by Nanao Sakaki

If you have time to chatter
Read books

If you have time to read
Walk into mountain desert and ocean

If you have time to walk
Sing songs and dance

If you have time to dance
Sit quietly, you lucky happy idiot.

                                            Nanao Sakaki
                                                          ­Japan

                                               From Can I Buy a Slice of Sky
                                               Edited by Grace Nichols
                                               Published by Hodder Childrens Books 1996

by J.B.S. Haldane

I wish I had the voice of Homer
To sing of ****** carcinoma,
Which kills a lot more chaps, in fact,
Than were bumped off when Troy was sacked.
Yet, thanks to modern surgeon’s skills,
It can be killed before it kills
Upon a scientific basis
In nineteen out of twenty cases.
I noticed I was passing blood
(Only a few drops, not a flood).
So pausing on my homeward way
From Tallahassee to Bombay
I asked a doctor, now my friend,
To peer into my hinder end,
To prove or to disprove the rumour
That I had a malignant tumour.
They pumped in BaS04.
Till I could really stand no more,
And, when sufficient had been pressed in,
They photographed my large intestine,
In order to decide the issue
They next scraped out some bits of tissue.
(Before they did so, some good pal
Had knocked me out with pentothal,
Whose action is extremely quick,
And does not leave me feeling sick.)
The microscope returned the answer
That I had certainly got cancer,
So I was wheeled into the theatre
Where holes were made to make me better.
One set is in my perineurn
Where I can feel, but can’t yet see ‘em.
Another made me like a kipper
Or female prey of Jack the Ripper,
Through this incision, I don’t doubt,
The neoplasm was taken out,
Along with colon, and lymph nodes
Where cancer cells might find abodes.
A third much smaller hole is meant
To function as a ventral vent:
So now I am like two-faced Janus
The only* god who sees his ****.
I’ll swear, without the risk of perjury,
It was a snappy bit of surgery.
My ****** is a serious loss to me,
But I’ve a very neat colostomy,
And hope, as soon as I am able,
To make it keep a fixed time-table.
So do not wait for aches and pains
To have a surgeon mend your drains;
If he says “cancer” you’re a dunce
Unless you have it out at once,
For if you wait it’s sure to swell,
And may have progeny as well.
My final word, before I’m done,
Is “Cancer can be rather fun”.
Thanks to the nurses and Nye Bevan
The NHS is quite like heaven
Provided one confronts the tumour
With a sufficient sense of humour.
I know that cancer often kills,
But so do cars and sleeping pills;
And it can hurt one till one sweats,
So can bad teeth and unpaid debts.
A spot of laughter, I am sure,
Often accelerates one’s cure;
So let us patients do our bit
To help the surgeons make us fit
____________
.
*In India there are several more
With extra faces, up to four,
But both in Brahma and in Shiva
I own myself an unbeliever.

                                  J. B. S. Haldane (1964)

The apple is gone.
It departed today in the wake
of Gonzalo’s sting.

The sting in the tail
of a hurricane that
should never have touched our shores.

And so the symbol
of tenacious life
no longer bears witness
to my own tenacity:
my own survival in an
irresolute world
now seeks another yardstick
on which to pin a shaky faith.

By John Reed

To Lincoln Steffens


SOMEWHERE I read a strange, old, rusty tale
Smelling of war; most curiously named
The Mad Recreant Knight of the West.
Once, you have read, the round world brimmed with hate,
Stirred and revolted, flashed unceasingly         
Facets of cruel splendor. And the strong
Harried the weak …
                    Long past, long past, praise God,
In these fair, peaceful, happy days.

                            The Tale:         
      Eastward the Huns break border,
        Surf on a rotten ****;
      They have murdered the Eastern Warder
        (His head on a pike).
      “Arm thee, arm thee, my father!         
        Swift rides the Goddes-bane,
      And the high nobles gather
        On the plain!”

      “O blind world-wrath!” cried Sangar,
        “Greatly I killed in youth;         
      I dreamed men had done with anger
        Through Goddes truth!”
      Smiled the boy then in faint scorn,
        Hard with the battle-thrill;
      “Arm thee, loud calls the war-horn         
        And shrill!”

      He has bowed to the voice stentorian,
        Sick with thought of the grave—
      He has called for his battered motion
        And his scarred glaive.         
      On the boy’s helm a glove
        Of the Duke’s daughter—
      In his eyes splendor of love
        And slaughter.

      Hideous the *** advances         
        Like a sea-tide on sand;
      Unyielding, the haughty lances
        Make dauntless stand.
      And ever amid the clangor,
        Butchering *** and ***,         
      With sorrowful face rides Sangar
        And his son….

