FROZEN LAUGHTER

we dashed outside
as the sky was
falling

“Crunch...crunch...crunch! ”
chanted the snow
as our footprints chatted to it

in a bold red
booted voice
and slowly a bird

wrote itself across the sky
with such careful
calligraphy

& our laughter
froze
right in front of our noses

ALL THE WAY DOWN THE LINE

Yes, I have forgotten
you

are dead
and turn to you:

"Did you see that?"

But Death has stolen
your eyes.

So you see
nothing.

Bits and pieces of you
vanishing day by day

as if you are being
erased.

I still cling onto
your smile.

Death
isn't having that.

And I am still
in possession of your voice.

It's tone
the slant of it

the heft of a syllable
a last few remaining phrases.

I still talk to you.
Ask your opinion.

"The red or the blue?"

Your ghost smiles
plays along with the charade.

I hear you say
( in my voice )

as if sound could be
forged

this counterfeit you.

"Oh the red...the red all the time
all the way down the line!"

THE VERB “TO IS! ”

You ask me
politely

“What please
is the difference

between the verb
“to be”

& the verb
“to is”

“? ”

I laugh.

And you frown.

Pout.

“Laugh please
not at me! ”

“I have the desire
to learn learning! ”

“I’m sorry...forgive me! ”
“I do too! ”

And today
you give me

the gift
of the verb

“to is! ”

I hating
to correct

your lovely
words

when I love
what they do

teasing the language
(fire from embers)

as they glow
anew.

Always & forever
my love

is the
verb

“to is!

FIRST A LITTLE NIBBLE

First a little nibble
of a frayed curtain

then with a gulp
of sheer delight

it began to eat
the new sofa.

First the throw...then:
a checkered cushion

until it had all been
consumed.

It licked the door
wanting to escape

the room wherein
had been born.

Slowly slowly then more
and more

eagerly it
advanced up the stairs

on little flame like feet
before bursting into the bedroom.

It blossomed
It bloomed.

A fire engine tore then night apart
all sirens and lights....sirensandlights.

By dawn the fire had grown
weary of itself

smouldered sulkily.

A child's yellow shoe.

Half a teddy.

. . .lay at the fireman's feet.

A KISS OF RAIN

written inside him
with wild calligraphy
the littlest of her smiles

it was raining hard
the kiss hardly a kiss
unmaking making the world

the kiss
making him all at once
aware of his existence

the kiss now
making them oblivious
of a world turned to rain

rain & laughter rain&laughter;
he kisses her like a happy
ever after

AN ABSENCE OF TIME

Here is a slice
of sunlight

captured in 1963.

There the finest first
blackberry ever tasted.

A rhyme that blew away
a dandelion's head

thought scattered
over years.

A moon's shy glance
as you gazed at it

in silent adoration.

Laughter left
upon a hillside.

All these thoughts
on show

in the mind's museum.

Not held captive
behind glass

but
living still

suspended in
an absence of time.

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 lick..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

SANCTUARY

this one perfect moment
time rearing up like a wave
that never ever breaks

the train's scream
the dog's bark
chiseled into the silence

dancing to
the bandstand's music
a flock of flags

birds
writing themselves...unwriting themselves
across a page of sky

this moment
flees from time
claims sanctuary in my mind

STONE MAD

The stone
stands alone.

More a pebble
really.

It breathes the blue
of a summer sky

tiny
against such vastness.

It basks
in the sun.

It is busy
being a stone

Something for a fly
to land on

something to stub a toe
upon

something for a hand
to hurl

knocking a tin can( in one )
off a broken-down wall

something to go splash
in a river.

It’s world view
altered.

It holds
its breath

under water
shivers

likes
the urgency

of its new
way of being.

The stone
is busy being

a stone

something to pick up
put in a pocket

put in
this poem.

IF WE SHADOWS....

It was as if
a cloud had fallen asleep

in the lower field.

It had already eaten
an unhitched wagon

and half a red barn.

It watched us approaching
from the yellow windowed house

where the babies lay asleep
blowing spit bubbles.

It seemed to smile in a
giant grey candy floss way and then

started in on
first you and then

me or what
was left of me that I could see.

It had eaten all of you
except your excited voice.

All you could see of me
was my nervous laughter.

We had been evicted from
our known selves

and there was no known
forwarding address.

We were all points of
the compass at once.

“Moo!” commented a cow
on the situation at hand.

And “Moo” mimicked the cloud
having had

eaten everything.

There was no place to live
except inside our thoughts

and our thoughts
walked our bodies

towards the barn that
like Mr. Schrödinger's cat

was either there or
either not.

“Moo!” said a moo.
“Moo!” said another moo.

One moo almost the clone
of the other.

We had arrived.
We were now here.

Suddenly our arms legs and other
bits of our bodies was

returned to us
thanks to a light switch

that made us in our own
image.

We owned ourselves again.

The cloud was sleeping
in the field.

One could almost imagine it
snoring.

I clapped my hands together.
“Ok!” I said

“…let’s get on with
the milking!"

FRAMING THY FEARFUL SYMMETRY

It's the little things remain
shadows on your skin

memory preserves it
makes it more precious

despite its
insignificance.

