'THE EXQUISITE AIR UPON THEIR SUMMITS'

'With what transporting
sensation...' I gasp
'...the air altogether inspired?'

I breathe it all in
'...as often as
a showy October would allow!'

I watch the leaves leave
'What feelings
have they?'

if only the air
could talk
what does it think

of the trees
changing
their dresses

or standing stark
naked now
at the height of winter

Miss Austen
breaks into my mind
scattering my senses

'And just who do you
think you are, Sir!"
Jane rages

"And what are you
doing with my words!'
she fumes

I try to explain
that it is an in-text
quotes poem

'La Sir, I may be
dead but not dead
to the world

I have kept abreast
of recent literary
conventions!

Pray Sir, I beg you
put my words back
where you found them!'

"But Jane..."
I implore her
"Look at the leaves!"

she turns on her heel
leaving my mind
throwing her words at me

'It is not everyone
who has your passion
for dead leaves!"

*

My In-text quotes poem borrowed from Miss Austen's SENSE AND SENSIBILITY for which I profoundly apologised to the lady all to no avail and I could not escape her wrath

THE SECRETION OF MEMORY

in an attic
( mottled with age)
mirror gazes upon mirror

a web attaches
( spun by a rather theatrical spider )
a primitive computer to a wall

a mouse scurries over
a dusty keyboard
the keys hungry for words

a tattered kite
stares at a sky
the clouds racing by

here is where
objects go to die
when the world abandons them

I too
an object abandoned
by my self

THE OPENING OF THE HAIR


my crying
short cropped little girl
all slobber, snuffles and snot


hair cut off
because of a school lice infection
sobs her heart out


"I can't open my hair
I want to open
my hair like Mummy!"


Mummy trots in
with her high ponytail
let's lose her flowing locks      


tresses cascading
over shoulders with
an almost audible splash


a red river runs
down her back
the effect is  wondrous


as if the hair sang
its heart out a madrigal
a little ordinary miracle

mummy takes her
dressmaker's scissors
cuts jaggedly her magic hair


as if breaking a spell
a crescendo
of clips and snips


a red river
weeps
at her feet


Tilly gasps
in awed
astonishment


my crying short-cropped
little girl
my crying short-cropped woman


both so
uncannily alike
now even more so


"Me and you Tilly
me and you
will grow our hair together


and when we've done
we will open our hair
and let it down for daddy!"


*

My little girl loved watching her mother let down her hair or put it up.  So did I as it happens...she had a red river of hair that flowed down her back and it was a wonder of our world to see the hair fall so gracefully as if it were an alive thing. A magical creature.

Tilly used to call this action...the opening of the hair as if it was a wonderful ceremony. She came up with it herself and it was only much much later when engaged in Shakespeare studies that I actually found it was an Elizabethan expression.  The other expression I found was a "cup of news!" So here is my cup of news!


When the lice infection struck Tilly had to lose her hair and was distraught. She just sobbed and sobbed to lose her golden curls so that Queen Mummy took drastic action and sayeth; "Off with my hair!"  And so she sacrificed her glorious hair for the sake of her little one. It was like an Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale. When I came home to this solution I also cut off all my hair. And so we were as one. I took a Polaroid of all us baldy one and placed it next to a photo of us in our glorious hairy day.s The family that goes bald together...stays together.  All for one and one for all. Tilly was delighted now with our new fashion statement and glad not to be the only one.

It was quite a while before the "opening of the hair' ceremony could be held once more.

SPEECH LESS
(for B. B.)

the page looked
at me
blankly

the words
gathered
inside my head

but refused
to come
out

'Sorry mate...
we're on
strike! '

'But why...? '
I cried.
"Why!"

'Do we have to
spell it out
for you? '

'Write...write...write! '
'That's all
you do! '

'You 'ave us up
all ****** night
it just ain't right! '

'No...I...don't! '
I lied...
blatantly

'Oh...who was that
sentence I saw you
with last night? '

'That was no sentence...
that was
my haiku! '

'And those
poor vowels
...the howls! '

'Look, mate...
we're consonants
so we can take it

but
...a vowel's
a vowel! '

'Now, it's just our luck
that we've gone & got
ourselves an Irish poet

who is prone
to a little
internal vowel rhyme! '

'Assonance! '
I said.
'Bless you Guv but

I don't cares wot
you'se call it! '
all we hear

all night long is
O...E...
I...U! '

and with
that
they left

the whole ****** alphabet
abseiling out of my head
marching down my forearm

the whole ****** platoon
now on my patella
now turning at the door

saying: 'See ya fella!
Call yourself.. a ****** poet! '
they jeered

we're off to
Bryan Baker's head!
Now...there's a poet!'

slam!
the door was silent
they were gone

I was...
...I was
...speech-less!

