II. Quietly I Catch Its Presence

Gathered In - Beeston Castle 1956

Days of dust and hayseed set aside,

For once a gradely jaunty family ride.

Let's take a Sunday tootle in the car

And leave awhile the drudging, aching farm,

Where slog and maul are sanctified.

Ahead stand Beeston Castle’s broken walls

By Four-Lane-Ends and Bunbury Heath -

Beyond the fields and oaks the evening falls,

And trudging up, the plain is swath beneath.

Fifty summers now the scene divide

As hindsight strains to glimpse that far -

A family cut and kenched and tied -

Grey and faint the snapshot evening star.

Ashes scattered, stubble standing wide -

Seasons past, the scars of harvest hide

Getting Laid By The Black Swan

As being feather-dusted seems inevitable

Ruffle up for the next financial crisis -

Being screwed by the unspeakable

Rooted by cobbling, cheating and lies

Brute greed and its passionate intensity,

The loss of probity without conviction,

The re-treading of orifices with austerity,

The upping of decency by dereliction.

A crash in the market, out of thin air

Wall Street broken, blood in the streets

Mammon abroad undead

Being so fucked up,

By a totally foreseeable web of deceits

Like a girl mastered by metamorphosis

It will be sold as a Black Swan affair.

Gilbert's Potoroo

Said Gilbert to the potoroo

I hear you like to fungus chew

Nibbling dainty toadstools too

As well as scoffing mushroom stew

Can I give my name to you?

Goddess Of Mercy

You were told ‘the dark storm is closing in'

But you were too bold, too adventurous,

Rising far above where the air grew thin

To where flight stalled and became treacherous.

I paint you holding a golden crocus

So young, so fair - back down to earth again -

Beloved of the shy fawns that share your trust

Though the background cattle prepare for rain.

I had been unwell but you rescued me

For you became the Goddess of Mercy

Having stretched down the sky canopy

For me to rise against adversity.

Heavenly girl your beauty lifted me

And your saffron offering set me free.

God's Fiefdom

WHALIAM

There is a YouTube Video

Of an exploding Sperm Whale

On a beach in the Faroe Islands.

A man slashes it with a mincing knife

And once the diaphragm is pierced

All the guts sort of woosh out!

Strips and strings burst in a spray

That stings the whaler with filth.

I showed my young son Theo

And he told Hayden his teacher

And all the class watched it -

Over again - and laughed.

It put me in mind of William of Normandy

Who died alone in agony when

No one would trust him enough to help.

He had devastated and enslaved the North.

One in four died from his ruthlessness.

Deaths in battle were the best.

Tens of thousands died as crops went unplanted

Stock died, harvests burned and castles rose.

When he had finally expired

The monks in Caen dallied

For far too long and had to force

The corpse into the kist.

Golden Billion

And still we plan our greater paradise

Of more and more of everything - squabbling

About who takes most and their persistence,

While berating laggards in the scrabbling.

Most pathetic in the melee are those

Whose instincts yearn for greater equity:

Promoting welfare - ringing Eden close

That all within may share its bounty.

Yet beyond the pale other billions wait

Unaccounted, unwanted, eyeing it all

For opportunities to share a better state -

Swamped boat, truck crevice, breached wall.

So my liberal and my Third World friends

Who and what is right when means meet ends?

Good Angel

And what of you Ms Discarded Comfort

Can you forgive the jilting and distress?

It is in your best nature to forget

And act in trust again and not redress.

Can we restore love's lost simplicity

And dream of what is true and never tires?

Of both the comfort of eternity

And cheerfulness of trek's-end campsite fires?

Let us meet for heaven's sake beside the lake

And picnic there when we have walked awhile

That I can beg of you that my mistake

Be put aside - so you may pause and smile

And healing words of comfort then be said

In thankfulness for love and daily bread.

Grounded Enlightenment

Set aside racing the run of day

For the time the seconds chase

Will never show a fairer face;

Come close and let the stillness show

Where we must put the world away

To draw it closer as the silence grows:

Let's tell unheard our deepest sorrows

To the shadows that the sundial throws,

For what goes forward and what is past

Will never alter time or stay its haste:

Then let what's left unsaid in quietness strengthen

The amity that calmly sharing space will lengthen.

…

God's very own the West

God's very own the East;

As also the North and South

Gathered in love and truth.

…

So let us study distinction and its absence:

That there is no separation

Of what is apart and what is in contact;

That there is no form or formlessness

As edges and envelopes are unsealed;

That there is no resting or resolution

As emptiness and decay are inevitable;

That thusness is fleeting and yet perceptible

With reality and illusion in mutual shadow;

That life and its converse co-arise

The sentient born of and returning to the insentient;

That we may distinguish the qualities of people

All special - but then there is nothing special;

That when we are grounded in enlightenment

And return to the world from the mountain,

Or from the wilderness, it is in the natural order

That we should equate compassion.

Grubby Grub

I love to cook two crispy snacks

Of Aussie grub and Kiwi tucker,

But the little crawlies both have knacks

Of gumming up my cooker.

I seek them out of bush and tree,

I send out east and west;

But after they’ve been twigged and logged for me,

I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till three,

For I am busy then,

But scoff them down at dins and tea,

When hunger strikes again.

But different folk have different strokes:

I know a person small —

She keeps a tub of crawling grubs,

Who get no rest at all!

She dines on them in cakes and pies,

And scarcely bats her eyes —

A dozen Huhus, two of Witchettys,

And seven scores of Whys!

Haikus For Womad

Tufted apes delight

Romping creativity

Doomsday set aside

Fucking the planet

Forgotten in the music's

Mindful reveling

Nothing but trash left

And the joys of artistry

To geology

Hand On The Plough - Heart Lifting

[Celebrating the Russian Poet Nahum Korzhavin - a 'translation']

So we plough

Furrow by furrow

Year by year

But we also need to soar.

Let's face it

Sometimes, as he needs to eat,

The poet ploughs on

Just turning old ground

And sits down wearily

Reaching the headland -

But then the heart soars

And he is himself again

As long as the flight of fancy lasts -

Rising up but sinking down

Year by year

Back to ploughing furrow by furrow.

I am not a hunter of prizes

My world is the stubble-field.

If I am boring

There is no shame

I think, hope, thirst to know, seek

Sowing words with warmth and sunlight

And when others plough

I sometimes just stand and watch.