The ephemeral
made permanent.

You all
sunlight and shadow

marking you a tiger
a stripey 5 year old.

"Rrrrr!" you roar
burning bright.

I throw my little tiger
up in the air

catch her years
later.

The sunlight now
in teacher mode

displays an
equilateral triangle

made of
pure light.

Hear her voice of then
still telling me now

"Look...an equatorial triangle!"

And so for ever
it is.

The angle I see her from
changes

the year come and go
and the equatorial triangle

still burns brightly
you my little girl tiger

twisting the sinews
of my heart.

COME VIENE...VIENE!
(WHAT COMES...COMES!)

for Paolo Sandulli

The sun is
preaching her sermon

to the town
of Praiano

that clings to the cliffs
in wonder.

Here in her hand
of light & water

she tells the parables
of pebbles.

One wave waves to another
as she walks upon the water.

Bells undress Time
disrobe her of her hours.

Lemons grow
big-bellied on branches

pregnant
with yellow.

The juice
of the Future

praying in a church
of trees.

Here, a congregation
of butterflies & bees.

Grapes dream of being
turned into wine.

Figs ripen
with pleasure.

The gods of pagan times
survive

disguised as statues.

I only believing
in the religion of

a woman’s
laughter.

And even now
as darkness

grows
upon the rose

it’s as if
the sunlight never leaves

only changes
colour

and the sunlight darkens
only to blossom

into the next morning
in love with Time.

*

This was written for the Italian artist/ceramic sculptor Paolo Sandulli who has a studio in an old Saracen tower overlooking Praiano called Torre a Mare.

His work and his workplace are magical and deliciously fantastic making the mind smile and the soul laugh as he creates a

NUOVE MITOLOGIE MEDITERRANEE

with his love of place and people. Delightful and enthralling.

Check out Paolo's creations at p.sandulli@alice.it

The title in the English version comes from the Italian menu which is the chief's surprise...eh...what comes...comes..ok? The title like Paolo's work amused me so much that it became the poem's name. The dish itself was a pizza with a midrash of everything and anything.

CHE COSA SI FA

Il sole è
la sua predicazione predica

alla città
di Praiano

che si aggrappa alle scogliere
a meraviglia.

Qui in mano
di luce e acqua

racconta le parabole
di ciottoli.

Una ondata onde ad un altro
come lei cammina sulle acque.

Campane spogliarsi Tempo
disrobe della sua ora.

Limoni crescere
grande-addome su filiali

incinta
con il giallo.

Il succo
del Futuro

pregare in una chiesa
di alberi.

Qui, una congregazione
di api e farfalle.

Uvaggio sogno di essere
trasformata in vino.

Fichi maturi
con piacere.

La divinità pagane di volte
sopravvivere

dissimulata come statue.

** solo credere
nella religione di

una donna
risate.

E anche adesso
come il buio

cresce
la rosa

è come se
la luce del sole non lascia

solo le modifiche
colore

e la luce del sole si oscura
solo a fiore

nella mattina successiva
in amore con il tempo.

BEAUTY O'ERSNOW'D AND BARENESS EVERY WHERE

A Christmas
with the Thames

almost freezing, then
thawing & then again

the London of 1598
asleep

under a quietness
of snow

that hides the world
from itself

as some Elizabetheans
go to steal

a theatre
silent now for a brace of years

frozen by bitter
dispute.

The playhouse dismantled
bit by bit

so that when it rises
it will become in time

The Globe
this wooden O.

Will turns his face
up to the stars

laughs
at this theatre theft

snowflakes settling
upon his eyelids

remembering when
he was all of 7

and the Christian tales
told in stained glass

are shattered
for their sins

now only white light
is to be

let in

picking up a shard
of the ****** Mary

here a fragment of
St. George.

He sticks out his tongue
tastes the snow

knows that
all things change to

begin again.

He laughs.

The ****** Mary's smile
still clasped in his hand.

*

Inspired by JAMES SHAPIRO'S COMPELLING 1599 - A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

The 'theft" of their former theatre,The Theatre, which dismantled would become the famous wooden O. And Will watching( possibly ) when all of seven. . .the stained glass windows of his 'right goodly chapel" been smashed by a glazier who was paid 23 shillings and 8 pence for his smashing. These two images are what burned on in my mind.

I have often stood in that chapel and seen what remains of the whitewashed paintings now brought back to life. His dad had to order this whitewashing months before Will was born but by 7 Will could have been witness to the death of the coloured glass and all that was to be beheld there.

So this Midsummer's Day madness of 1571 really stated with me and forced the poem upon me.

"Popery may creep in at a glass window as well as at a door" as one William Prynne put it. The English Reformation going about its daily task to the dismay of the common folk who had to put up with the religion changing hands and changing hands yet again all in the little time of just over a quarter of a century.

Being a great lover of stained glass and its beauty this was what got me the most!

