GOD GOES FOR A WALK

God goes
for a walk.

it is the depths of Winter
but, at a whim

he makes it
...Spring.

Because.
He can.

I also, as it happens
have gone for a walk

& am surprised by
the sudden change of

the weather. . ?
...whatever!

He is wearing a yellow
gangster style fedora.

He looks like Marlon Brando
being The Godfather.

He sports the brightest of yellow
waistcoats

which compliments
the purple shirt...purple trousers.

He strides along with His
Paisley patterned  Parisian walking stick

whistling the music of
The Spheres.

The World bows
before him.

He is well pleased
with Himself, un-

-til: He encounters me
coming towards him

dressed in a gangster style
yellow fedora

the brightest of yellow waistcoats
not to mention the purple shirt...purple trousers.

I, also, possess
a Paisley patterned  Parisian walking stick.

We nod politely
saying nothing but...

He is miffed at me
wearing His outfit and

I also miffed at Him
wearing mine!

We pass each other
God & creature.

And God...**** if He doesn't
make it Winter

on the very next step.

He was always
a Jealous God.

*

Two of my friends found themselves in that awful party situation where they turned up in the same frock and same hairstyle and same makeup. One would have thought it was done on purpose or that they had indeed been cloned. They had the good grace to laugh it off and pretended they were twins! This made me wonder what would happen if God decided to embody himself and take a walk about his world just so to see what it was like from our point of view. He choose the most outlandish style of dress( not knowing that it was exactly what I have been known to wear on many occasions )thus creating the ensuing fracas when our paths cross. Thus it is that a poem is created from the party/frock happening and an idle whim of mine as I find myself out for a perambulation. Ahhh...the mind of the walking poet...one would have thought that I would have seen a host of golden daffodils but instead into my ever walking mind came this thought. Mea Culpa!

EMPTY( Orchestra )

Love, is just
a karaoke.

You think you know
the words

(until you sing along)

and find you only know

half a chorus or maybe a  word or two

and you...try to bluff your way through.

Not too sure
how it goes

you sing high when
it sings lows

(and vice versa)

and at half ****** past
12 o’ clock

when they’re trying
to shut the ****** thing
down

you stand there
(defiantly alone)

with a gin and bitter lemon in the one hand
and a burnt out *** in the other

(running mascara
making you look

more like a panda
than a living doll)

and croak
harshly hoarsely

out of tune

&

out of time

I WILL SURVIVE

& crying.

Crying.

It’s alright, darlin’

We’ve

all been there

...sometime.

*

Dearest friend loves right *******…much ado about something! Love has blinded her to the all too obvious facts….when he starts hitting her…we beg and beg her to leave but….love alas is blind. And she is plunged into a love that is hateful. Took her two years to come to her senses….I watched her in the spotlight singing GG one night but all to no avail. All I could do is cry for her and try to make sure she got home that night. It was like being tortured having to watch this abuse in the name of love.
And karaoke (カラオケ?, bimoraic clipped compound of Japanese kara 空 "empty" and ōkesutora オーケストラ "orchestra") (/ˌkæriˈoʊki/ or /ˌkærəˈoʊki/; Japanese: [kaɽaoke]

BUILDING THE SPHINX

He builds her
the Sphinx

using only his voice &
a few scattered gestures.

Every now & then
he tweaks the tone

& lo the Sphinx
stands before her

ready to bite her head off
with a question.

Her belief
does the rest

and now he watches
the cat being terrified

out of one of its
9 lives all a bristle

as she tells the tabby
the story I told her.

The Sphinx now
living in her voice.

Her dolls too
too terrified

to even run
petrified with fright

as my little minx
becomes the Sphinx.

Or a mop as a prop
becomes a Medusa

and so the myth
becomes realer than real

as the storm
by Jove

throws down
a thunderbolt

and a little girl Medusa
and a little girl Sphinx

prowl about
the living room.

THE WORDS HIJACK ME

the words were
throwing
a poem

a come as
'you'
were

the room was crowded
with all the Dónalls
I had been

down the years
all claiming
to be the real me

"Now just hold on
a minute!"
I blurted out

but a few big words
acting as bouncers
frogmarched me to the door

"All right...all right!"
I shouted
"I can walk by myself!"

"Sling yer hook!"
they laughed
throwing me my hat

a few of the Dónalls
were dancing naked
on a table

"Hey...hey!" I yelled
"That was
never me!"

I could see
the poem was
going to make me up

whatever way
it liked
despite me

I walked into
the night
the dark eating me up

"Well..." I wondered
"how is the poem
going to end now?"

not realising
it already had
that this was it

"Oh Holy Sh!"
I swore
"Oh Holy Sh!"

