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207 · Sep 2016
JUST A METAPHOR
Joseph Sinclair Sep 2016
Did you compare me to a Shakespeare sonnet
dear friend my head would not fit ‘neath my bonnet.
But, on reflection, I feel much better for
the recognition that it’s a mere metaphor.
207 · Jun 2015
A HAIKU
Joseph Sinclair Jun 2015
Blood tests are awful
But they are necessary.
Why am I so pale?
206 · Jun 2019
I Like to Have a Brandy
Joseph Sinclair Jun 2019
I like to have a brandy
it makes my heart grow fonder
and gets me feeling randy,
just like a hot transponder.

(A sort of parody of Dorothy Parker's “I love to have a martini”)
206 · Feb 2017
Autumnal Journey
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2017
I shall have tales to tell
Before my final breath is drawn
Of such enchantment
As has stirred my soul
To flights of wild delight
204 · Jul 2019
Haiku on Freedom
Joseph Sinclair Jul 2019
If you seek freedom
Search within your mind and clear
The shackles inside
203 · May 2022
A TIME TO SAY GOODBYE
Joseph Sinclair May 2022
Wherever we go, whatever we do,
there comes a time ultimately
when we must say goodbye.

We can gaze at the stars, be amazed at the sky,
be enthralled by the galaxies
that may be hidden from view.

But no matter how vast the universe seems
or the new constellations that are ever revealed,
the time surely comes when we must say goodbye.

Before taking our leave, breathing a sigh
as the time of departure draws hurriedly near,
we recognise sadly the last knell appears.

Not alone for ourselves; that has always been so,
but the old earth itself is preparing to go.
And now is the time we must say goodbye.
203 · Sep 2019
Timeline
Joseph Sinclair Sep 2019
There’s another timeline somewhere,
where people are mourning me;
where family and friends are living
their natural spans,
achieving all that was hoped for,
but lost along the way
in my parallel universe.
199 · Feb 2019
Caterwauling
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2019
I wake still and far too often
with the all-too-slowly
but oh so evanescently
fading memory of her voice.

Ever since that odious event,
that heinous malevolent and
deafeningly persistent
drumming in my head

that disturbs my sleep
distracts my thoughts
and haunts the daymares
of my diminishing life.

The blaring, blasting bluster,
the eruption of molten viscous sound
that barks, yaps, yelps and yowls,
that sounds, resounds and reverberates.

How can I escape the cacophany
that threatens to enmesh me?
How can I return to the
tranquillity of a serene silence?
199 · Oct 2017
Haiku on Trust by Numbers
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2017
4’s one too many
3 can keep a secret if
2 of them are dead.
198 · Oct 2017
On Fistral Beach
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2017
In the blue distance, gleaming, painted with glorious patterns
reflected in the refulgent sunset,
come the surfboards amidst
the swell
the froth
the crashing waves
that rise and fall.
Crashing, rushing, babbling in tune that
echoes and re-echoes in the evening softness
to dance in joyful harmony.

And this, this crystal world that I have seen
in patchwork majesty spread wide upon the shore.
198 · Oct 2017
I Thought it was Yesterday
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2017
Was it really 70 years ago?
Did I just leave school
and get conscripted
into the British Army?
(And get married?)

I thought it was yesterday.

Was it really 60 years ago?
Did I just get married
(for the second time)
and was I embarking
on a new career?

I thought it was yesterday.

Was it really 40 years ago?
Did I emigrate to Hong Kong
and spend five years
travelling the Orient?
(And divorced my third wife?)

Well, that was certainly not yesterday.

So what happened yesterday?
196 · Jan 2017
IN MEMORIAM
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2017
Moving in one’s lifetime tends to follow a distinctive pattern.
First we start accumulating: family, friends and treasured possessions,
and with that vast accumulation comes the need
for an expanded premises within which they be housed.

Finally with family gone and friends sorely decimated,
comes the time to massively downsize
and all that treasured furniture and bric-à-brac
needs to be discarded and persist only in memory.