The title is from Will's Sonnet no. 5:

Those Hours that with gentle work did frame

"Beauty o'er --snowed, and bareness everywhere.
Then were not summer's distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass, "

ALWAYS YOU ARE

father dear father
you are
the sky over Ballygarvan

you are
the waves crashing
against the Old Head of Kinsale

these the places
where
you were a child

you are the sunlight
that enters
in a morning

you are the shadows
as it leaves
in an evening

the things of now
that are forever
present

father dead father
you are alive
in all the things I see

father dear father
you are
never dead

as long
as you
live in me

THE EMPEROR OF NOW

robin in church
hopping from pew
to pew

a miracle
made real
its sheer joy of being

I hum Haydn
to its every step
Menuetto: Allegro

my little emperor
dances on the altar
it has become the music

it gazes at itself
reflected in the gold
of the tabernacle

a host of sunbeams
chase each other
little fishes of light

now robin
balances on the head
of the Christ

this the secret
prayer
of the moment

leaving me
bereft when
it finds the open door

*

Haydn's Quartet No. 62 in C Major, Hob. 111:77( Op.76 No.3) - the 'Emperor.'  It's Menuetto: Allegro was the musical equivalent of its happy hopping through the sunny church....as if it was the manifestation of Haydn's notes. It was a little epiphany...a kindness given to me...this robin was my only religion.

When they were in Rome, Severn used to rent a piano and play Haydn for the dying Keats in the next room and Keats was delighted with it and said:  "This Haydn is like a child for you never know what he will do next."

It was also accidently the soundtrack to my daughter's first tentative tottering steps...as if the music was holding up her tiny frame and propelled her along.

GHOSTS IN THE WARDROBE

There's ghosts in the wardrobe
a flotilla of dresses
that stare at my crying

frock after frock
skirt after skirt
they mock me with your absence

your presence
now
only in this absence

this dress
remembers that
picnic

this skirt
the kiss...that kiss
falling at your feet

the so many yous
hung on hangers
float behind plastic

here your perfume
still clings
trying to outface Death

Death smirks
stares back
it doesn't blink

all the different people you could be
blue and yellow and
I slam the door on them

between finger and thumb
I pinch out the candlelight
the dark crowds around me

GRIEF HAD ROBBED ME

I had( somehow )
lost my self.

Looked in all
the usual places.

The mind
( empty as bedamned ).

The heart
( a hollow laugh ).

Even memory
( not the merest sign ).

Grief had robbed me
of who I knew as me.

Left me nothing but
a full sized cardboard cut-out

of who I
used to be.

I felt like a movie set
house you know all

front & no
back.

Unreally I
appeared real.

"Hope it don't rain..."
my cardboard self

said to
itself.

DER BERLINER REGEN

the past was busy
inventing the future
making it up as it went along

I was left out
in the rain
my mind rusting

my time
in the 20th century
was coming to an end

dawn saw
the 21st century
dragged in by the hair

and screaming
at the top of its voice
"I don't want to be here!"

"Ok ok!" I yelled
at the newest of centuries
"We better get on with it!"

"No time..."
like the present
it smirked

the Berlin rain
continued
to do its thing

HE DO THAT TED HUGHES IN DIFFERENT VOICES

Nothing but
- a waste land.

Crow is bored

perched upon a branch
like a haiku

waiting to happen
but where

is a haiku
poet when

one really needs one.

Crows agree to play
Charades.

One falls to the forest floor
clutching its chest shouting

"Aghhhhh ya...got me
I'm  a gonner!"

Then another and another
with a more cornier

one-liner than
the one before

looking more like spilled ink
than the last.

Crows having a blast
laughing their feathers off.

All big Film
Noir fans.

"Yeah, yeah...I got it
a ****** of crows!"

Across a hillside
a human stands

as if he had just sprouted
out of the land.

An Easter Island
of a man.

The sneer of cold command
upon those chiseled lips.

An Ozymandias!
"Look upon my mighty words and despair!"

Or more like
a granite gryphon

glaring at the crows' play
turning them over in his mind

until they
become words.

"Oh not that ******
Ted Huges again!"

Crow mutters
to itself.

The poet unaware
that human thought

hangs frozen on the air
on such days as these.

The giant Hughes man
a poet made of iron

by some process of
emotional osmosis

absorbs their world and words
making it up as he goes along

for he great poet though he be
never learned to speak Crow.

The great man glares
at the sun

willing it into submission
the sun falters on a hillside.

He disappears into the snow
his fragile footprints

vanishing in a trice
lost to time

as if he has
never been born.

Crow does his best
impression

mocks and mimics
the human's thought.

"Nailing Heaven and earth together -

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood. "

A bell breaks
the sky's silence

crows scatter to
the heavens.

"Oh that Charlie
Crow...he is a one!"

One crow smirks to another.

"He do that Ted Hughes
to a tee!"

"WE TAKE NO NOTE OF TIME BUT FROM ITS LOSS"

I ****** you from
your dying

place you here
outside time

words and memory
conspire

make you forever
the boy you were

tell you to go play
on a day

you could
never forget.

Go on father
be this child

who never can
believe he can die.

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 ******* 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

.  . .ON THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE

The War? I was so
glad to get out of it alive
even if it was as someone else

who...I was...died
it was the only way to survive
I became a stranger to my self

I had been so scared
I was going to die
now I'm scared of being alive

I watched better men than
me...die so...easily
I hated me for surviving

I still hear their laughter
how real they were
more realer now than I

the dead stare at me
silently
envying me this life

"Here: have it...take it!"
I scream at them
they stare at me silently

i feel as if I've cheated them
out of their future
"I got...lucky...that's all!"