And then I recover my strength

Forgetting my past failures

And want to bring things to fruition

Smoothing my lined brow.

Well - it is clear soaring is a must

Let's fly... But still

Plough year by year

Not neglecting the essentials.

Happy Feet - He Must Not Flote Upon His Watry Bier

Unwept! The Emperor Penguin

We Asked The Waves, And Asked The Fellon Winds, What Hard Mishap Hath

Doomed This Gentle Penguin?

In this Monody the Authors bewail a feathered Friend, unfortunately lost in his

Passage from Campbell Island to Antarctica in the Southern Ocean,2011.

[by John Milton and Elaine Martin, with a bit of help from Keith Johnson]

Bitter constraint

And sad occasion dear

Compels me to disturb your season due

For Happy Feet is dead

Dead ere his prime

The wind blows hard,

The temperatures plunge,

The sky is dark,

The waves rampage,

I'm tossed.

My flippers are weak,

And my energy's gone,

I've struggled so far,

And had nothing to eat,

I'm lost.

I'm all alone

In a foreign place,

The sand's too dry,

Stones have no taste,

I'm beached.

Before I know it,

I'm surrounded,

Human's concern

Here abounded,

I'm blessed.

Weak and helpless,

I don't enjoy it,

The stares, the fuss,

The skill, the focus,

I must rest.

I'm going home,

I heard them say,

For me these people,

go all the way,

I'm stoked.

Bugger!

Next, I’m on a ship

Tossing in the briny

What a bloody trip,

I chucked.

Then the bastards

Put me on a slip

And poke a pole

To make me slip,

I’m arse over tip

Don’t call me happy

As I hit the tide

Bloody hell it’s cold

Can I come back inside?

I’m freezing

Alas, they’ve left

And I’m alone

Just endless surf

No sand or stone,

I’m all at sea

At 51 below

So far to go

And months to swim.

Is that an undertow?

I’m gutted!

Look homeward Angel now

And melt with ruth:

And, O ye Dolphins'

Waft the hapless youth.

Having A Quiet Rant About Things - In Conversation

With Louis Macneice

Everyone now has a voice and the horse

Brings up its bridle in its teeth -

But none can refuse the sugar of the mouthing off

Or its harness

Better a sweet taste today than coming to a better stall,

We live for words sown in the air or travestied in slogans

Written on Facebook postings or Tweets of 280 characters or less

Our faces framed in selfies or posed with besties

Momentary fame for the record

Where instances linger indefinitelylanguishing

From familiarity

Subservient to a life that others nudge,

Even more utterly lost and daft,

Observers and consumers of triviality

Fancy lives - fancy that

While the many dine on fast food takeaways

And the dispossessed sleep in doorways

And the food cartons, fish and chip papers and plastic wrappers drift in the gutter

And now the tempter whispers ‘This is not slavery - this idleness and indifference

is ours to keep,

It is no longer a matter of profit or loss - simply paying your way'

We are all degraded now - most of all those whose faces used to gaze up at the

stars

Self-esteem is no longer an option - cream or whey

Notions of freedom and freedom of choice are now moot or is that mute

Permeate free - less processing

And I argue for decency and truth and compassion

Largely out of habit - a reflex action,

Knowing that should things even appear to right themselves

The illusion of a fair order of things has passed

The elite no longer even concern themselves with honour

And cynicism about ruling and the ruled predominate

In a world where giving the many a chance

Is a Big Wednesday Power Ball Draw

And concern about the standard of intellectual living seems utterly bizarre

As does the fear that the highbrow will impose any kind of consensus

On the ‘ordinary people'

Or that there is a danger that if you give a chance to people to think or live

The arts of thought or civilized living will suffer and become rougher

And will not realize a general improvement in the Human Condition

Get real - everything is now preparing itself for amnesia

Relapse then into sleep, to dreams perhaps and inaction

Or the nightmares that play of gangsters, sheikhs and charlatans

Or of hucksters, jihadists and populist deceivers

Power playing for the love of making a killing

Sitting on the greasy sofa waiting for the balls to drop

Grabbing women by the pussy, straight up with prejudices

Flat out with lies, fake news and half-truths

My concern about which is probably a matter of my private history

To be expunged or rebirthed

Or a personal pathology that stems from

Genetic flaws, hormonal imbalances and my Myers-Briggs typology

And the will and fists of those who abjure the luxury of self-reflection

Will inevitably triumph over the disorganized rabble of opposition

Where purity of motive is always a matter of contention

Thinking it through, seeing it through, seeing through it all

It is no longer a matter of moral merit, of sincere earnestness

Assuming personal responsibility is a delusion - a fallacy

There is evil unleashed- it is both within and abroad

It is teaching us to dance to its tune

Orchestrating and choreographing time and luck.

Heart Stains Are Forever

Longing for landfall, the albatross

Sought the twin sisters of the waves

Mist of the Breaking Surf

And Voice of the Breaking Surf.

So the young warrior Rautoroa

Courted Rehutai and Tangimoana

Bringing gifts to their chieftain father,

Hoping to take away a bride

But both of the girls fell in love

With the bold and handsome youth

So that neither would leave him

Alone with the other.

Seeking to choose between them

The young man asked for water

And Tangimoana hurried to the stream

To fill a gourd so that he could drink.

But Rehutai lingered, at last alone

With the man she fallen in love with,

Until he said again in anger:

Woman fetch me water.

But Tangimoana on filling her gourd

Muddied the stream so that

When her sister came to its edge

She had to wait for it to clear.

And on returning Rehutai found

Her sister wearing the warrior's cloak

With his raukura feather in her headband

Signifying that they were betrothed.

At this the bereft girl rose with the mist

Living thenceforth a desolate life

On the hill of the lonely one,

Ohine-mokemoke Rehutai.

Rehutai's Lament

I toss like the waves

Moaning with loss

Turning restlessly

Alone on my sleeping mat.

A young girl dreaming

That he would choose and love me -

But only starlight lingers

Now night has overtaken day.

The dark stains of peat

From the marshland

Are washed by the stream

But heart stains are forever

Hearts Become Sharper

Hearts become sharper

Through cut and thrust.

If a heart has glimpsed hell

It cuts quickly, deeply -

Take great care

With its knife edge.