I have to ask myself, when the time comes
for me to move to my last resting place,
who will then remain
to guard those precious memories?
195 · Mar 2022
HAIKU TO ONE DISTANT
Joseph Sinclair Mar 2022
Though now far away
At the crossroad of your life
You draw ever near.
195 · Mar 2019
Le miroir a deux visages*
Joseph Sinclair Mar 2019
Parfois je me regarde dans le miroir
et c’est le visage de mon père
qui rend mon regard.

Et je sais que dans ce moment
il est toujours en vie
parce qu’il habite en moi.

C’est ainsi que nous atteignons l’immortalité.

Un jour peutêtre mon fils
va se regarder dans un miroir
et c’est moi qui rend son regard.


*Based on my poem written in English and published in Metaphors and Matzo *****, ASPEN 2015.
194 · Jan 2019
Tout ce que je veux
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2019
Tout ce que je veux, c’est toi.
Tout dont j’ai besoin, c’est toi.
Tout que j’admire, c’est toi.
Rien ne me manque, sauf toi.
Et
si je quitte le monde
je le quitterai content,
car
je t’aurai connu,
et toi, et toi, et toi.
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2017
People died.
I’m alive.
Flowers may perish.
Weeds survive.
Good men vanish,
Tyrants thrive.
Joseph Sinclair Nov 2017
It’s all right
to admit my blame.
It serves
no useful purpose
to deny
and not confess
my complicity
in your distress.

The greatest gift
I can bestow
is to listen
to your words.
To still the idle chatter
of my brain
and take on board
your clear-cut pain.

It does not make me
weak to face
my weaknesses.
It brings me
close to you,
perhaps emotional,
well that’s fine too.

Bless you for
being with me
while I unburden
my heart.
It’s good to know
that you still care,
so thanks for letting
me share.
188 · Aug 2023
AN EPIGRAM
Joseph Sinclair Aug 2023
Today is to enjoy
Don't think about tomorrow,
Better live in joy
Than die in sorrow
186 · Mar 2022
Testament to Buffoonery
Joseph Sinclair Mar 2022
I was born wise
and have spent the better part of a century
trying to constrain
buffoonery.
184 · Feb 2017
Dreams die in strange ways.
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2017
Dreams recur in different ways.
The first hesitant holding of hands.  
The first tremulous brushing of lips.  
and when we try to recapture
that sleep-borne reminiscence
we are left with
the residue of sadness
or a residue of sourness.
We try to clutch at an ever diminishing
straw of recollection.
We almost have it.
Then it is lost.
Dreams die in strange ways.
183 · Aug 2023
PLUCKED FROM MEMORY
Joseph Sinclair Aug 2023
She played on the strings of my heart.
Was it a melody?
Did it harmonise?
Was it sensual or sensuous?
Who can say; but at the end of the day
It was naught but a vast discord.
181 · Oct 2017
The Loss of a Child
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2017
She has gone
She is no more
A light has been extinguished
and the world is a poorer place.

No.
I correct myself.
She is not gone,
she is still with me
and I love her so much.
180 · Oct 2017
Haiku
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2017
I want to weep but
I have no tears to shed and
it is killing me.
179 · Oct 2017
Kaleidescope
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2017
There are times when some buried and forgotten part
of ones past self is called up from an aching heart
and it can be a most painful rebirth.
The memories fragile, soft hued, when thus unearthed,
are as disturbing as a dry brown flower
discovered in a book, may strike one like a meteor shower.

This is a situation that, when taken out of season,
evokes a past experience for whatever reason.
A rainbow within a bubble of soap,
the search for trouble with a bronchoscope,
the desperate wish just to recuperate,
despairing hope that they will not reciprocate.

And when all else is but a heap of ash,
other than that consigned to a memory cache,
then it is time to place within that store
those ills from which recovery can be no more;
to tread a path and seek a blessed state
from which to be a learned advocate
of such as heaven and not the living hell
in which the guilt of conscience still does dwell.

Now count your dead, you others who survive
as bees continue to enjoy their nectar in a hive.
As animals may play, imprisoned in a cage,
As we creative writers persevere despite our age.