When I get to
the bottom of
the bottle I

put the ***** top back on
trap them inside
the bottle's emptiness

the passing midnight cars
light up the ***** yellow walls
wallpaper roses blossom out of the dark

I reach for the next bottle
they stare at me silently
"I got lucky...that's...all!"

TWAK!

Twak!
  
A knife embeds itself
  
in the space just
by her left ear
  
as if the wood
gulped it...******
  
in
its glint
  
vibrating still.
  
In her head
she plans
  
dinner.
  
She stares
at her husband
  
remembers how
he had come
  
to court her
...twak!
  
Another knife
flashes spitefully
  
narrowly missing
her other ear
  
a little
bubble of blood
  
like a stud
earring blossoming

on a wobbly
earlobe.
  
'Ouch! '
she whispers
  
to herself
guilty
  
at such an over
reaction.
  
Oh how he had
excited her
  
her head
in a spin
  
saying he
was in
  
show business.

Her world
revolves
  
about him
the next knife
  
impregnates itself
in the space
  
between her
legs
  
like a tuning fork  
it hums

her excitement
builds
  
a tiny splinter of
wood
  
nestles in her
left inner thigh.

'Wow...nice! '
she becomes moist.
  
The shimmy of her
spangles
  
as the lights catch
her
  
a little
gasp as
  
she faces him
boldly
  
afraid &
un-afraid
  
upside down now
her world all topsy-turvy
  
she still so
proud of her

husband's skill
to tantalise her
  
his unerring
accuracy
  
the pride of being
(she the knife thrower's assistant)

as well
as wife.

A loud sea
of applause.

Twak!

THE WISEST OF LINES - HARMONY SQUARED.

( for Brian Ings )

D-503
kisses I-330.

The kiss is
perfect as an integer.

They are holidaying in
"the capital of the 19th Century"

"Paree
Ahm mais...qui!"

"My...My..My!"
We say...seeing them.

"Nous Autres......n'est-ce pas."

"We never thought we'd live
to see the day!"

1-330 says.

D-503 dog ears Orwell's
1984.

Takes her on his knee.
It's like living a poem.

She kisses D-503
on the tip of his nose

which makes him go
cross-eyed.

She mimics him.
Both burst out laughing.

"Now, it's..."
getting back to the discussion

before the kiss
popped up.

I-330
somehow escaping

The Bell Jar.

"It's like Plath put it
so succinctly...distinctly.

"Poetry is a tyrannical
discipline..."

She too a Sylvia...
throwing off her numbered name.

"Don't you agree
Yevgeny?"

"Mmmmm...!" he mmmmms.

"You've got to go
so far, so fast

in such
a small space."

"True...he says "True!"

"...you got to burn away
all the peripherals!"

And so we leave
Sylvia and Yevgeny

to themselves.

BEYOND THE CLOUDS

He runs
for the sheer joy

of being
a little boy.

"Brian...Brian!"
I try to rein him in

with my voice but
he escapes even that.

"Watch out...watch out!"
I throw the words at him

"Or you'll hit
that cloud!"

Two clouds glower at him
and he stops in his tracks

suddenly uncertain if
that is possible.

And so perspective
cowers my little brother

and he runs back
holds my hand.

We tiptoe past
the threatening clouds

leaving them behind
he laughing nervously.

Now far far from that time
beyond even death

I call his name
and he turns

runs and
takes my hand.

The clouds can only
look on.b

"THE TREES OF THE MIND ARE BLACK."

I crept up on
the trees.

They stood on tip-toe
on top of a hill

looking the other way.

The wind had changed
and they had not heard me

coming
without a footfall.

I stood amongst them
before they were aware

I was there.

They gave a little moan
then lapsed into silence.

I stood there as if
I were a tree myself.

An eternity
had gotten tangled up

in their bare branches
unable to break free.

It pretended to be
a sunset when it saw me

looking too closely.

I stayed there until time
had drifted away.

The moon a little ball
the trees held over their head

handling it gently

handing it

one

to

the other.

HAUNTING MY OWN GHOST

My ghost hung around
waiting for me to kick

the bucket so it could
take my place.

I shouted: "Now, just hold on
a moment I am

not dead...gasp....gasp
-  yet."

"Oh hurry up and get on
with it!"

it screamed back.

Well...I never.

"It's hard being here but
not all there

if you know what I
mean...a ghost's gotta do

what a ghost's gotta do!"

Anytime anyone
came into the sickroom

my ghost crawled
up the wall or

hid behind the curtains
blending un-successfully into

the dreadful wallpaper.

But somehow
the kicked bucket

stabilised itself and
regained an equilibrium.

My ghost
assuming the worst

had now being
caught out

of its comfort zone
and had to pretend

to be my shadow
or my reflection

and learn to smile
at me through gritted teeth.

Me now the picture
of health.

I haunting my own ghost
with my continued living.

"I'ill get you for this!"
it snarls from the mirror.

"Oh go rattle your chains!"
I yell and flounce out of the room.