I beg of you, let's not

Leave love severed

At hell's grindstone.

Why is the heart keen

To cut to the bone?

Who is to blame?

I beg of you, pull back.

In such a deadly duel

There can be no winners.

Hearts simply become sharper

When they are ground down,

Steeled by rage and fury.

[An attempted translation of a poem in Russian by Julia Drunina]

Helen Of Troy - Beauteous Bird

Variously born of swan or goose

Fathered under downy feather

You were saucy, flighty... loose

When you and Paris got together

But how could Menelaus think you true

However much you begged?

Seems he was cooked when you

Slipped off your top and lay there golden-egged.

So widely gorged on pâté de joie

Was truth with beauty ever basted so?

Can you answer for the Fall of Troy?

Honk once for yes and twice for no!

High Country Hymn

High the mountains rise in spur and summit

Headed up to frozen tracts and recent snows

Clear to the blistering ice-blue sky

Ringing bluffs and cliffs and ragged flumes

Hard country gullies topped to waterfalls

Drop to native beech and sweet short pasture.

Into the easy country, the creeks are bound

By rubble walls spilled from tussock heights

Each fissure with its self-built stop-banks

Breaking through to foothill flats and meadows

And below the river laces braids with willows

Stilled to lakeside once among the poplar stands.

Hillside Gems

Shapes and orientations curve and contort

Coiled steel scribbles confirm wires will not tame

But here a lucky seedling may come to grace

Absolute plane red ridgeback rough reeds

Schist world and firmament - shot and carapace

Iron forms bent and wrought by the careless river

Variously coloured dragonflies flit low across the lake

While the weta takes its ancient outrageous stance

And a bird alights on kelp that prospers far inland

Shire horses snuffle and throw their manes

A slender female figure salutes the snow in play

While wolves beset the sword-wielding warrior

And the man without a name sits quietly on the hill:

Come some time and we will all become anonymous

Though there is solace in the wind.

Holding On

I catch her words and see his fear

As they pass in stolen conversation:

‘I have been trying so hard

To hold on to something.'

But how hold on?

Like the surfcaster to a line strike

Reeling in the arm-wrenching catch

Or the kingfish fighting for the sea?

Like the would-be rescued girl at the outlet rip

Slowly choking her desperate saviour

Or the brave swimmer fighting for the shore?

Or the pony cantering along the sands

Holding a measured gait and steady course

As its rider climbs and toe-grips its bare back?

If the touch becomes too taut

Is there anything to hold on to?

Hong Kong Orchids

HONG KONG ORCHIDS

As the umbrellas are raised and we lift the sky

The blossoms of the bauhinia or orchid tree

Drift down softly on the bright yellow discs

So that they become parasols patterned with flowers.

Let us be joyful together and invite the sun itself

To gather the white five-petaled blooms

Which fall so gently and so freely to the earth

That better days may come as the rain clears.

Hope And The Black Swan

It seems you tried to kill the black swan

That was defending the underworld river

But that you drowned in death itself -

Though your mother raked up

Your dismembered rotting corpse

Sewing you together and adding honey

To bring you back to life.

Whatever!

Laid down mortal on a bed of lettuce

Gored as you were by a boar

Or shot as you were with a spear

Cut from mistletoe

Or an arrow cut from a tamarisk tree

In far Cathay - fatal strength in beauty

We have need of your return.

The demons have been set upon you

As the sun falls to winter

And the oak becomes bare:

The perfect boy, the perfect son

The once and future king

Who may rise again in glory

A full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice.

You who were put to death on a crosstree

Of elder, cedar, olive or dogwood -

Whence bloomed below the anemone

The white lily, the daffodil, the rose.

Your resurrection gave us hope -

Now more than ever

We have need of your return.

Regardless

That what I have outlined about the nature of hope

Is highly improbable and no doubt

Part of the human tendency

To seek simplistic aspirations

For rare and redeeming events.

That said, we have need of you -

Stitching together regrowth and florescence

And their inherent unexpected weaknesses

In facing the black swan of oblivion.

Hunt The Edge For What Is Yet Unsought

MEDIA MURMUR

The mass is taken up in shoals and swarms

Swept by unseen force or stigmergy,

Trending on subtle cues and false alarms,

Burgeoning with maelstrom energy.

In the void, meme-clouds seed and gather

And movements stall and breakaway to spawn,

In whirls spinning in the ether,

Motions for prospective good or harm.

Ebbs and turns shape-shift collective mind

Separation lost in perturbation -

From flock to mob - now mawkish, now unkind -

In wheeling, billowing murmuration.

But best to rise alone, apart in thought

To hunt the edge for what is yet unsought.

Hylonome

Having too much time on my hands

A small surfeit of disposable cash

And an interest in what's hot and what's not

I subscribed to the Paris Review

Where I found a poem by Ange Mlinko.

It's called Barding and I had no ghost

Of a clue what the title meant

Or what the poem was about -

Stepping back from ‘the siren cresting

With its unsettling charms'.

No doubt this is what real poetry

IS all about - mind games for aesthetes

Designed to wake you up stickily with a start -

Like finding a bloody thoroughbred's head in your bed

Donated by a playful but insistent gangster

Who wants to put the hard word on you.

Anyhow all was not lost:

Barding or barbing is the body armour

Worn by the horses of late-medieval European knights

And when she is talking about ‘the brow

Of a chamfron [als chaffron, champion, chamfron, chamfrein, champron, and

shaffron]

In a vitrine', she means the equine faceplate in a glass display case.

Thank god for Wikipedia for holding the bridle.

This gave her options, yea or neigh, to sugar-lump us with words like

Criniere, croupiere, flanchard, peytral, and caparisons

And even mention the prior history of cataphracts exemplified by

The Scythians, Sarmatians, Parthians, Achaemenids, Sakas, Armenians,

Seleucids, Pergamenes, the Sassanids, the Romans, the Goths and the

Byzantines.

Anyhow, once I had the bit between my teeth

I got on to the Centauromarchy - the Lapiths vs Centaurs

Dust-up that started when the centaur Euryt(r) ion

Tried to mount the Lapith bride Hippodomia at her wedding

After he got a bit worse for wear, and Hylonome, who was the only

Female centaur at the feast, was so heart-broken

At the loss in the subsequent battle of her better half Cyllarus

That she grazed on some yew branches and auto-equicided.