THE ONE ABOUT...

"Did you hear the one about..."
Death's
already laughing

"...a fireman, a butcher & a janitor
walked into a War..."
Death loves to tell this joke

Sometimes Death changes the details
"...a guy from Omaha, Ohio & Nebraska
walked into a War..."

"...and the shell fell into
the hole they were cowering in..."
Death cracks up

"...an 18 year old & two guys of twenty
walked into a War. . ."
"Wot's yer poison?" Death snickers

"...some guys called Sam, Hank & Frank
walked into a bar in a War and
they don't ever ever walk out..."

METAMORPHOSES

My smile
floating

in my compact
mirror

as I get carried along
in a river of people

flowing down
High Holborn

stiletto-ing back to work
with the other temps

laughing gaily
amongst ourselves

looking forward to
a weekend’s Paintballing.

I add a little more
scarlet to my smile.

My smile
gazes back at me

almost in love
with itself.

I trap it
in its little prison

snap
it

shut.

Burdened by
my beauty

almost sick
to death of it.

What others would die for
I’d die to be without.

I shiver
in the sunlight

feeling un-really
real.

It’s not easy
being a myth

especially in these times
of disbelief.

I still recoil
in horror when people recall

that hoary old story
of how I was loved

...by a river.

Oh really Arethusa!

I gather up
my green hair

into a ponytail.

Oh those ****** Greeks
and the stories they tell!

Now I am a millennium
or two

...older

I remain still
as beautiful as ever.

Suddenly a voice
comes after me

his shadow
casting itself over me.

Oh ye Gods!

Surely not here…not now…not…again!

“Hey darlin’…why leave
why such a hurry? ”

Alpheus
that old river God

disguised as a cartoon
bowler-hatted-pinstriped-brolly-carrying English gent.

But the wrong vernacular
gave him away.

The river Yob
as he was known  even back then.

I tried to pretend
I was mist on a mountain.

But he
wasn’t having any of it.

His voice
pursued me

his shadow
the shape of my terror.

Panic’d…perspiring
I turned into a stream

made a run
for it.

The English gent
dissolved as he

poured himself
into his true form.

I could feel his
strong undercurrent

how his waters
wanted to mingle with mine.

I started crying
which only  made matters worse.

And yes…yes
he caught me of course

chased not longer chaste
filled with his lust
  
& it all happens
all over again.

Who’d be a nymph…eh?
Lusted after…turned into a tree or river.

It’s enough
to drive you nuts.

Ye fu&*%ing Gods
I hate being a myth!

It’s a curse
having to go through it

every time someone reads it.

It’s so…frustrating!

Tired now.
Ooops this is…my stop!

I shoved Hughes’s
OVID

back in
my rucksack

leapt off just
as the door closes.

There seemed to be some
commotion on the street

and **** and double ****
Holborn Underground

was closed
due to flooding.

DA VINCI'S GHOST

I listen to
classical guitar in the dark

with only a single
candle for company.

These my teenage years.

Music and flame
travel through my mind

unveiling thought.

Da Vinci's
Vitruvian man

pinned to the wall
with most pins missing.

He comes alive
in the candle's flicker.

Gets into a flap
each time the door opens.

Little brother is spooked
by that Vitruvian stare

but is fascinated by the fact
that he exists

within a circle
within a square.

Like a priest I
dress my self in the garb

of Leonardo's words.

"Write what the soul is.

Illustrate whence comes....madness.
Whence...tears.
Whence...dreams!"

The whences make him wince.

As he sees it:  "...it is like a man
travelling through time

in his dream machine
and arriving at his own

dying
becoming his own

ghost."

Our mother's voice
calls him

and he is grateful to escape
his own thought.



Now, here I am
at your death

as you step inside
the circle
(inside the square).

You stare back at me
with that Vitruvian stare

and I " try to write
what the soul is."



And this is what I was listening to when he came in and encountered the Da Vinci. Back then he was only my little nine year old brother. The drawing spooked him but the music he liked.

Pavane Pour Une Infante Defunte-Ravel-Julian Bream & John Williams Together