SOUL OF THE AGE

Now, is the summer
of this. . .our content

made glorious
by love

the sunlight
kiss of leaves

yet through a glass
darkly

I am tolled by old
St. Saviour’s bell

back to
a December’d day

a Thames frozen
from Westminster to London Bridge

where Will
buries brother

young Edmund Shakespeare
on this the last day

of the year
1607.

I stand on the same
flagstones

as the King’s Men
gathered in black

rub shoulders with
Burbage

a Hamlet come
to life

a summer of tourists
walking through us

as the order
from the Book of the Dead

solemnly intoned

as his younger brother
is lowered

into an unmarked
grave.

Ferrymen call
from across the centuries

“Eastward **. . .
. . .Westward **!”

as Time slips
loose of its moorings

mastiffs strain
at the leash

await the bear
to be baited.

Methinks I see
the great Globe itself

flag unfurled
upon an horizon

“the forenoon knell
of the great bell”

as I return
to my self

and Shakespeare
stares at a wall

in Silver
Street.

SISSONNE EN AVANT

Parc Du Champ De Mars
little girls practice their ballet steps
old man his T'ai-Chi

old man
frozen into
Carry Head Push Mountain

Time melts
old man flows into
Wild Horse Spreads Mane

"et maintenant...allongé ..allongé. . !"
dit Maman
the little dog rolls on the grass

the little dog growls
at the frozen man
little girl a statue in arabesque

little girl her
head in the clouds
old man...cloud hands

my moment
passes their moments
lost now in time

"... et maintenant
fermée, ouverte, développée,
en avant, en arrière, à la seconde."

*

From the old man shape shifting into his different positions of self to the tiny tiny dancers being put through their paces this was a wonderful moment of Paris that seemed to be part of a movie we had stepped into...a little piece of wonder.

A ballet student usually first learns how to do a sissone at an intermediate level and at young ages. This is to ensure the dancer has enough basic strength and comfort with basic steps like plie and saute.

From there, a student will learn variations such as jumping and landing on one foot in attitude or arabesque (sissonne en avant) or other positions. The step can also be done petit in variations or in petite allegro combinations.

TRYING TO EXPLAIN HUMAN
LONELINESS TO INANIMATE THINGS

stares at the wall &
cries & cries & cries:
the wall doesn't understand

lonely  basement flat
the 5 o'clock train rattles
the broken teacup

apple on table
your smile bitten into it
you...no longer...there

"AHHHHH...IS IT...YER SELF THAT'S...IN IT?

here I am
thin now fat then
thin again

here the hair
short now long then long
in the long long ago

the same features
scattered across time
sticky-out ears...bulgy eyes...

curly hair
only the eyes change
( and remain the same ).


still the sad shy smile
flickers across
the ages

here I am
almost
handsome

her I am
my usual not
always the same laugh

the photographs
play with me
change and amend me

shuffle me through years
tears...different me's
me's I never knew I'd be

I smile my
by now
characteristic smile

laugh my laugh
that is my own
and no others

I've a feeling that
the photographs
haven't yet

finished with me
that there will be
lots more me to come

I close the album
put myself back
on the shelf

get on with the
business of being
my self


*

Being punctuated is a fierce painful business altogher...I remembered being full stopped and clare ta God but wasn't I in a coma for weeks on end. I was then locked up in brackets for another week and all my quotation marks taken away from me so I could hardly speak at all. Then I was given a life sentence to be my self for the rest of my life.

Too many Dónalls spoil the broth of a boy...joining the dots of me...painting by numbers the me of I.

THE BELL GOES FOR THE END OF HISTORY

her head all algebra
trigonometry and Heaney
and...boys...boys...boys

her mind crept
nearer & nearer...him
longing just to touch his...

she watched a trickle of sweat
make its way down his neck
imagined herself licki..ing...it...off

it is the end of WW1
thank heaven for that
she watches him....mmmm...stretch...yawn

his name surrounded
by doodled hearts and flowers
her first poem....ahem...HYMN TO HIM

she had eyes only for him
he had eyes only for Siobhan Winterson
she hated Siobhan Winterson

oh my God oh my God oh
he just looked. . .
. . .past me

oh please oh please oh please
look at me
he doesn't give her a second look

she cries herself asleep
dreams of him
requiting her unrequited love

years years later
two kids and a divorce later
HYMN TO HIM in a battered shoebox

she reads her
13 year old self
sobs her heart out

LIGHTLY CHILD LIGHTLY

the wind is reading
Aldous Huxley's ISLAND
dropped among the hollyhocks

the wind speed reads
skips entire sections
a fat fly walks over the title

an obese raindrop falls
upon the author's name then
another & another &. . .

ISLAND
turns to mulch
raindrops batter the book

it comes apart
at his touch
islands of words remain

"...two thirds of all sorrow
is homemade and so far
as the universe is concerned..."

the rest is lost
but he can fulfil the words
". . . unnecessary. . ."

now here at your grave
my fingertips trace
the curves of your name

as a lover might
trace the taut
muscles of a back

a ladybird pauses on
the H of Huxley
as if learning its letters

their metal inlay
glinting in the sun
"...it isn't a matter of forgetting..."

your words scattered
across the years
"...what one has to remember is..."

"...how to remember and yet
be free of

the past..."

I still grieve my lost book
eaten by the weather but
glowing in my mind

I laugh and tell your grave
"Give us this day our
Daily Faith but...

...deliver us
Dear God
from Belief."

*

I live not far from where Aldous is buried and often go to chat to him in his realm of sunlight and shadow. His ISLAND book was highly formative to me in my early years.

SO THAT’S WHAT THEY GET UP TO!
(for Onelia)

The love poems
in my note book

creep from page
(at night)   to page

no longer beholden
to me.

They visit
each other

have secret
love affairs

(well, they are love poems...after all)  

Poems elope
let down a rope
of words

escape the confines
of their particular page

being of one mind
longing to be individual.

Poems 6 & 9
emigrate to page 69

and seem to be
enjoying themselves.

They search & search
for a voice

to say them.

In the morning
bleary eyed & looking

a little the worse for wear

they sneak shyly
slyly back

tip-toeing to their proper places

yawning
& just about

make it

back into their appointed positions

as I turn to...

see them
as if nothing

had happened.

*

“I wonder what love poems get up to at night
between the covers of a book? ”

Onelia

I am afraid I blatantly stole this from a passing comment by Onelia which greatly amused me.  I pleaded with her to turn it into a poem as it was such a novel idea but alas...& so I was forced to write it myself which is a pity because she would have done it so much better than I.

I hope she will still write it as it was after all her idea & I only stole it!