Leaving Ovid to explore in his Ars Amatoria II

Hybridity itself as it illustrates putting two and two together

In 'possible combinations of a number of conceptual opposites:

Natura and cultus, human and animal, male and female, love and war

And the contrasting values of lyric-elegiac and epic poetry'.

Ice Picks And Violets

While picks make good a fastening

That binds and bonds and slows

The violets in the mountains

Will break through rocks and snows

The frosts are their condition

The axe so sharp and hard

While violets seek salvation

In gentle beauty shared

God made the diamond violet

To deck the mountain slopes

Where only man is violent

With spikes and blows to stake his hopes.

The staves and shafts will soon be gone

When summits glimpse the winter's face

But flowers will seed and linger on

Which cleave and claim their birthright space.

[written for the musical Ice Picks and Violets which played in the UK in 2014-5, credited as Joe Shorrocks]

If You Were The O'o

If you were the last of your kind

What song would you sing

And who would you sing it for?

Would you sing a song of memory

Or of regret or of past kindnesses

From and to those that you loved?

And would there be unkind notes

About your desolation and solitude

Or a last blast singing against fate?

Or would it just be a kind of sweet swansong?

In Praise Of Drainers

SOPS' LAW

How is it that people with the toughest jobs

Are often the most competent and helpful?

This afternoon, Sheldon came over to fix

The pump on our wastewater system.

He found that the sump was full

So that he couldn't work on the pump

But he recommended a firm

That would drain the tank.

So Gary came over with his tanker

And I helped him back up against the fence,

Having advised Laura who keeps the office,

That we needed 20 meters of hose:

So the tank was emptied and we found

That the non-return valve had been damaged

And that we would have to order a replacement.

As Sheldon's firm is in Lower Hutt

And the parts stockist is in Porirua

It is now too late in the day

To pick up the non-return valve

And we may have to wait until Monday

Before Sheldon can return to fix the pump -

By which time the sump will have filled

With toilet waste, shower water and sink slops

So that Gary will have to return with his tanker,

Suitably coordinated with Sheldon's boss Craig.

Not that I am complaining - I'm grateful -

But as a friend in the business once wisely observed

About the economics of all this:

‘It may be shit to you - but it's bread and butter to me'.

In Praise Of The Odd Rigid Boundary

In the modern age chaos is counted fair

But every meaningless becomes the same

So failing beauty’s bland successive heir

Mutes poesy in deconstruction’s name

And every voice adopts digression

Encumbering the clear with artistry

From ornament’s oblique impression

To irony, pastiche and sophistry -

So beauty’s slandered with a bastard shame

And nothing is clear in readership it seems

While lines limp on from crook to lame

As prosody the lack of wit redeems.

Mourn then the loss of joy in sonnet form

As jouissance gloss becomes the sonic norm.

In The Lines

Amid the snares that wording pitfalls set,

A no-mans-land of mined grandiloquence,

Clumsily - at the tripwire of regret,

I'm caught by flares of hurt and misread sense.

It almost seems you want to take offence.

Understand I count my life to you a debt

That I would gladly die in recompense,

In freedom from the flack's reproaching threat

In true-belief that we are one and hence

That you should grant me leave at the outset

To be misunderstood and make poor sense

But keep your love and caring nonetheless.

I'm heartbroken you so easily forget

The absence of reserves in my defence.

In The Year Of The Horse

ZEN GALLS

My pony would stand and let me

Crumble the night-eyes on his fore-legs -

Extraordinary muskiness -

Raised, dry, broken and calloused

Like a dead wart or the crust on a roast

Or a shank truffle.

And my dog would be snaffled by the smell

Of the pieces that broke away

And the three of us would share

A weird sacrament.

It seems that time is an illusion

And that its only purpose is so that

Everything doesn't happen at once.

That old chestnut!

Isegoria

Come citizen, let us hear from you:

Comments are open

And you can make your case.

Tell us then who you despise.

Give vent to your prejudices,

Give us reasons why a better future

Will come from insult and intemperance

Why division and self-interest

Help you to live a full life

Help to build better lives for us all?

Let us see your views set down

In social media

Engraved forever on the ether

Perhaps then you will reflect

That time holds us all to account.

Isla Negra

Little by little

The arguments killed caring:

The sound became unendurable

Of the endless after silences

That demanded resolution.

Doubtless slowly

You have erased me:

Hardly a memory is left now

But in writing about Pablo Neruda

The past is whispering a say.

When we visited Isla Negra:

There was no crystal moon

Only a dull, cold and windy day

And a nondescript concrete bridge

Across the Cordoba Creek estuary -

A piped water main upstream

Its distant companion on stanchions

And dirty pools waiting to be cleansed

By the tides from the black rocks or

Floods and surges from the stream.

Then as now, the mud was stained

With the ordure of ordinariness:

El sucio y maloliente estero Córdoba

(ubicado cerca de la playa Las Ágatas,

en la localidad de Isla Negra) .

But when Neruda first came there

Into the solitudes of that strand

He came by horse, with his friend Don Eladio,

Wading the pristine stream intoxicated

By winter sprays of pollen, salt and wrack.

‘Era a media tarde,

llegamos a caballo por aquellas soledades

Por primera vez sentí como

una punzada este olor a invierno marino,

mezcla de boldo y arena salada, algas y cardos...'

Now I recall the vines clearing on the trail

As the horses scented fresh water upstream

And we gave them their heads,

Standing back on the stirrups,

Letting them seek the beach between the rocks.

We should not have let love

Grow implacable and bitter like we did

Crossed so separately and stained.

Once there was another land, another shore

Where I am now resolved we are together.

It Blows So Hard - T''Will Soon Be Gone

Evans D. Martin, Evans D. Morgan and

If I remember right -

There was a third 'Juffy' Evans at class roll call.

We also had a D.J Roberts and an A.W. Roberts.

Chester is very Welsh for an English city

The surnames said it all -

But then again not using first names is very English.

I once went to school with a rose

In my lapel for St George’s Day –

I was a strange child.

So it was with fascination

That I find Dai Morgan Evans hosting:

‘Rome wasn’t built in a Day’.

It was a long time ago but

We both loved archaeology -

Our heroes were

Glyn Daniel and Mortimer Wheeler.