It hopes I die
...soonish.

STANDING NAKED BESIDE ITS SKIN - SEQUENCE

(1)
A CHAIR SITS IN AN EMPTY ROOM

The woman unhooks
her shadow

drapes it over
a chair.

She plucks her reflection
out from the mirror

stashes it away
under the chair.

She looks into
the mirror's nothingness.

She strips off
her skin

leaves it on top of
the chair.

She switches off
the light.

The chair just
sits there

absorbing the darkness.

The woman becomes
her footsteps.

The light from the bathroom
throws itself into the room

falls just short of
the chair's legs.

The razor blade
slashes through flesh.

She bites the tip of
her tongue.

She watches her blood
whirlpool down the sink

( she does not stop to think )

washing away the pain
washing away this self.

A chair sits
in an empty room.

(2)
THE MOON REFUSES TO SHOW ITS FACE

An owl is the darkness.

Only its voice is
visible

to the naked ear.

It gives voice
to the darkness.

The darkness says
nothing.

It lets the owl
speak for it.

The darkness transforms itself into the owl.

The owl becomes the darkness.

The moon refuses
to show her face.

Silence seeps back.
The owl says nothing.
The darkness says nothing.

A human cries.

(3)
MANY MOONS

she remembers an apple
standing naked
beside its skin

apple cut and cut and cut
like little slices of moon
fallen on the ground

the apple no longer a thing
to be eaten
now only a thing of fascination

the many scattered slices of moon
the earth a black sky
ants walking on the moons

she picks up one of the moons
licks it clean of ants and dirt
places it upon her tongue like a wafer

soon she remembers nothing
nothing
nothing at all

her life the empty space
where she had cut herself
out of her photographs

TIME UNRAVELS

woven into a sky
the birds try to escape
the tapestry

LOVE SONG FOR EMILY
(for Emily Dickinson)


You handed me
your eyes
so that I could see


as you saw
I looking
in wonder


seeing you sew
the world together
in quick little stitches


a perfect embroidery
of knowing
drawing the thread through


& through
until nimble as a needle
I knew as you knew

Oh Emily
I was always
in love


with the beauty of
your eyes & how they saw
& said the world


the quick dashes
of your mind
like Braille


to my blindness
the Morse Code
of your thought


leading me
through
the labyrinth of you


bound
in a nut
shell


until I arrived
at the beauty
of your eyes


and you handed me
your seeing
and...I saw

LOVELY MORNING...ISN'T IT

It was the first day
of the end of

his life.

Although he was not
to know that.

The door opened
into the morning

a portal made of sunlight.

He stepped into it
as if he were about to be
transported into another planet.

He stepped into it
with a lipstick kiss
on his left cheek and

the next step
was his last
it all happened so fast.

One minute
a ***** laugh
then a last goodbye.

An hello to her
next door
"Lovely morning....isn't it!"

I looked at
the sound.

It was coloured
with summer and sunset

with a wind
tossing it here and there.

An invisible bird
making the tree's leaves tremble.

Time pouring out
of its tiny throat

singing a forever
that would last

for this day
only.

I saw the sound
looking at me.

"Remember this..."
the sound smiled.

Only now can I
trap it in words

letting it speak
after all this silence.

THIS BELOVED SPACE

    
Oh love
but newly born

a mere week old
(as time goes)    

here in
the cradle of our arms

which we have hardly left
for 3 days now

charmed by its magic
circumference

this beloved
space

face to face
naked & new

body mind soul
those elements of being
human

unfurling like a banner
to the endless sky

proclaiming
Love

holds dominium
over us

& we
its loyal subjects are

encompassed by our arms
we hold the world

of our love
(sleeping gently now)    

we mere mortals
...immortal are.

STANDING NAKED BESIDE ITS SKIN - SEQUENCE

(1)
A CHAIR SITS IN AN EMPTY ROOM

The woman unhooks
her shadow

drapes it over
a chair.

She plucks her reflection
out from the mirror

stashes it away
under the chair.

She looks into
the mirror's nothingness.

She strips off
her skin

leaves it on top of
the chair.

She switches off
the light.

The chair just
sits there

absorbing the darkness.

The woman becomes
her footsteps.

The light from the bathroom
throws itself into the room

falls just short of
the chair's legs.

The razor blade
slashes through flesh.

She bites the tip of
her tongue.

She watches her blood
whirlpool down the sink

( she does not stop to think )

washing away the pain
washing away this self.

A chair sits
in an empty room.

(2)
THE MOON REFUSES TO SHOW ITS FACE

An owl is the darkness.

Only its voice is
visible

to the naked ear.

It gives voice
to the darkness.

The darkness says
nothing.

It lets the owl
speak for it.

The darkness transforms itself into the owl.

The owl becomes the darkness.

The moon refuses
to show her face.

Silence seeps back.
The owl says nothing.
The darkness says nothing.

A human cries.

(3)
MANY MOONS

she remembers an apple
standing naked
beside its skin

apple cut and cut and cut
like little slices of moon
fallen on the ground

the apple no longer a thing
to be eaten
now only a thing of fascination

the many scattered slices of moon
the earth a black sky
ants walking on the moons

she picks up one of the moons
licks it clean of ants and dirt
places it upon her tongue like a wafer

soon she remembers nothing
nothing
nothing at all

her life the empty space
where she had cut herself
out of her photographs

"FALLINGS...FALLINGS...NO FALLINGS PLEASE!"