A POSEY OF SHEEP

She a butterfly
in her little blue dress

chasing butterflies
blowing bubbles after them.

Butterflies and bubbles
skitter here and there.

Her "flying flowers"
as she names them.

One b one by one she
picks wildflowers.

They blossom in her fist
losing more than she collects.

I take the ribbon from her hair
tie them tightly in place.

"I have a garden
in my hand!"

She runs and runs and runs
as only a little girl can

joy and speed
fused together in her.

And when she returns
her petals have all gone.

She holds only stalks
in her hand

flowerless flowers.

"Shhhhh!" I shush her sobbing.
"Look what you have found!"

And I let perspective
take a hand/

On each stalk now
a sheep replaces petals.

The sheep unaware that they
have become surreal flowers

only existing
at a certain angle.

Who cares if they are not real.
It's the seeing that matters.

She holds a posey
of sheep.

I tell her they are
flowers made of magic.

On the far away hillside
sheep still safely graze.

And when she moves and
finds them "GONE!"

I reposition her and
there they are.

"Hold  still!" I tell her
and pick each sheep

pocket them
mind them for her.

Happy once again she
runs and runs and runs

clutching her precious stalks
in a tiny hand.

All her imaginary sheep
tucked up in her mind

possibly for ever
if not

longer.

*

We had made our way down to Derrible Bay on the island of Sark and I ventured briefly into the coldness that was the sea. I had left my watch on some rocks and this was returned to me by a very nice lady whose husband was swimming back and forth across the bay( I had only gone for ye gentle swim and splash-about )and when this picture of health emerged from mastering the sea he came towards us for yea he was the watch-returning lady's husband who it turned out was vastly interested in poetry and so we talked for two hours about the wonders of words. I told him the poem I had in my head to write which was as yet unwritten but now weeks later it has emerged from its underwatery world and stepped into its very own words.

RUE DE SOMEWHERE

I had turned
my back
on the street

I was for
not realising
I was already there

the street ran up
after me
shouting: "Hold on there!"

it smiled with sunlight
"You did the very same
thing last time!"

I had to admit
that yes that was
me flâneuring

"I remember
your footsteps
from way back then

they got caught up
in my tar
it was a very hot day!"

well well I thought
fancy meet you
again once more

I had a chat with
its buildings
and windows

"Do you mind if
I take your photo?"
I smiled politely

"Not at all!"
the street smile
"Be my guest!"

it arranged
its sunlight and shadow
"Is this my best side?"

"Click!" smirked the camera
"Be seeing you!" I said
"Don't forget to come back!"

the sun hid behind
a surly cloud
the street nothing but shadows

THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS AROUND US

The music
maps us

traces the contours
of our emotions

( an ordnance survey of
the mind )

the changing landscape of
who we are

who we thought
we would be

from our shallows
to our continental shelves

blue deepening into blue

music mapping that
which we could never see

( the "I"
becoming
"me" )

the exact co-ordinates
between the dream and

the reality:

mountain becoming scree
headland becoming cove

what's gone
what's not gone

so much
eroded love

how hope meanders
through time

an 0x-bow lake
of thought

cut off
from the who

we should
be

the final hand
of the delta's spread fan

the entering
into the sea

what's what
what's not

music maps us
the invisible cartography

being this
all too human man

singing himself
to his self

music maps
us in a song

"...oft in the stilly night. . ."



silence enters him
fills him to the brim
the world quite quiet

https://youtu.be/KEhZDc_QLeU

Singing and poems would emerge from everyday situations rather than "Now we are singing!"  or "Here is a poem.!" but in the picking of spuds...the making a swing...constructing a shed or a bicycle...they would leak out and stain the world with their beauty.  We are about to enter the world of black and white and just before the camera frrrreezing us forever in the pose....I am holding his hand...both of us dressed in best suits on our way to mass and he is humming OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT tenderly under his breath....the thrum of his hum travelling down his body joining his hand to mine and the song finds its home in that hand clasp...this is my dad...my father who art my heaven...Danny be thy name...I hold on to him as if he were a prayer flung against the darkness of the darkest night that will ever be. His hand forever in my hand....the humming of the melody transferring its love from him to me.

**

Oft, in the Stilly Night
BY THOMAS MOORE  

Oft, in the stilly night,
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Fond memory brings the light
Of other days around me;
The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood’s years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimm’d and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere slumber’s chain hath bound me,
Sad memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

When I remember all
The friends, so link’d together,
I’ve seen around me fall,
Like leaves in wintry weather;
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!
Thus, in the stilly night,
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Sad memory brings the light
Of other days around me.