As D.M. said a couple of years back:

‘I'm fairly ancient - I'm 66, so I've been around for a while.

I became interested in the Romans by being brought up in Chester’.

As his classmate, I was super impressed that he studied Anglo-Saxon

At Robin Alden’s Georgian townhouse in Abbey Street -

After school!

As a country bumpkin, I had 90 minutes travel either way

And had to talk to the cows along the Long Lane -

As I biked home to the farm from the C84 bus.

But Dai and I

[or David as I remember him] -

Were bonded by relics, ruins and inheritance.

Again I was super impressed that he was one of the Ordovices

Who was still living near the Land of his Fathers - Wales

[‘A place of bards, bigots, tenors, drapers, milkmen and journalists’]-

When I was a sort of war orphan who was a bit of a

Spare wheel.

But I hung on to the fact

That my step-dad was an English yeoman:

‘Cheshire born

And Cheshire bred

Strong in the arm

Quick in the head’.

One time, D.M. and I took part in a dig

In Watergate Street -

Hoping for evidence of the Roman docks.

We got down about 10 feet

And found planking – but it was still fresh -

The ground had been used in WW1

As a training area for digging trenches.

Nothing changes that much.

The Ordovices got a pasting

When Caractacus or Caradoc ap Cunobellin

Lost the Battle of the Wrekin or Caer Caradoc -

around AD 51.

Craddock took refuge with the Brigantes

[My lot, I have since found out

Through YDNA testing] -

And our Queen handed him over to -

Publius Ostorius Scapula in chains.

Paraded as a trophy in the Eternal city,

He had this to say:

'Does it really follow that everyone should accept your slavery?

And can you, then, who have got such possessions and so many of them –

Covet our poor tents? ’

After that the Cornovii, who wore bulls' horns and had hill forts

[My Cheshire relatives],

Used the Pax Romana to build Uriconium into

Britain’s fourth city.

They were descendants of Himilco

The Carthaginian -

So they knew their

Elephants [and cows] as far as the Romans were concerned.

They were a cunning lot, with an eye for

A bargain and what is practical –

And reinvented themselves again under the Angles

As the Wrekin Set -

With Chester and Shrewsbury

And their department stores and tea houses -

Browns and Quaintways -

Very nice too!

And 'the gardens of Blandings Castle

Are that original garden -

From which we are all exiled'.

And so it goes.

My uncle had a farm and then a pub in South Shropshire.

And my cousin [another David] and I

Cycled over once from Wenlock Edge to Wroxeter -

And brought back some shards of Samian ware.

'What’s that rubbish? ’ his dad said.

That David died of AIDS in the 1990s.

As Housman has it:

‘On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;

His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;

The gale, it plies the saplings double,

And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger

When Uricon the city stood:

'Tis the old wind in the old anger,

But then it threshed another wood.

Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman

At yonder heaving hill would stare:

The blood that warms an English yeoman,

The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.

There, like the wind through woods in riot,

Through him the gale of life blew high;

The tree of man was never quiet:

Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.

The gale, it plies the saplings double,

It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone:

To-day the Roman and his trouble

Are ashes under Uricon’.

It Is Enough To Delight

My dear one is mine

As mirrors are lonely

Look into the glass

And tell the face you see

Of how the lens gives power without purpose

Reversed to purpose that no power redeems

Look more deeply

Into the dark glass

Matching devilry

Against the angel

And how the spirit, so easily betrayed

To cruelty, becomes so undermined

Then set aside the mirror and its meaning

It is enough to delight without believing

For I will love the spring

And cry to dream again

My magic is my own

I dance for death alone

Listen - new voyagers are seeking landfall

They will awaken to the sweetness of the island

Water into the well

Music into the air

For the high green hill

Sits always by the sea.

Joe's Brook

The lonely boy pulls on his rubber boots

And calls the dog from her sacking bed

In the small shed where the sticks are chopped.

He is off again across the fields to the brook

Past the pit with its bulrushes and white ducks

Down to the willows and the farm bridge.

There he will build causeways and dams

Endlessly prising broken bricks from the mud

Shaping and retaining structures to his daydreams.

Somewhere at a clearer stream - perhaps in Sussex -

A more famous future poet is putting in place moments

Carrying similar hidden watermarks of significance.

Kamchatka Lilies

LET US ACCEPT

To begin with, let us accept the following:

Poetry is love. Now we can continue:

So in Kamchatka lilies are blooming

In their naranja zest / burnt-gold hue

More beautiful than the russet curls

Of the youngest and most loved prince,

A scion of the Tsarskoye Selo world

From times that have passed to legend long since.

See the little boy gathered by the Tsarina

Her hair dressed with a dark diamante tiara,

Less in loveliness with all its arcane power

Than the Sarana's purpure-petalled flower.

So I gift with awe the verse that nature writes

In startling suns and jet-tipped star delights.

Karl

I see Karl coming up on the footpath

And set my composure for the encounter

He is as always cheery and friendly

But in something of a dreadful strait.

I have known him now for 15 years

Since he attended Buddhist classes

And he still talks about the conveners

With whom I have largely lost touch.

For as long as I have known him

He has been ravaged by schizophrenia

And now into his late fifties

He is gaunt and his face is heavily lined.

He is returning from playing the piano

In a bar - a task to which he is still suited

Though at one time he played in a famous group

And was highly regarded for his skill.

His clothes are dirty, torn and ill-fitting

His jacket stretched across his slight frame

Is both too small for his bones and too big

For his emaciated and neglected torso.

He tells me that he is still living alone

In reserved accommodation and that

He has cut down his medication

Taking only Olanzapine to help him sleep.

‘Pretty wild in those Nelson Street Flats'

He chuckles - they are cooking Crack

On the top floor. ‘Better stay off it' I say

‘I try to' he replies with a shy giggle.

‘I'm off to hear Herbie Hancock play

On Wednesday at the Michael Fowler Centre

Somebody gave me a free ticket - he's

Still the best at acoustic and electronic jazz'.

At which he wheels, feeling the audience is over,

Having learned that listeners tend to edge away -

And he is off with a crab-like gait, long hair flying,

Muttering another improvised solo to unreality.

Kebechet

[For Amy Winehouse (1983 - 2011) ]

KEBECHET

Why were you so wild

Heart-weighed child?