No sooner has she
mastered the art

of perambulation
than she  

discovers she
can run

and can
achieve this feat.

This she does
with a great glee.

For to run is
fun.

She runs from chair  
to table and back.

Steady...steady
as she goes.

She supremely
confident of her self.


But every now
and then she

sees her belief
waver.

Totters  too much
to the right.

Veers too much
to the left.

Could suffer
perhaps a mishap.

Somehow her voices
puts her back on track.

On an even keel.

"Fallings...fallings..
...no fallings please!"

Her words
her balance.

Then if she ever
feels herself go.

She shouts out
her mantra.

"Fallings...fallings
...no fallings please!"

She now a teenage
long legged blur

of speed showing
me a karate kick.

And somehow I
find I have become

an old man
uneasy on his pegs.

Climb the stair
gingerly step by step

with great trepidation
in case I trip.

A bruised  coccyx
a broken rib

have taught me
to beware the stair.

Ascend or descend
with exaggerated care.

And if I should oooooo
feel myself go


I call out
to my stumbling self

"Fallings...fallings
no fallings please!!!!"

GETTING 22

A  glance
told me all

I needed to
know.

The room had been
Chandlerised.

A bishop was kicking a hole
in a stained glass window

whilst eating a pearl onion
on a banana split

but not the angel cake 'cos
it had a tarantula on it.

Everywhere there were
kangaroos in dinner jackets.

Somehow Raymond's words
had escaped the constructs

of the language
&

similes and metaphors
had become real

realer than real.

I kept walking
in ordinary prose

each footstep
a boring report.

trying not to break
into a metaphor

or smile in simile
or anything similar.

I made it to
the last page

and dived into the dark hole
that opened at my feet

into
THE END.

I had managed to make it
through these mean pages

( it's hard being a linguistic
private **** in one's mind )

when one is falling
asleep and

the Chandler
( the studied text )

falls out of
the too tired hand

but oh no
I had somehow entered

the realms of one
Dashiell Hammett.

Me...I  
felt like somebody

"...had taken the lid off life

let me see
the works."

"The problem with putting..."
( I thought to myself )
"...two and two together..."

"...is that sometimes you
get four

& sometimes you get
twenty two."

AND STILL THE RAIN FALLS

between you
And me

the wall
of your death

descends
with an audible clang

cutting us off
each from the other

I can still see you
clearly

I throw myself
against this barrier

the glass laughing
as I

slither cartoonishly
down its impossibility

behind it
your past exists

all neatly packaged
contained and counted.

Your future has been
cancelled.

Your present no longer
to be seen.

I throw myself at this
unacceptable thing

enraged as rain
filling up an empty

tin cup in a Parisian
backstreet.

You reach out your hand
to touch me

comfort me

but I am not able to be
comforted

the glass mocks me


and still the rain
falls

The sun is
an artist.

See how it has
made today

perfect as
can be

the ripeness of
birdsong

an apple innocent
upon a tree

clearly drawn
with light

each blade of grass
an individual in its own right.

And now the light
is making me

casting my shadow out

I walking upon this earth
my shadow climbing the walls

birdsong once again
stitching the morning together

as if sound
could be seen.

"Morning!" smiles the world.

"Morning!" I return its greeting.

!YOU AGAIN!

Your summer dress
comes to rest

upon the balcony

hung up on a thin
wire hanger

(an exotic bird)        

it cries for your body
weeps at being

parted from you
& your curves

a pool of tears
collects at its hem

as longingly it dreams of
the touch of your skin

asleep now
in the sun.

Later that evening
frightened by the approaching storm

it tries to escape
the clamour of its hanger

almost flies off
beyond the reach of my hands

run away to sea
seeking for further horizons.

I calm it
tame its panic

fold it tenderly

carry it like a dreaming
child

lay it to rest
at the foot of the bed

where all night long it sleeps
at your feet

awaiting your footstep

the sunshine
of being

you
again.

"OH POLLYWOG MY POLLYWOG!"


he was a prince
good as any to be got
in a fairy story book

you couldn't have
written a better man
eyes like emeralds

she was a princess
although to be fair...a frog
beautiful as any green ever seen

it was their greenness
which drew them together
as well as their Irish-ness

"He is just so...ribbit ribbit!"
he blushed
to hear her say so

"****..!" she croaked
"It's just difficult to find
the right human words!"

she told him if
married they were to be
all would be change and change about

she wore his ring
in her bottom lip
he her heart's "...ribbit!"

she tried to brush up
on the lingo
Human for Frogs

come the wedding day
all was not
as it was before

he had been transformed
into the handsomest
bullfrog

and so they live
happy as a story
that needs no book

too busy loving
to be worried
about its telling

why the change
in the how it goes
from the what went before

that's easy to tell
I live under the spell
of a lively little girl

with eyes so so green
and who as it happens
just adores...frogs

A SINGLE GREEN LIGHT

Time slows down
so that your funeral

and the funeral of your character
become as one.