      Broken is the wild invader
        (Sullied, the whole world’s fountains);
      They have penned the murderous raider         
        With his back to the mountains.
      Yet though what had been mead
        Is now a ****** lake,
      Still drink swords where men bleed,
        Nor slake.         

      Now leaps one into the press—
        The hell ’twixt front and front—
      Sangar, ****** and torn of dress
        (He has borne the brunt).
      “Hold!” cries, “Peace! God’s peace!         
        Heed ye what Christus says—”
      And the wild battle gave surcease
        In amaze.

      “When will ye cast out hate?
        Brothers—my mad, mad brothers—         
      Mercy, ere it be too late,
        These are sons of your mothers.
      For sake of Him who died on Tree,
        Who of all creatures, loved the least—”
      “Blasphemer! God of Battles, He!”         
        Cried a priest.

      “Peace!” and with his two hands
        Has broken in twain his glaive.
      Weaponless, smiling he stands—
        (Coward or brave?)         
      “Traitor!” howls one rank, “Think ye
        The *** be our brother?”
      And “Fear we to die, craven, think ye?”
        The other.

      Then sprang his son to his side,         
        His lips with slaver were wet,
      For he had felt how men died
        And was lustful yet;
      (On his bent helm a glove
        Of the Duke’s daughter,         
      In his eyes splendor of love
        And slaughter)—

      Shouting, “Father no more of mine!
        Shameful old man—abhorr’d,
      First traitor of all our line!”         
        Up the two-handed sword.
      He smote—fell Sangar—and then
        Screaming, red, the boy ran
      Straight at the foe, and again
        Hell began….         

Oh, there was joy in Heaven when Sangar came.
Sweet Mary wept, and bathed and bound his wounds,
And God the Father healed him of despair,
And Jesus gripped his hand, and laughed and laughed….

by Philip Larkin

They ******* up, your mum and dad.
  They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
  And add some extra, just for you.

But they were ****** up in their turn
  By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
  And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
  It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
  And don't have any kids yourself.

                                         Philip Larkin

Kit Wright – From Humpty Dumpty, the Official Autobiography

9.  Ode to Autumn – Humpty looks back on his life.

Humpty Dumpty had a lean summer
Humpty Dumpty’s spring was a ******.
Humpty’s winter was no good at all
But Humpty Dumpty had a GREAT FALL.

by Matthew Prior

Sir, I admit your general rule
That every poet is a fool!
But you yourself may serve to show it,
That every fool is not a poet.

                                 Matthew Prior

by Joyce Grenfell

If I should go before the rest of you
Chuck not a flower nor inscribe a stone,
Nor, when I am gone, speak in a Sunday voice
But be the usual selves that I have known.
Weep, if you must, parting is hell
But life goes on - so sing as well.

                              Joyce Grenfell

by John Gillespie McGee Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling
mirth of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred
things you have not dreamed of - wheeled
and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovr'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along,
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, the long, delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

                      John Gillespie Magee, Jr., September 3, 1941

by Leigh Hunt

Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in.
Time, you thief! who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in.
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;
Say that health and wealth have missed me;
Say I'm growing old, but add-
Jenny kissed me!

Voltaire said
if god did not exist he would have to be invented.
But god does not exist,
except in my imagination.
Therefore I have invented him.

And according to Montesquieu,
if I were a triangle
my god would have three sides.

But god is of my mind
and thus . . .
god is me, and
I am god.

*quod erat demonstrandum

Each year it happens.
The apple tree viewed from my balcony
gives up its fruit
until at last one solitary apple
remains high up,
beyond reach,
riper, redder, more robust
than any of the others
that have fallen or been gathered.

Unmoved by rain,
unshaken by winds.
It is as if
this one remaining fruit
is determined to resist
the onset of winter.

Day after day
I awaken;
raise my bedroom blind,
rub my eyes
and seek it out
amidst the protecting foliage.

At first resistant to my gaze,
it then proudly displays
its presence,
as if to say
“Behold, I still remain,
a testament to the perseverance of Fall.”

Each year I too remain
despite the apple’s everlasting reminder
that I myself am transient
and will one day
be shaken from my bough.

I am reminded of O. Henry’s last leaf
painted by an aged artist
to give support and strength and sustenance
to fading hope of life’s recovery.
Perhaps the apple, too, is but a dab of oil
on canvas.

Indeed, am I myself a product of
an artist’s keen, unfailing eye;
living in some vast
parallel universe
adjacent to and yet unseen
by all those bygone friends,
amidst an orchard of fallen, rotting apples?