It is but propaganda to deceive
and not sufficiently authentic so as to believe
when  Death, that great aggressor, determines to intrude
and interrupt the joy of an imperative  good mood.

I’ve opened curtains and raised many blinds
and peeped into the crevices of minds.
And now it seems at last it’s all been said
There’ll be no further peeps, and so to bed.
An  amended and updated version of a  longer poem published some time ago.
178 · Feb 2022
A ZEN PARADOX
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2022
Life is a grain of rice
is a paradox that
I have considered
for many years
to the following
conclusions.

Nothing is forever.
Everything ends ultimately.
The eternality of time
will cover all in a silence of
dust and overgrowth.  

We can but accept
the constraints of pain and time,
greed and need,
joy and love,
fear and lust,
and the paradox
of self-awareness,
and its relevance
to the grain of rice.

And the only conclusion
I can reach is that
Life is NOT a grain of rice.
176 · Sep 2019
A FIERY STORY
Joseph Sinclair Sep 2019
Once upon a time
we were proud
We had beliefs
convictions
targets
and desires
that encompassed
more than our own
simple wants.

Indeed
we abhorred wants.
We embraced
needs.
The needs of others
as much as,
if not more than,
our own.

Where have they gone?
Who is there now
to pick up the mantle?
To run with the pennant?
To proclaim
a universal
truth?

Who is there
in this day and age
to plant the seeds
of selflessness?
To demonstrate
humility
and love?

Where have they gone,
the exemplars
of yesteryear
whose actions
matched
their words?

Who will be left
to live
happily
ever
after?
174 · Oct 2017
Untitled
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2017
The most beautiful words
ever spoken
emerged from a heart
that was broken.
171 · Nov 2017
Thanksgiving
Joseph Sinclair Nov 2017
My body has long surpassed
its use-by date
But despite so many
gloomy predictions
I believe its best-before date
is yet to come.
171 · Oct 2017
Grammatical Haiku
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2017
The past’s historic
the future will be perfect
and the present’s tense
Joseph Sinclair Apr 2019
She wore her heart upon her sleeve
displayed, though vaguely risible,
with no intention to deceive,
her love spilled out naively visible.

The path was dark
hushed were the twitters of her belovèd birds.
Silent dove and muted lark.
She wore her heart upon her sleeve,
and unheard were her dying words:
“I believe”.
168 · Jan 2022
FOUR HAIKUS
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2022
Success is not judged
By what you got out of it
But what you gave up


Be kind to yourself
And be kind to all creatures
As well as the earth


Disputes with loved ones
Should be held to the present.
Don’t bring up the past.


Be considerate.
Do not respond in anger
But maintain your calm
168 · Oct 2017
To Say It Is To Believe It
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2017
When will I learn
that all I need,
or all that I believe I need,
I already have.

When will I learn
that all I want
is not to be confused with
all I need.

When will I learn
that all I need,
or all that I believe I need,
I already have.

The only thing I lack
is to accept the fact
that there is nothing that I need
that I don't already have.
167 · Aug 2019
I'm Not Done Yet
Joseph Sinclair Aug 2019
Those friends who knew me years ago
before our ways diverged,
may recollect
how tempered was my intellect
though rivalry emerged
whenever cricket bat
or tennis racquet
were flourished in a hand
that nowadays
is more prone to encompass
a fine Chateaubriand.

Tennis alas is of the past
and there, I fear, must bide,
but other sports and pastimes
I can still perform with pride.

So please set out those winks
that I may tiddle.
Dust off those mallets,
***** and hoops,
I’m not one of your nincompoops
and need no Queen’s flamingo
to win without a taradiddle.
Or we could turn to bingo.

Then there are those of intellect
who might like bridge or chess,
though possibly in retrospect
It’s best to acquiesce.

Ludo, Trivial Pursuits
and even Snakes and Ladders
might yet provide a good excuse
to encourage my swaggers.

