomit

if there’s still some Hendrix in you 

senryu

no need to choke

on your own vomit

if there’s still some Hendrix in you 

#27 - mad tree

27^th January, 2020

27

mad tree

after Odysseus Elitis 

all up with

and pointed to catch

tree breathing

no one hears it

some wings drop

a beak

where eyes said

stoic

tune of a thousand years

not mattering who the tree will be

no one reads the rings

in all around the forest falling

fruited for windfall and theft

sunstruck

and stars askance

the night limbs

and all around

a forest falls

leaf was rain so budded since

stretch green as

survive the random will

moon glisten

breath by flower

generic

high as we hold with

blood run to distraction

in that spirit so

someone is climbing to play

expanding:

27

mad tree

all up with

and pointed to catch

tree breathing

no one hears it

nor will I name

some wings drop

a beak

where eyes said

stoic

the tune of a thousand years

not mattering who the tree will be

it has no hopes

but laughter and triumph

a nakedness too

no one reads the rings

in all around the forest falling

fruited for windfall and theft

here is a harvest of cloud

and here cicada sings

sunstruck

stars askance

the night limbs

all around

a forest falls

drunk on the dream

leaf was rain so budded since

stretch green as

survive the random will

moon glisten

breath by flower

generic

high as we hold with

blood run to distraction

in that spirit so

someone is climbing to play

pickout:

all up with

and pointed to catch

tree breathing

no one hears it

someone is climbing to play