Prosaic’ly he plods the path of peace,
Avoiding pitfalls when the dusk is nigh
By treading warily.  Does not release
In gay abandonment a heartfelt sigh
Such as the vagabond of Nature’s road
Permits himself when shades of darkness fall;
For he has not to carry such a load,
And is but one of many that make all.

It is a perfectly formed teardrop;
or the gold of an autumnal leaf;
it is the first apple or peach blossom
of spring.

It is the sight of a rainbow to a child;
or the sight of the child itself
observing that rainbow
for the first time.

A miracle is the sight of a loved one
beside me when I awake.
It is her hand in mine
to still that ache.

Yet Hume would have us believe
that miracles do violate
the laws of nature.
O, so not so!

For me the laws of nature
are the miracle.
To know that season follows season
is the awe.

And those who despise reason
to favour faith
are merely
self-deluded fools.

Not for me the accusation
of the psalm that would
make me a fool for
disbelieving god.

That I abandon faith
and choose instead
to reason with my brain
thus verifies belief.

It is as hard for the believer
to abandon a belief
as for a man of science
to discard old laws.

But moral values are self-evident.
I do not need an act of faith
to emphasise
A moral code.

It is enough to know that I am one
with all humankind and
whatever touches another,
touches also me.

I seek no vague salvation;
no sweetmeat in the sky;
it is enough to hold most dear
what is simply “I”.

We’ve wandered far from miracles,
from acts of faith and such,
but life itself’s miraculous
e’en to a worthless wretch.

She came and it was light:
The light of countless twinkles in a champagne glass.
She spoke and all was bright:
The brightness of the sunset in a narrow pass.

What matters how she came or what she said?
Of small importance, now, the cause of strife.
But when she went I wished that I were dead,
For all the light departed from my life.

Longmoor 1948
Subsequently published in Uncultured Pearls, ASPEN-London, 2014.

Only the tough survive.
It’s like a baptism of fire;
when the going gets too hot
the tough become firewalkers.
Singed souls
with asbestos soles.

I put myself out there –
all of me on the line.
I knew it wouldn’t last.
The immersion heater’s faulty
and I have to press
reset.

I took a walk through the park today.
The leaves were gently dropping
through the light and shade of an Indian summer.
The warmth was quite unseasonal
and that weird contrast between autumnal death
and the arousing sunshine’s heat
struck me with the strangest thought
that that could almost be
a metaphor
for me.

I recall myself growing
inside her,
moving and reaching and
sliding, slithering,
straining against
any explosion of feeling.

I remember the sharing
of tumescent desire;
the transition from
connection
of mouth and breast
to thigh and ****.

I remember, I recall . . .
and that is all that’s left;
the memory,
the recollection,
the evocation
of joys long gone.

Alas
the sands run out.
Nothing now remains
but odium,
loathsome,
vile.

I’d had my way
back in the day,
but this, oh this
it must be said:
I’d left her
in a loveless bed.

When sights and sounds and sentiments
Once real have lost their worth;
And when those fragile elements
Lie dust-like on the earth,
Then shall my heart no more conceal
What it would most express;
And shall I come at last to feel
That unaccustomed bliss.

There’s no sympathy for single mothers
she said.
He sniggered.
Social services:
what do you expect?
I left me ‘usband when ‘e beat me up.
They’d ‘ave been ‘appier to spend
the public funds
on a grave.
No gravestone.
Just a plot to mark the spot
and two tiny tots
clutching a bunch of weeds from the
roadside.
And no place to put ‘em.

I love thee well;
I do not know
how else to tell
I love thee well.

Then fairer belle
he met, and so
I love thee?  Well,
I do not know.

Clarence Darrow said
I don’t believe in god because
I don’t believe in Mother Goose.
Personally
I do believe in Mother Goose because
I’ve seen her on my dinner plate.
But I don’t believe in god.
So . . .
Go figure.

It was
a nonsense time.
A time when
hope and opportunity
failed to mesh;
a time when
chance and comfort
came afresh.
And took what little pleasure
piqued my life
and turned it round,
at such a time
when summer had no end
and winter came with snow
and was a friend.

Where is it now?
Now with my hopes
and aspirations
turned to dust?
What sense is there now that
the buds have sprung
their open traps;
that trees have now released
their rich green sap;
thus striving to revive
that withered frame
with fruit and wild flowers
and perpetual peace.

My brain too long has had the sound
and shape and nerve
of breathless requiems.

I want to feel my own rebirth
in time and space come throbbing through
the tips of each finger,
flooding my dry veins with rich green sap
and giving me new sight
to every sense;
making me whole again.

I want to feel my spirit as before
rippling with joy
and dancing through my skull,
so that, merged in adoration with my soul,
I may once more have that power
to fill my cup of life and love
and find this consummation
in her arms.