Jazzy dreams and love's mistakes

Lifting ladders, chasing snakes

Dance the squares the dice-throw makes.

What’s that baby at your breast

Princess, are you sure that you know best?

The asps are in the royal quarter

Bringing sleep my pharaoh’s daughter.

The reeds are broken

The river’s spoken

There’s a basket floating there -

And you my foundling needing care,

With needle teeth to suck your share -

Who will love you, who will dare?

Seven lean years and seven fat

Drought and floods will see to that

Serpent goddess Kebechet.

Too brave to last

The prophecy has past.

The pyramid is raised and sealed

Its mysteries stay part revealed:

Sacred madness, cryptic rhyme

Close the passages of time.

But the hieroglyphs of melody

Tongued by you to set the children free

Still promise crossings of the crimson sea.

Key

What is needed to unpick the labyrinth?

How can we find our way and keep track

Of the endless corridors, steps and stairs

Of the mind and its intricate delusions?

What is required to release melancholy?

Where is the thread that will lead us back

Having faced and put down our terrors

And returned to everyday confusion?

What is possible in the besting of the beast?

Will Theseus return a hero to found Athens

And become the keystone of a Golden Age

With Ariadne come to Naxos and deserted?

What is most and what is least at the last

What secrets and prospects can be opened?

Perhaps there is no key on which the world turns

Only the thread of knowledge and its heartbreak.

Katie Kangaroo

[To the tune of 'Fly Me to the Moon']

KISS ME KATE - CAREFULLY

Poets often use many words
To say a simple thing.
It takes thought and time and rhyme
To make a poem sing.

With music and words I've been playing
For you, I have written a song.
To be sure that you'll know what I'm saying,
I'll translate as I go along...

Hum with me the tune
And let us play amid the Bush
Let us come together soon
To consummate our crush.

In other words,
Bounce my way.
In other words,
Share the hay.

Leave the billabong
And let me sing forever more.
You are all I long for,
As I take your tender paw.

Careful with those shapely legs
And watch when you get toey
Treat me like a tray of eggs
If you plan for us to joey.

Fill my heart with song,
And let it sing forever more.
You are all I long for,
All I worship and adore.

In other words,
Please be true.
In other words,
I love you...

Katie Kangaroo.

Larry's Song: For A Much Loved Labrador Rescued

From The Pound

Fer ‘er sweet sake I’ve lain down on me trampoline:

No trees and posts an' all that sniffy game

Fer when a mutt ‘as come to know Maureen,

It ain’t the same.

There’s ‘igher things, she sez, fer dogs to do.

An’ I am ‘arf believin’ that it’s true.

Let Me Grasp The Light You Shed

I stepped up taking both your hands in mine

They were delicate and cold and ghostly,

Flesh against metal contacting eerily:

I flinched slightly at our standing back time.

On your dress, spells in fretwork ribbons pour

With edges sharp enough to cut or feel -

And palms that berries stained are forged in steel

To break and share a dead man's bread no more.

Woman of words laser-cut line by line

Hailing the taxi of immortality -

Iron killed your brother, ripped away his mask

Do those bright fingers now avoid my clasp?

Although your silhouette may now be read

So much surrounds you that is left unsaid:

Let me grasp the light you shed - tacitly.

[for Katherine Mansfield]

Liberal Is As Liberal Does

I dream of equity and brotherhood of man

As only Oxford Nobs of Liberalism can.

Of ancient lineage or so my mother claims

I love progression and its fun and games.

I love the common man and guard his rights

It's good that he has upper crust protection

And if I put a finger down his tights

It's just to muster favour at the next election.

The world is made for top-notch men like me

That take both cake and biscuit - but bucket swill

To grunts below them on the social tree

Who suck it up but back the stuck up still.

I ride to hounds with the noble and patrician

But ride the stable-boys for fairness sake:

Unspeakable I'm not, I just jockey for position

And hunt down rent-boys who are on the take.

'Great Scott, I wish that Norman dead

That his goose be cooked and giblets served -

His allegations leave me quite unnerved

Will no-one rid me of that little turd?'

[for Jeremy Thorpe]

Life Itself Come Finally To Yield

When young you were as stunning as the dawn

Red clouds threatening an impending storm

Older you are as lovely as the dusk

Quiet in twilight now the storm has passed.

Though darling buds fierce rain erases

Rough winds will test but strengthen seasoned boughs

And ruined choirs make perfect resting places

As the sun's now waning power still shows.

No stranger to contempt, defeat and strife

You little thought your day would last this long

But the showers of summer brought new life:

This the miracle that comes of staying strong

Time's bounty and its scars alike revealed

That life itself comes finally to yield.

[for Jane Fonda]

Little Comrade Klutz Teddy

[A 'translation' of Andrey Usachev’s Poem]

Little Comrade Klutz Teddy

In the forest

Collecting pine cones

Singing songs.

Then a cone drops

And hits head first

Smacking the bear cub -

Bonk - and whoops a daisy!

On a branch

A blackbird mocks:

“A clumsy Teddy

Trips on his own tail”

And then

Five young hares

Break from the thicket

Screaming “clumsy Teddy”.

All agree among

The forest creatures -

A klutzy Teddy Bear

Is galumphing through the woods.

Back at the bear lair

Little Teddy, still unsteady,

Shrinks with shame

Hiding behind a cupboard.

“Everyone is teasing me

About my clumpy paws”.

But Mum responds:

“Dumb son

I’m proud of your feet.

I’m a clodhopper,

Dad is a clodhopper

And Grandad is a real spud foot”.

Klutz Teddy then

Became very proud.

He washed with soap and water

And ate honey cake.

And he came out of the den

Puffed and chuffed

Ready to show everyone

Some clumsy, klutzy, clomping!

[with apologies to A. Usachev from one poet to another]

Looking Deeply

Who is this young woman with her blue eyes?

Is it the artist or the subject or perhaps both?

Who is reflected in the mirror - what is seen?

Who is the the painter - what is the intent?

How does beauty manifest itself - Question?

Surely the subject and the artist must object?

Look at me - look beyond - look behind

What is your intention in this interrogation?

The ordinary can so easily become uneasy

Can you sense the menace in exposure?

