for Tor Ulven


If you never existed
you wouldn’t be here
reading this poem
it would make no difference
to your life.


When you cease to exist
it will be like you never
heard this poem
it would make no difference
to your death.


Now, while you’re reading
it happens
it snatches a few seconds -
a tiny grasping, clawing animal
furry with letters
sleek with syllables
blocking the way
standing between you
and the next minute.
You can never get it back.

                                                   You
*                                               can ****
                                           your own men
                                            in friendly fire
                         And toss their bodies on a funeral pyre
                            Or bury them in sand if you desire  
                                    Wrapped in barbed wire
                                              dust  to dust
                                                still man
                                                  You.

When we are making love -
mouth, breast, chest and sweat
genitals joined in circles and loops
of whole bodies - curlicues

coming together, joining
land edge and sea rush
tidal, our vast ocean.

After, we drift away in our minds
our flesh still held hostage
still, our bodies linger close

until the whole earth is silent
and we quietly release each other
becoming two selves, flat on the sheet

skin, side by side beating with heat
sharp and tingling
with the taste of salt.

Peter was my carpenter
he used only aged old wood
he’d snatched in passing
from passing away places
and neglected or unwanted forms.

Split from first use
he’d choose their resurrection
stripped, planed and straightened
shaved, sanded and shaped
- a re-incarnation - he made

my table, a flat pine oblong
knotted and notched
once blackened wharf wood
planks of purpose
reposed and renewed.

It sits steady in the kitchen
reliable and ready each day
but when I turn my back
or leave for the last time
each night, I wonder if it is there

its four legs held tight by gravity
or, if it moves in any direction
flying, soaring or shuffling
or, is it a negative space, an absence
gone far away forever, like Peter?

~for Philip Larkin~

Soundless dark of wakeful night
panic thrills the heart
and chokes the mind
with dread of dying
of lying dead -
white marble stone dead -
passed
beyond self
to nothingness
and nowhere.

Just energy burst free,
blowback
to the godless Universe
body to ashes
atoms,
and nothing more.

© M.L.Emmett

I am the ****** and damaged warrior
Mighty presence on an arid plain
Waste-land empty and scorch-scarred parched
Looking to the dazzling dawn
Of another baking, aching, dry day
Of another dying, desert year.

They watched bold marching
Fearful tramping
To each pitiful skirmish
And every blood-hungry moment
Of all the days and nights.

They watched corded muscles
Spasm and seize
With each call to stretch and pull
And drag the weary-worn
To fight again.

Let no man call with shrill-shriek of the owl
Across the night-filled silence
Let no-one ever whisper in the dark, dearth
Across the shadowed chasm

I am alone within a purple shade
Night-cloaked in cunning strange
I am the time-deadened, weary watchman
Locked in a forever-circle of despair

Manacled with lead, banded with steel
Tight twisted and knotted by a skein of silk
Woven tightly by the softest hand
Strengthened by certainty and pure calm
There is no escape to unearth

But death
Is skirting the edge of existence
Picking at the loose threads
Teasing and niggling the fraying filaments
Laddering and snagging
And pulling, pulling out beyond time
The winding-sheet, the sack-cloth shroud
The only closing choice.


© M.L.Emmett

Death jousts with pain
each day of life
in a deadly tournament
each side waiting
for the silk scarf to fall.

In vain they wait
as the me between
shrinks into a senseless ball
of indecision
living a death of sorts
each day.

There is a need to end
the vice-like pain
of living.
To scrape out the anger
burrowing deep
malignant in bone.

There is a love which holds
me bound in a winding sheet
of guilt and fear
to leave you alone
as I was left
by Nanna and the phenobarbitone.
to escape
the daily torment and the pain.


                                                         ­     
© M.L.Emmett

(For Martin, my brother)

I write your name
on window panes

I clap out its five syllables
for the five fingers of my hand

and the five senses
lost and abandoned

I see deep white snow
and signposts buried in the drifts

I hear the jet black engine
running under my sternum

I touch the mirrored stillness
You still, me still here

I smell the red raw emptiness
bloodied, ***** and free

I taste the green of bitterness
acid etching ulcers in a stomach wall

I trace the ink of your signature
follow each loop and dot of the ‘i’

that ‘i’ Martin
that has been erased forever.

Look in the mirror and what do you see ?
This is your golden time, your early spring
A dew-fresh face, peachy and wrinkle free
You are sweetest  rosebud near blooming
Your sparkling dark eyes of  the deepest blue
are a hidden sea by Nature painted .
Your luscious berried lips of blushing hue
are with gentle lovers not acquainted.
Your vernal looks recall your mother’s prime
Beguiling, fair and lovely was she then
Before she faced the whips and scorns of time
But winter’s ragged hand will come again
To your daughter make your beauty’s bequest
Let her and this poem be death’s conquest.

In the grey chiffon mist and drizzling rain
I see you standing silent
embracing death
never turning your face
to the sunlight or me

In the orange ribbons of street light shadows
I see you standing silent
embracing darkness
never showing your face
to the morning or me

In the pearl crescent of the ancient moon
I see you walking away
embracing night
never stooping to look back
to say goodbye to me.

© M.L.Emmett

Sombre bronzed fog
low-rolling
across the sea
loosing form
at the shoreline
amoebic
and engulfing
every sound.

© M.L.Emmett

(For Martin Emmett)

I write your name
on window panes

I clap out its five syllables
for the five fingers of my hand

and the five senses
lost and abandoned

I see deep white snow
and signposts buried in the drifts

I hear the jet black engine
running under my sternum

I touch the mirrored stillness
You still, me still here

I smell the red raw emptiness
bloodied, ***** and free

I taste the green of bitterness
acid etching ulcers in a stomach wall

I trace the ink of your signature
follow each loop and dot of the ‘i’

that ‘i’ Martin
that has been erased forever.