The choice alas is far too great
and though it seems too late,
yet, dice in hand,
I bid farewell
with hopes still unerased
and one finger upraised.
166 · Nov 2017
Shared Feelings
Joseph Sinclair Nov 2017
When I share my feelings
I feel closer to you
But I also
feel closer to me.
166 · Feb 2022
A HEART OF ICE
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2022
I remember when
our golden dreams
inflamed my heart.
But the earth is warming
and my heart is now
a block of ice.
The fires that you lit
were excessive
and I needed to cool down.
Cast your dragon’s flame
away from me.
Let my blood spurt forth.
165 · Oct 2017
The Weapon of Expression
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2017
Dear friends, you’ve asked me
how it was I came to poetry.
Let me seek to give an answer.

I was early held in thrall by words
and sought to find
a weapon of expression.

I explored a vast variety
of differing forms including
prose and drama and ballads.

I did not come so easily to poetry.
Poetry came to me.
It sought me out and overflowed.

And did it share the secret I'd explored?
Could I answer that, dear friends,
it would not be poetry.
Joseph Sinclair Aug 2019
I grow cold . . . I grow cold . . .
The drips shall drop from my nostrils uncontrolled.
Shall I put a sweater on?  Should I risk a cardigan?
I shall dress myself in white, emulate a ptarmigan.
I have heard pelagic puffins on the shore.

I do not think that they were warning me.
A simple, silly parody.  Sorry T.S.E.
161 · Aug 2023
HAIKU ON AGEING
Joseph Sinclair Aug 2023
The older I get
the greater I’m astonished
at how young I am
161 · Feb 2019
THE PATHS MOST TRAVELLED
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2019
The mistakes we make and then
occasionally the paths we take,
as we attempt to reach
the topmost pinnacles
of long sought for success,
may be nothing more than the sad contrail
that precedes our choice of a crooked trail.

And we may frequently end up
unable to achieve those sought for graces.

Sometimes we make the wrong choices
to get to the right places.
Joseph Sinclair Jan 2022
Oh, Boris told such dreadful lies,
One just gazed wide-eyed at the skies,
Astounded at support from these
Parliamentary colleagues
Who rallied to their leader’s cause,
Secure in the male menopause.

Gove, Michael, who was quite gung-**
Wanted to believe him, though
In trying to maintain his credence
While avoiding intercedence
Got his knickers in a twist
Which hardly pleased a hedonist.
But may have done so, had not he
Been faced with obvious perfidy.
For once, towards the end of work
He realised that the stupid berk
Had joined a party out-of-doors,
Knowing there was nothing worse,
But given the alternative,
Was doggedly conservative.

While as for dear effete Rees Mogg
Whose mind was often in a fog,
Though evidently of good breeding,
Slept through parliament’s proceeding.
And in The Mogg Cast Jacob wrote
“Unquestionably” – and I quote:
“The PM is an honest man”.
What brave words from a loyal fan.

He seemed to share with Donald Trump
A failure to maintain the ****
Of his supporters who only lasted
So long as he felt they could be trusted.
Thus Priti Patel with whom, besotted
He must have been, for when she blotted
Her copy book, he kept her in
The Cabinet, despite a sin
That others, far beneath her station,
To leave had had no hesitation.

But once, towards the close of day
Hearing merry sounds of play,
Bojo took his health in hand
Ignoring rules from his command.
“No-one tells me what to do”
Quoth he, “I’m off to have a few.”
“Allow me, please, to beg your pardon
And join my colleagues in the garden.”

It was not long before a tide
Of censure came from every side.
From Kensington and Camden Town,
From Aberdeen and County Down.
The premier has been found out
As if there could be any doubt,
For, after all, his lying skills
Had long replenished the gristmills.

When young he suffered from glue ear
So, what he did not want to hear
In later life, he could ignore
And simply choose to underscore
His frequent absurd recklessness
On the misfortune of deafness.

At Oxford in the Bullingdon
His drunkenness was quite well-known.
His early exploits as a Yuppy;
Flirtation then with Darius Guppy.
As editor of the Sextator
With thanks, doubtless, to his Creator
More flirtations, some quite grave;
“Who, sir?  Me, sir?  I’m no knave”
But Petronella at his back
Could not avoid the sack by Black.
Earlier it was the Times;
Distortions were his major crimes.


