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And the trees about me,
      Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
      Groan with continual surges; and behind me
      Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!


Paint me a cavernous waste shore
  Cast in the unstilled Cyclades,
Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks
  Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.

Display me ****** above
  Reviewing the insurgent gales
Which tangle Ariadne’s hair
  And swell with haste the perjured sails.

Morning stirs the feet and hands
  (Nausicaa and Polypheme).
Gesture of orang-outang
  Rises from the sheets in steam.

This withered root of knots of hair
  Slitted below and gashed with eyes,
This oval O cropped out with teeth:
  The sickle motion from the thighs

Jackknifes upward at the knees
  Then straightens out from heel to hip
Pushing the framework of the bed
  And clawing at the pillow slip.

Sweeney addressed full length to shave
  Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,
Knows the female temperament
  And wipes the suds around his face.

(The lengthened shadow of a man
  Is history, said Emerson
Who had not seen the silhouette
  Of Sweeney straddled in the sun.)

Tests the razor on his leg
  Waiting until the shriek subsides.
The epileptic on the bed
  Curves backward, clutching at her sides.

The ladies of the corridor
  Find themselves involved, disgraced,
Call witness to their principles
  And deprecate the lack of taste

Observing that hysteria
  Might easily be misunderstood;
Mrs. Turner intimates
  It does the house no sort of good.

But Doris, towelled from the bath,
  Enters padding on broad feet,
Bringing sal volatile
  And a glass of brandy neat.
Gazing south as if some wise, well worn fisherman,leaning against the wroughted railed pier in all its victorian, gordy, standing, splendor.

Warmed and held by the summer sun as close as shared spoon-cuddled arms.

On thermal  air, calls and laughter rise from towelled steaked plots
blinding and shading the razor sharp hungry sea-gulls eye from flakey white flesh in all its golden battered salt-shuck sharpness,
competeing on the nose with hand-held melting creamyness, as they waft and weave gently by.

Below the slatted sound , the magic hypnotic spell of lapping waves lift and tilt me on a day dream of youthful lost love.

To a day we made our sun run in all its lazyness, dimming the enviour moon in its wake and kissing still the hands on the pasty-face black towering clock
                                          As time slipped way and was some where else.

With worn drift wood and tingleling toes you defaced the sand with a graphity the council tryed but couldn't erace.
And there it lies still, benieth the smooth pebbled shore,
                                                          ­                                                           kissed each day with salty tears and remembered sighs.

A fearful screaming siren pieces the soft English air, Its doppled blast, chilling,  pushing, demanding its screeching way through the brain, to some others pained, tear filled day,
                                                            ­                                then fades on the breeze.

A sun blushed child frowns through pink Brighton rock lips and eyes as blue as the sea, a secert smile is shared as if in that innocence I knew  that one magic day she will run on skipping painted toes and giggles sweet to etch for him in soft blank sand her love on this dreamy day beach.

So off the sea and off the pier I strole, absorbed and lost among the tripping faced crowd,into the sun dipped west and home alone.

Yet knowing you will remain forever mine, held in crystal dimonded grains, whilst around the bitter -sweet changing tides ebb and flow          
                     down
                                       through
                                                          the  
­                                                                 ­  years.
DJ Thomas May 2010
At first light I made a gift of coffee
it’s aroma stirred just one long leg
I lifted her naked into the wet warmth
to bathe awake and wash long hair
carrying her towelled wrapped form
bowed lips now sip then fight me
as I dress her in jeans, socks and top
beauty made calm and simple

Drunk sad at her leaving party
keeping her warm I had let Lust sleep
now still lolling in grief for dark peace
my selfish need drags her ****** up
into light trapped by the green valley
walking on along its grass path
the canoed river spits past a-whirl
rediscovering the torn through pocket
her hand delves questioning
to withdraw unhurried, stroked
by a flicking fishing rod

Recovered now leading me
over the bridge above the Boat
then on up the steep valley side
we arrive at the Ostrich for beer
then to dine on fish in the open
feeding and sharing her lips
we consider audaciously
the little garden’s potential
she hums prayer murmurings
pleased by the moment