The same unremitting rain
...hardly anyone came.

Dorothy Parker echoes
the end of your book

"The poor *******!"
This The Great Fitzgearld.

The Episcopalian rector declaims
that the only reason he gave the service

"..was to get the body
in the ground."

He speaks of you as
"a no-good, drunken ***

the world was well rid
of him."

As if the faded eyes
of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg

gazed down mercilessly
upon your soul

What was it Scott
the Good Book said?

Corinthians something something
or other:

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen,
but on what is unseen...

since what is seen is temporary,
but what is unseen is eternal."

You the great writer of
the eternal unseen.

Now you walk about
in the wonder of all your words.

MEETING AT NOON

A Who met a What
in a Where.

Both stated their I AM
laying claim to this self same

space in time.

'I AM CAT...CAT I AM!"
declared the cat in Meow-ese.

"I TILLY...TILLY ME!"
declared my daughter

in broken 3-year-old-English
of a sorts.

And here in this garden
in this time

they shared the one
moment

that belonged to
both.

And here is the Polaroid
of that coming together

faded yes as if
the sunlight shrank

from the image but
just able to make out

the Who and the What
in a Where.

AND THE WORLD WAS AS SIMPLE AS SNOW

You are like. .  .all
the dark shops of my childhood
where you enter with the little ****** of a bell

and the world blossoms

into a myriad of things colourful to sell
stacked in impossible & impeccable order

all yelling shining glinting wild & glassy

and the cash register singing with the hard earned money
and the little ****** of a bell lets you out again

into a world
excited with the falling of  snow

& the palpable approach
of  a Christmas when Christmas was Christmas

and the world
was as simple as snow.

*

It is a love poem for my sister Junie...the YOU ARE LIKE. . .and then I am taken up on the wings of memory and she's alive again and I am 7 and always holding her hand as we go to buy my Ma 4711 eau de tiolette and my Da Old Spice aftersahve. I always got them these presents year after year in the time of my childhood..It took me 6 months to save up the money for them...and I would look longingly at kids ******* ice lollies in the depths of summer but save my little pennies 'til they grew into pounds and Christmas approached slowly and silently but I was always ready for it...and I would go with my sister June up to a lovely old chemist all polished wood and brass and glass...the little bell creating the wonder and with its ****** right on cue the snow would fall and I would hold my lovely sister's hand forever and ever and never ever let go...the delight was in my sister and her love and this is what the poem is all about....Christmas is just the backdrop to my always remembering her so. I can still feel her hand.

& AGAIN: "YES!"

He stepped out of
the photo

stretched and
gave a great yawn.

He had been standing by that
wall it seemed forever.

The sun shone
in black&white.

Outside it was
night.

He had never seen  his grandson
who lived in colour

on the mantle piece just
newly born.

He strode out boldly
in 3-D

with the strange gait of a 2-D'er
trying to put his best foot forward.

It was a long long way to
the photo of Tipperary

and the smiling newborn boy
but by God he made it.

His grandson lay smiling
in a shaft of sunlight

that rocked him gently
and gently.

He stepped into the colour
and turned into a nice sepia.

He held his grandson
against his chest

smiling
in Kodachrome.

Then put him back
in the frame.

He managed to return
to his own black& white

as headlights travelled
across the ceiling

before the telephone rang
and the morning awoke

and sleepy feet from above
went to answer it with a yawn:

"Yes...yes. . ."

& again:
"YES!"

OVER YOU

A bust
of Beethoven

has fallen

in love with
a tiny statuette

of the Venus
De Milo

who has also
lost her head.

Beethoven with his
shattered hair

admires what is there
of her body

Christ!
with his left arm

snapped off
comes between them

keeping them apart.

Christianity
is harsh.

I pass & leave them
to their broken hearts.

Buy an egg
timer

made of brass

from a man
who looks like

a monkey
even more

than a monkey
do.

I turn the sands
of time

upside down
& then again

upside down
again

and with much fuss
catch the packed bus

in the non-stop
rain.

Home again
I boil an egg

that is neither
hard nor soft

hum Tchaikovsky
as I chew burnt toast

and cry

over you.

the town yawned
nudged in the ribs by the dawn
stretched itself to the end of its suburbs

the town had awoken
& thrown of its night
the sun dancing among its many windows

the birds had sung
the morning into being
the town looked pleased with its new day

IF WE SHADOWS....

It was as if
a cloud had fallen asleep

in the lower field.

It had already eaten
an unhitched wagon

and half a red barn.

It watched us approaching
from the yellow windowed house

where the babies lay asleep
blowing spit bubbles.

It seemed to smile in a
giant grey candy floss way and then

started in on
first you and then

me or what
was left of me that I could see.

It had eaten all of you
except your excited voice.

All you could see of me
was my nervous laughter.

We had been evicted from
our known selves

and there was no known
forwarding address.

We were all points of
the compass at once.

“Moo!” commented a cow
on the situation at hand.

And “Moo” mimicked the cloud
having had

eaten everything.

There was no place to live
except inside our thoughts

and our thoughts
walked our bodies

towards the barn that
like Mr. Schrödinger's cat

was either there or
either not.