Even in the children, there are portents:

Innocence and beauty are unsure - at risk

Let them play and we will listen carefully

And note the way in which the music unfolds

Let us watch who is sad, who is centre-stage

Who is wistful, who is calm and who looks away

And this Midsummer, we should above all become aware

That looking deeply into things is a sacred duty - the art of life.

Lost For Words

‘In the beginning was the Word'

But surely there was a time

Before words, when dreaming reigned?

And the dreaming was intrinsic scoping -

Part-listening, part-musing, part meditation

In a seamless word-less, pre-word world.

Then creation had no bounds -

Imminent, predestined, immanent -

It was unconcerned with particularity.

Are poetry and music then the echoes

And reverberations of that time

Before heaven and hell mattered?

Lost Village

The leaders and warriors of the village failed

In their attempt to attend the ceremony:

Caught in a storm, their canoes were overturned

And their bodies were washed on to the rocks.

And when the tribes gathered to celebrate

The ascension of the new paramount chief

Into the sacred, lordly realms of the spirit gods

The allotted kava and offerings went untasted

And the chief sought the counsel of a shaman

On the insult to his mana - and of the taboos broken -

And the priest decreed that the village should be eaten

Each year, every year a mouthful - piece by piece.

At the season when the signs in the heavens signified

A war party would be readied, beaching its canoes

Behind the headland - demanding the necessary tribute

Burning the huts of a family and clearing its taro fields

And smoked meat, young girl slaves and other tokens

Would be taken for the great chief to appease the spirits

So that the family and its people came to be extinguished

And each year the village would grow smaller in significance.

And the time came when the last family was butchered

And the clearings closed beneath the forest canopy

So that nothing was left of that unfortunate lineage

And its retribution to the gods became a story.

Love In The Time Of Singularity

Being in love is a highly disordered state - so there you are, about to leap into a

black hole.

It transforms lives, alters judgment, consumes attention.

What could possibly await should — against all odds — you somehow survive?

‘Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;

Where would you end up and what tantalising tales would you be able to regale if

you managed to clamber your way back?

Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes:

Falling through an event horizon is literally passing beyond the veil — once

someone falls past it, no message could ever be sent back.

Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:

They'd be ripped to pieces by the enormous gravity.

What is it else? a madness most discreet,

Should you then find yourself at the event horizon

A choking gall and a preserving sweet …'

Tidal forces might reduce your body into strands of atoms through

'spaghettification'

Love does take us and transfigure and torture us.

The idea that you could pop out somewhere — perhaps at the other side —

seems utterly fantastical.

It does break our hearts with an unbearable beauty, like the unbearable beauty

of music.

What's more, because time distorts close to this boundary, this will appear to

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take place incredibly slowly, so answers won't be quickly forthcoming.

But in so far as we have certainly something to do with the matter;

Maybe a black hole leads to a white hole?

In so far as we are in some sense prepared to fall in love and in some sense to

jump into it;

Unlike a black hole, a white hole will allow light and matter to leave, but light and

matter will not be able to enter.

In so far as we do to some extent choose and to some extent even judge -

Giving extra credence to the idea of black holes serving as a portal.

In all this falling in love is not truly romantic, it is not truly adventurous at all.

Such that singularity does not exist, and so it does not form an impenetrable

barrier that ends up crushing whatever it encounters.

Or you might prefer a more cynical approach: it also means that information

doesn't disappear.

If you ask me—and I have now had time to think about this—love, or what

people call love -

It would be impossible to figure out what went in by looking at what is coming

out

As it may be just a system for getting people to call you Darling after sex.

Someone crossing the event horizon might not actually feel any great hardship

After all, no neurons can be seen sparking with ecstasy

Because an object would be in free fall and, based on the equivalence principle,

And none are seen to fade or even pink or plonk with despair

That object — or person — would not feel the extreme effects of gravity

When the altered state returns to some kid of stasis.

Love's Mystery

I promised you everything that comes to good:

The compass points of life and being loved -

What's worth retaining and what's before me

And all that might achieve a legacy.

I promised you things that could not be done:

Muting the keyboard and muffling the drum,

Throwing all barking dogs a juicy bone

Stopping the clocks, cutting off the phone.

I promised you things that were impossible:

That I would pack up the moon and dismantle

The sun, put out the stars and pour away the sea -

In part melodramatic irony.

Why do lovers and mourners abuse hyperbole?

When it's simpler to say: 'We shared love's mystery'.

Lucky Tossers

Let's call it hopscotch!

Now this is where it all begins

A lot of talk and bull-shit spin

Hit the zone, no time to wait

Draw them squares out,1 to 8

Hopscotch!

Fake that spin and hop along

And now you're ready to sing the song

Spinning out a love match - bippity-bop

Keep on skipping, no time to stop -

Miss the piggy - the world will watch

Hippety, hotchpotch, hopscotch hogwash!

Luminescence

How is it that the word is gracious light?

That the light witnesses to the darkness

And bright in dark reflection, darkly bright,

Shines upon the comprehension?

In the beginning was the word manifest

That there should be greater enlightenment

And that those who make this atoned request

Should receive the true light's endorsement.

Come from the shadows into your own light

Be a lamp for yourself and take your place -

And return from the dark glass to plain sight

That you will know love and truth, face to face.

In such a life, light is everlasting

And words and luminesence self- recasting.

Lunch At Cressage - Returning To Wroxeter 2013

The wind has set aside its ire for love

And nuzzles nape of sun

The shadows drain the blush above

As ripples through the shallows run.

At Riverside the glasses bubble

Where the basking Severn weaves

And joys the Shropshire summer double

With steak and beer and cheese.

Then, it was two thousand years or so

That Marius chinked his glass

And watched the boatmen heave and row

Through willows to the quayside grass.

Here with the heat of day at peace

Specks of why meet sigh and cease -

The river of life ne’er ran so quiet and high

Then thought Mario, now again think I.

The sun, it turns and shares the kiss

So soft the courtship scarce begun -

To-day we celebrate such joy as this

With those who dream at Uricon.

Lymph Massage

That life should be so wonderful

That I have a carer who loves me.

She leans across me as I sit up in bed

And follows the instructions from the hospice

About lightly massaging - saying ‘one thousand' -

Rotating her fingers according to the manual.

It is quite counter-intuitive - that such little pressure,

At such light touch, should have any bearing on outcomes.