On into the nearby woods
high above the Kings trail
to slowly descend hedged paths
we return to the river valley
slipping between shop doors
lifting a book we idle along
a new couple enjoying life
taking tea under waterfalls
back  besides the Boat where
her beauty is now Queen

She leads me smiling by the hand
along both banks in the setting sun
till we near the Abbey's stone ribs
skipping around it's green shadows
a bank helps us to vault within

Fenced alone
ignoring distant figures
jeans and top colour
the darkening lawns
beckoning me closer
Lust now sits astride  
the grass and stone
an open ****** grin

A week only, no more
I am left alone in her bed
on this smaller island
she ashore in another
busy - separated by a day
we talk lovers spells
and write away our hopes

Three months and two days
a call ‘******* we were....
pregnant” her sacrifice ours
on a stainless alter of
that new god Career**


.
copyright©DJThomas@inbox.com 2010
Nigel Morgan Aug 2017
I

after a bath
and the window open
I was touched
by an air of autumn
against my body
not quite towelled
hardly dry but ready
nonetheless to feel
something of the season’s
change against my fragile self

(an autumn air)


II

so very green
and multitudinous shades
holding the late afternoon
in greenness
only the towpath
measured out in sunlight
and the seat of a bench distant
providing a goal
a sensible place to aim for

we set out with her guiding hand
clasping my weakness
when a dragonfly
intricate in full sunlight
moves against a backdrop
of dark-shadowed trees
poising at eye-level
to look us over
and is off away

on our return
(from that distant bench
our goal our aim)
there a kingfisher
flashes past
and into a canal-side bush
we wait and wait hoping
to catch again the trajectory
of its miraculous flight

(canal side)

III

to whom it may concern

presumptuous I think to wish for anything
beyond one has and holds - anything
in regard to property or possessions
I have no wish to consider further
Who has what of me I disdain
and whatever it might be can only be
in my gift and surely that must be freely given
Should there be the slightest hint of dispute
I hope some Almighty Hand will
remove all and everything
to the very darkest depths

in friendship


(a letter of wishes)




IV

begun as joyous celebrations
of musical art bright and lively
on the page welcome
to the ear as to the eye

so often full of dance gentle
reflections sonorously sounding
out in playfulness
and reasoned movement


(Beethoven’s Op.18 string quartets)




V

with only the bare essentials
the most limited of means
this music grips and stirs
springing out of unisons
octaves bare chords of the fifth
and a play of rhythms
straight and straight-forward
four-square angular tight
against the beat within the bar
a simple subtlety and space
between two instruments:
the legato violin tempering
the insistent piano - always
movement no repose a constant
unwinding thread
of perilous invention
hardly a breath taken
a pause made

(on hearing Shostakovich’s Sonata for Violin and Piano)



VI

he types:

the post-box is too far way
as I must (e)mail this note today


so with no maker’s mark
this message will forego
the papered page
ink’s curved line and flow
the fold the sticky edge
the stamp well placed
the stroll with the dog
to the box along the lanes
in evening’s light
sounds of roosting birds
and flittering squeaks of bats

(an email from a former student)



VII

aware of my fragility
his gracious manner
moves me to tears
In speaking
he places every word
with infinite care
in practiced deliberation
. . . and I am crying
at his understanding
that he knows my loneliness
in dying and how I wish
to rise above
this momentary upset
to assure him I can
and will cope
that I am in his hands
He just has to say . . .


(visit to the doctor



VIII


Daily I curate the contents
of this window sill
a changing exhibition
backdrop to a sedentary life

Today: Japanese wallpaper c.1925.
Mead Cloth by Matthew Harris,
Hokusai – Mount Fuji and six cranes ( two flying)
Post card from the Pyréneées
An earthenware blackbird and thrush in a cherry tree
David Hockney, April 25 from The Arrival of Spring
Un passé plat empiétant tapestry from Madagascar.


(exhibition on a window sill)



IX

being twenty-one
seems no great age
but I remember it dimly
when adrift in my life
it came and went –
a spring and sunny day
a watch from my parents
a few cards . . .

but for you
a family day at Kew
a meal with relatives and friends
altogether a good time to remember
I so hope you will . . .


