"cumbrous" poems
For Leonard Baskin
To his house the bodiless
Come to barter endlessly
Vision, wisdom, for bodies
Palpable as his, and weighty.
Hands moving move priestlier
Than priest's hands, invoke no vain
Images of light and air
But sure stations in bronze, wood, stone.
Obdurate, in dense-grained wood,
A bald angel blocks and shapes
The flimsy light; arms folded
Watches his cumbrous world eclipse
Inane worlds of wind and cloud.
Bronze dead dominate the floor,
Resistive, ruddy-bodied,
Dwarfing us. Our bodies flicker
Toward extinction in those eyes
Which, without him, were beggared
Of place, time, and their bodies.
Emulous spirits make discord,
Try entry, enter nightmares
Until his chisel bequeaths
Them life livelier than ours,
A solider repose than death's.
3.9k
I would I were a careless child,
Still dwelling in my Highland cave,
Or roaming through the dusky wild,
Or bounding o’er the dark blue wave;
The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride,
Accords not with the freeborn soul,
Which loves the mountain’s craggy side,
And seeks the rocks where billows roll.
Fortune! take back these cultur’d lands,
Take back this name of splendid sound!
I hate the touch of servile hands,
I hate the slaves that cringe around:
Place me among the rocks I love,
Which sound to Ocean’s wildest roar;
I ask but this—again to rove
Through scenes my youth hath known before.
Few are my years, and yet I feel
The World was ne’er design’d for me:
Ah! why do dark’ning shades conceal
The hour when man must cease to be?
Once I beheld a splendid dream,
A visionary scene of bliss:
Truth!—wherefore did thy hated beam
Awake me to a world like this?
I lov’d—but those I lov’d are gone;
Had friends—my early friends are fled:
How cheerless feels the heart alone,
When all its former hopes are dead!
Though gay companions, o’er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;
Though Pleasure stirs the maddening soul,
The heart—the heart—is lonely still.
How dull! to hear the voice of those
Whom Rank or Chance, whom Wealth or Power,
Have made, though neither friends nor foes,
Associates of the festive hour.
Give me again a faithful few,
In years and feelings still the same,
And I will fly the midnight crew,
Where boist’rous Joy is but a name.
And Woman, lovely Woman! thou,
My hope, my comforter, my all!
How cold must be my ***** now,
When e’en thy smiles begin to pall!
Without a sigh would I resign,
This busy scene of splendid Woe,
To make that calm contentment mine,
Which Virtue knows, or seems to know.
Fain would I fly the haunts of men—
I seek to shun, not hate mankind;
My breast requires the sullen glen,
Whose gloom may suit a darken’d mind.
Oh! that to me the wings were given,
Which bear the turtle to her nest!
Then would I cleave the vault of Heaven,
To flee away, and be at rest.
2.8k
Default African,
Yes I am,
And a disgrace for that matter,
Yet African with Katekism,
I am supposed to be,
Come rain, sunshine or high waters,
I have betrayed you Africa,
I have 'back-stabbed' you in the face,
And spit rotten phlegm in the wound,
Giant mother,
With this badge of slavery I now proudly wear,
**** me.
Never have I washed my father, Or mother,
Never have I washed my grandfather or grandmother,
Neither of these have I ever dared looking after,
Yet today,
I assume total custodianship and curator-ship,
I take care of some grandfather and grandmother,
Somebody's father,
Somebody's mother,
Somebody's grandfather,
Somebody's grandmother.
Only yesterday I was told,
Your father and mother passed away last year,
And so did your brothers and sisters,
And they were all buried like dogs,
Their burials were the talk of town,
How could you let that happen,
How could you,
And I am these enermies' comfortable door mate.
My grandfathers were colonised,
Because of our rich land,
And now I have been extensively colonised,
Because of their pound,
Because of wanting to be a Westerner – overseas,
Away from you,
Continent of respect and dignity,
Continent of dance and song,
A continent pregnant with untold tales.
My sick mind has been colonised,
Graduating me into a nefarious modern commercial slave,
Just but an echo of an old tune,
A worse slave than my ancestor,
The Kunta Kintes,
I am a cheap voluntary slave,
Who has been gratuitously deserted by his values,
The African values.
I stand accused before myself,
I am a cumbrous culpable default African,
An African who has lost his ebullient Africanness,
A charlatan ********** African on a detour,
A dismantled, shameless self destroyed pimple,
A nauseating counterfeit second hand African,
An extraneous stain on Africa's underwear,
I am of as much value to Africa,
As is an over- used ****** to a filthy growth point **********
Regrettably, that is the African I have become.
How I wish I washed my father and mother,
How I wish I washed my grandparents,
How I wish I took care of them,
The wish is killing me badly,
I may as I have run away from you Africa,
But never from Africanness,
Litres of your blood flows in body pipes,
I am because you are,
I am a default African.
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 8:01 AM UTC
It started with a kiss.
A burn of acid across my cheek,
It's poisoned implication:
"Here, this is the woman you seek."
It followed with thirty pieces,
The weight cumbrous in hand.
Your wine and bread so exquisite,
Suddenly fell flat, turned to sand.
It climaxed with Damascus,
Truth a blinding light across my eyes.
I'd betrayed all I am for silver,
Cheered as you shaped my demise.
It ended with a field of blood.
My innards spilled onto the ground,
Blooded hands foraging:
"I was lost but now I'm found."
Jan 17, 2021
Jan 17, 2021 at 3:59 PM UTC
A dream to be everlasting
A love for the stars.
To be seen as spectacular
Above the ground,high and far.
So people may say
With awe and wonder,
A mortal and a mere man
Now resides above clouds and thunder.
Impatiently I search for a way
To be off this pulling earth.
To fly away into the ether,
Far from the cloying dearth.
No elegant fire balloons for me,
Too cumbrous, too slow.
I will plummet up like a rocket
As trumpets blare and bugles blow.
But only so far, only so far
Never to reach the stars.
Spectacular as the fireworks
And then as failed embers falling apart.
Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 10:09 AM UTC
Mother Spring slept. Sunrise distant. Twitch of
Forefinger, a flutter of an eyelid,
Then silence, Crisp snow on cheeks. Ice air breath
February rose, fell. Cumbrous silence.
Winter Rested. Spring Coiled. A little light
On the ridge. Mother Spring stretched her breath long.
Towards light, fingers reached. Her body lengthened,
Snow fell from her shoulders and into soil.
Trickling waters from dripping snow, soon flowed.
Dripping sun and dripping darkness. Day was
Never now night. Spring stood. She stretched her arms
Wide. March dripped into buoyant, bright April.
Out a kitchen window, a furry flash:
Against blue sky, a ***** willow branch.
Apr 18, 2019
Apr 18, 2019 at 1:25 AM UTC