“Moo!” said a moo.
“Moo!” said another moo.

One moo almost the clone
of the other.

We had arrived.
We were now here.

Suddenly our arms legs and other
bits of our bodies was

returned to us
thanks to a light switch

that made us in our own
image.

We owned ourselves again.

The cloud was sleeping
in the field.

One could almost imagine it
snoring.

I clapped my hands together.
“Ok!” I said

“…let’s get on with
the milking!"

THE TALES TOLD BY BIRDS
( for Shyam )

The civilisation of the birds
will prevail

and they will tell their eggs
stories  about how

the humans
nearly destroyed the earth

and how now they only survive
in the stories that birds tell

to frighten
their little hatchlings

who don't really believe
that such creatures

could ever have
existed.

MY GHOST CHATTING TO MYSELF

knife flashes through flesh
the stunned silence
the wild scream of red

the pastpresentfuture
flows from the wound
time is thicker than blood

the assassination of Time
the body dying
to its sense of self

the world
leaking into
nothingness

my ghost
chatting to my self
in an amiable manner

the dead enemy
staring at
my dying

my friend whispers
"I'm not going to let you
die in this jungle!"

never thought I'd live to be
the old man
I am now

the friend who saved me
dead
only a week later

still remember the stare
of that Japanese soldier
looking bewildered he was dead

JOLLY GOOD SHOW

All day
stuck up this ****** tree

in the middle of ****** nowhere.

All the landscape
shrunk to this crossroads

like the cross-hairs
on a gun sight

brings the distance
into focus.

“****** Nora! ”
He swears to himself and laughs.

His mother’s name was Nora.

Always thought it was hilarious
to swear by her.

Remembers one time as a boy
swearing at her:

“And eh by gum
she didn’t half hit me hard! ”

“Blood seeping through the gum
still taste the taste of it on my tongue
****** ‘orrible it was!

Hated her ever since.”

“Now, look whatcha made me done! ”
she hollered at him.

“Yes…sorry our Mum! ”

He didn’t dare cry
‘cos she’d hit for crying!

“She was a hard one…our Mum!
Had to be with us ****** lot!

She were fun though when she were happy! ”

He hoped to God
that his man would come

so he could **** him
and be done.

Didn’t know him
from Adam

(leader of the insurgents
capable of getting men around him) .

“Dangerously charismatic! ”

Better dead
to keep the British peace alive

as the Empire lay dying.

The sun setting
dying him a golden brown.

“If he don’t come soon
I won’t have the light to **** him.”

“Remembering shooting game with our Dad
rabbit…pheasant...up ‘eath in sunlight

. . .such as this.”

The dangly ****** rabbit
turning into next night’s stew

eating a celebration
of what you can do

- do well...****.

How he came to be
here

up a ****** gum tree
gun in hand…staring

waiting for a man to ****.

Same ****** thing.
Simple ****** plan!

Waiting 3 days now
and no man.

“Keep your position ...over.”
“Maintain radio silence.”

“Report in when job done.”
“Roger ok that...over & out.”

“Eager to get job done so I can go ****** ‘ome!”

“Didn’t believe it myself
until I seed it! ”

Dot in the distance
translating itself into a man.

Just enough light left
for killing.

“And now, put out the light
...put out the light! ”

He muttered to himself.

****** Othello!
The only Shakespeare he knew.

“A lass I once knew
A real brain & chatter box! ”

“I only ever wanted to get into her knickers
& the only way to do so was to listen…so I listened.”

“Trying to teach ****** me Proper English
and she ****** well Scottish!

****** cheek!
...och aye...but nooo! ”

The crossroads funnel him into
the killing spot

“Trot trot trot trot!
like Noyes’s THE HIGHWAYMAN!

Noyes! No...yes!

Why think of
Majorie Wallace and her ****** poetry now!

No poetry in killing
just plain ****** prose.

Dead is dead is dead.

A blown rose
fading on the periphery of his vision.

The cross-hairs
come to rest

like a deadly spider
on the rider’s face.

He’s ****** grinning.

The man doesn’t even know
he’s already dead!

Won’t even know what’***** him!

(Probably thinking of a sweetheart
and getting her into ****** bed)

Just like I am.

Just the gentlest of squeezes

like stroking a lassie’s ****
(Oh Marjorie ****** Wallace!)

Then - that’s it!
The rifle spits and speaks

in the language of the dead

and only one man understands
what’s said.

And where there was a head
there is now no head.

You see it only
for the briefest of seconds

and can’t really believe it!

How the head blossoms!

Like a sudden flower
and then fades

in that
instant.

Mindless now...

he plucks the faded rose
(or whatever it is it’s called around here)

reminds him of
England.

Pops it into
an amo pocket.

Good clean ****.

Head shot – one shot.

Tries to pretend...
but it always hits him hard

taking a closer look
at his handiwork.

Kicks the body:
“You poor stupid ****** ******! ”

“A man no less a man
than I am...”

Faceless.

Lying there
in the dirt
as he were only having a kip.

Becoming dirt.

Breaks radio silence:
“Come and ****** well pick me up! ”

“Jolly well done! ”

The radio cackles back.

“Jolly good show! ”