(at twenty-one)


X

To members of the London Symphony Orchestra
Ralph Vaughan-Williams is reported to have said:
‘Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the man
who writes my music.’

Unfortunate this, as his copyist Roy Douglas
had the job of deciphering the composer’s appalling
handwriting, the result of a natural
left-handedness being corrected as a child.

For me, the person who has written my music
so faithfully for fourteen years rarely dealt with
illegibility but had instead to cope with conflicts
of musical spelling.
Is this a sharp? Should this be a flat?
Do we need a cautionary accidental here?

Fortunately, he and I were not espoused as Stravinsky and
Elgar were to their long-suffering copyists, who often berated
their husbands for their inability to spell chromatic pitches
correctly. Stravinsky had an excuse: the vagaries of the octatonic scale
he often used and loved. Elgar was just ******-minded! Poor Alice . . .


(saying a warm goodbye to my copyist)


XI


to talk about yourself when
dead and gone How strange!
This need - to put in place
to sort the detail now
and so avoid confusion
What then?


An indeterminate wait
until the moment comes
the eyes won’t open
on a woken world
ears not hear
the sound of traffic
from a nearby road


there will be
an emptiness sublime
a finishing of tasks
and all those earthly
mysteries solved
and deemed complete


So this is what
we recommend
It could be this?
It could be that?

and every which way
it’s yours to choose
for rightness sake
Amen


*(the interview)
This collection of poems are to be the final part of Nigel Morgan's poetry available here on Hello Poetry. Nigel was diagnosed was terminal cancer in June 2017 and does not expect to be adding any further poetry to his on-line archive from today (15 August 2017).
Joe Cole Feb 2015
Woke up this morning to a real blizzard
Well about seventeen flakes an hour
Anyway I dressed Mollie in her little red waterproof
And walked her down along the river
Why in hell does twenty two pounds of fighting fury
Need to wear a waterproof coat?
Well because she's over eight years old
A really good age for a Patterdale Terrier
And just occasionally she has to be reminded about
Just how old she is
Why in hell do I bother?
Fifteen pounds spent on a waterproof coat
Temperature just about zero
And she decides to go for her morning swim
Obviously female, a male dog wouldn't be that stupid
Anyway got her home and towelled her down
And gave her a bowl of cornflakes and warm milk
And then
That smelly wet dog climbed all over me

Man I hate that dog
Actually I love the Mollie dog
Ottar Mar 2013
I walked up to the door,
I had not been here in years,
In my bags included fears and woe,
How long I stood I did not know,
I raised my hand and knocked
Once and
With impatience
rang the bell.

The superficial greeting went both ways
Neither of us knew what to say, shoes off
She took my coat and he took my bags,
Weighed down with guilt for sure,
As I had taken too long to arrive,
Not months
But years had
passed, oh well.

We sat at the kitchen table,
I told stories and my fables,
They listened and looked at me,
She ran the water warm and he,
Got a towel and bent to his knee,
socks discarded, feet
bathed and massaged, saying
"Welcome weary traveller"

With that done and my feet towelled dry
I felt relieved, I knew I was forgiven,
Dans mes faiblesses, the water poured out
took my stress, a new page was turned,
Nothing I had done had earned,
the humility, gratefully I
had received that
humbled me.
In the mirror
I'm so white
whiter than white
whiter than a ghost
who got drunk
on a litre of white paint
dried out in chalk
written on a whiteboard

whisper

white clouds
that couldn't storm
I'm nothing
but a pasty faced
nothing

...

I sailed off
white as a sheet
pulled white surf
over my head

that night
I called
just whispering
rescue
arrived
and pulled me out of it

you showered me
inn kisses
booked for the night
which got quite..
loud

smacked my bottom
good and proper
like mummy and daddy
never did
and I was surprised
I wasn't pained any more

in the morning
you towelled me down
everything tingling

and after you left
I checked out
the mirror glowing
cheekily
and my chest was there
red faced to be alive

so for hours after
I couldn't sit and cry
because I was reminded
I wasn't all white
just happy
being sore with myself

every lifeboat
should have a paddle
nivek May 2014
not a ripple
a stir
all lays washed
and towelled
a world about to shake
droplets
out her hair

— The End —