And, finally, to Downing Street
Where the circle is now complete,
Surrounded by his faithful lackeys,
Standing up for the Iraqis,
Risking the enmity of *******
Whose Durham trip was unbecoming,
Though not condemned at all by Boris
As extinct as a brontosaurus.


His lies have not grown any sweeter
They’ve more in common with a foetor,
When embarrassment heads his way
He simply takes off for the day:
“Sorry for this Obfuscation
I have to go to King’s Cross station
To provide a possible disclaimer
For my absence from the Chamber.”
159 · Feb 2017
No Escape
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2017
Formerly I ran like mad
to stay in the same place.
Now at last I’ve come to know
that this will merely
bring me face to face
with my own alter ego.
159 · Jul 2022
I WAS DELUSIONAL
Joseph Sinclair Jul 2022
I thought I needed your love
and hoped you needed mine.
I was delusional.
Greater by far to acknowledge desire,
and not to confuse wants with needs.

We all need strokes
but they come from within
and what is best to avoid
is the confusion
of the trigger for the bullet.
158 · Aug 2023
SOLACE
Joseph Sinclair Aug 2023
I can sympathize with pain but not with pleasure.
There are those who prefer suffering to sympathy;
Who would exchange solace for sensuality.
It is not my wish to offer them a choice

I seek to bring you comfort;
To bring you to a resting place.
But will I bring solace to myself?
Will I find a refuge?

And if not me, then who?
And if not here, then where?
And if not now, then when?
This is no recipe for scant solace.
157 · Jun 2022
Reflections (2)
Joseph Sinclair Jun 2022
If only it were possible
To hold a mirror to my mind
And try to ascertain
If the image it portrays
Is true or a distortion.
156 · Oct 2019
I Am No Penitent
Joseph Sinclair Oct 2019
I am no penitent.

I sometime feel
that in a previous life
I may have been Titivulus,
the incredible Michael Ayrton’s
magnificent verbiage collector.


. . . the little devil.
156 · Jun 2022
FRIENDS OF MY BOSOM
Joseph Sinclair Jun 2022
At my age, friends become fewer,
and those that remain
are all the more venerated.

It is becoming harder and harder
to recall that time
when older people were revered.

As time passes, so do the elderly,
and the contemporaries
that are with us, slowly diminish.

There comes a time in life
when we become uncomfortably aware
that we are outliving our friends.

I feel I want to say please bide awhile,
do not desert me at a time
when there are so few of you left.

What is this discomfort that I feel
when I outlive a friend?
Surely the guilt should belong to the one leaving me?
156 · Feb 2022
Haiku on saying "Yes"
Joseph Sinclair Feb 2022
I cannot recall
any regrets consequent
on having said "Yes".
152 · Mar 2022
SONOROUS CHIMES
Joseph Sinclair Mar 2022
I have lived in interesting times
I have endured many different climes
Much of my life has been bizarre
But now, calling me from afar,
I begin to hear those compelling chimes
151 · Jun 2022
THE BEACH
Joseph Sinclair Jun 2022
There are no grains
of golden sand
to be seen
upon this black and burning beach
where we once spent our honeymoon.
In Ostia.

The brutal sun,
so uncompassionate,
that desiccates our skin
and burns the unshod feet
that venture on that dirt-black sand
in Ostia.

Why should one choose
to indurate the body
in such an unappealing
coastal strip that serves
as beach to Romans who betake themselves
to Ostia.

Particularly since
It’ll cost ya.
Today 30 June 2022 would have been the 85th birthday of my beloved and greatly missed late wife June.  I was suddenly struck by the memory of our honeymoon trip by car through France, Switzerland and Italy in 1958, and the poem I subsequently wrote and published in Let Us Then Rejoice (ASPEN-London 2016).  RIP June.
150 · Aug 2019
Transmutations
Joseph Sinclair Aug 2019
To shake forbidden fruit
from off the sacred tree,
to quell the hungry yearnings
of the phantom bough
and hide the mystic longings
of the barren heart.
These are the secret wishes
that are keeping us apart.
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