And I start to think of things that bring tears:

I remember being terrified and unwanted as a boy

When we had moved to the farm with my stepfather -

And how we were overwhelmed when he became sick -

With me as a five-year old watching him heaving blood

In the back toilet from a perforated peptic ulcer.

And of being mystified as the dog was shot -

Brought from the pen in the old pig sty at the back

And set to wander to the abuse of the human beings

Before it was brought low in the driveway with a 22 -

And we returned to the kitchen to drink tea

Beset by so many fears and self-recriminations.

And me desperate for any kind of place or standing

That would help me survive the harvest of 1949.

And the incident of the open-top cart behind the tractor

When I was placed on the flat bed among the stalks and chaff

And the tractor pulled away - only to see the massive end-gate

Fall around me - missing me - but dashing down my toast and honey!

That was funny!

And come the autumn, of me riding the tractor draw-bar, harrowing

Across the pitted and corrugated fields - anything to be part of things.

But bloody dangerous! Sorry but this must stop. Rewind these memories!

Slightly tearfully, I thank my lovely carer and apologise for being such a nuisance

‘You are worth it', she says - my tears welling - ‘I'm so very sorry', I sob

‘You are a lovely man', she says - and what is below the surface begins to give.

Making It New Again

There were constant struggles to understand

Constant struggles to explain, justify, provide hope

About how mankind came into existence

About how their own tribe came to rule

Or was dispossessed and brought to subjugation

And the necessity of revival and reassertion

About the nature of being a son and father

The dangers of desire, temptation and betrayal

And the fickle nature of women and their ways

From homeliness to divination and blood-letting

The rituals of forgetting and propitiation

Acts of sacrifice, of mortification and ritual slaughter

Of the need for valour in battle and loyalty

Of making it new again and restoring greatness

A trust in the after-life for the valiant and obedient

The chosen ones coming to the throne of judgment

Being welcomed to the resplendent halls

With a promise of everlasting heavenly ease.

All this is becoming evident once more

As we return to the ancient beliefs and ways

And tribal commitments to blood and folk.

But for some a small problem - not wanting to share

Valhalla with Sean Hannity and Steve Bannon

And if Odin has any sense, he won't either.

Marla's Song

When suddenly, I knew not why,

There came a funny feeling

Of something crawling up my thigh!

I nearly hit the ceiling!

A mouse I thought. How foul! How mean!

How troublingly tickly!

Quite soon I know I'm going to scream.

I've got to catch it quickly.

I made a grab. I caught the mouse,

A wriggly little lump

A mouse my foot! It was a hand -

The hand of Donald Trump.

Tis irksome when the vermin

Will brazen seek the cat

But pussy is so charming

This louse don't think of that!

Matariki [Maori New Year]

MAORI NEW YEAR - THE SEVEN SISTERS RISE ANEW

Our birth-folk

Sky and earth

Together and apart

Grief and yearning

Heaving and strain.

Their children

The woodlands

And the seas

The winds and waves

The food stores

War and stillness.

Though the young struggle

With storms and snares,

The dark and emptiness

Are overcome by light and growth

And the sky is clothed in stars.

Get ready for the westerly

Stand fast for the southerly

It will be icy white inland

And icy cold on the shore.

May the dawn rise

Red-tipped

On snow, on frost

The breath of life!

POWHIRI

At the island's edge

The warrior-waves

Swell and break

In unison

And the shore

Picks up the challenge.

Across the strait

Are distant mountains,

Arrayed like wise chiefs

Capped with heron feathers,

Snow-shone with white flame,

Welcoming us to the winter solstice.

Memories Of Nigeria - And Such

Scents, a sense... scenes

Of Nigeria tug at my memory:

Smokey maize beer, yams and egusi;

The beautiful girl who had been to Italy

So lustrous black, so very beautiful;

Fierce light, dark shadows, rough cast walls;

Swimming in the Benue at Makurdi

The river's surface arched with power

Fishermen skating the flooded sunset.

As for the crocodiles:

'Poor Little Creatures

The People have Eaten Them

Long Ago'.

Merienda On Buendia

[Another Special Lunch at the Asian Development Bank Office in Mondragon

House - 1985]

As she is transferring to HQ on Roxas

There will be merienda today for Rosa.

There will be ukoy and ube-macapuno cake

And the boss Dr Dhoni will make a speech.

He will be charming and diplomatic

And tell of Rosa’s many talents,

Avoiding reference to her penchant

For bunking off and cultivating seedy affairs

With senior expatriate staffers who should know better.

And the office girls will giggle

As they load their Pancit noodles

Onto paper plates and sip Mountain Dew

Or take another slice of Sans Rival cake

Saying ‘Sir’ in their sexiest voice

And the professionals will ponder

Nervously the beauties that beset them

And talk seriously about interest rates,

Country statistics and trade finance

And the necessity of buying a generator.

And then as it always does

The conversation will drift

To the best deal on duty-free cars

And which model has the highest resale value.

After which mention will be made

Of the Swiss man from the WHO

Whose car was shunted at the traffic lights

On Ayala and who unwisely got out and shouted

At the Pinoy who had stopped short -

Only to have his windscreen shot out by the accused.

But Chris who is new from Australia

Will flirt dangerously with Baby -

She with the shone jet eyelids and

Slinky in oh-so tight silk skirts

And he with the sweaty hairline acne

Getting goose-bumps from the aircon.

He whose young wife is at home gated

In Dasmariñas Village isolated - sat sobbing

Under the paddle-fan on the lanai.

And nobody will remember

The young labourer from Bohol

Who I saw being carried limp

Off the building site

After he had fallen from

The bamboo scaffolding

On the ninth floor

Blood at the corner of his mouth

His eyes already distant and opaque.

Messengers Relent - The Piwakawaka

I who have come so far, find welcoming

Two small pied shadows dancing in the air.

Laughing at their delightful powhiri

I gather up their rautapu gifting,

Cherishing their tumble-round uplifting.

Yet piwakawakas I am aware -

You forewarn a threshold to my ending.

Once under my roof there’s no gift to share -

Just dark warriors' stern attending.

We brought the farthings sparrows to your place.

They once welcomed priests by flitting the space

Across the roof beams of an old thane’s hall

And gave us hope of welcome everlasting

To God’s mercy, ending sorrow's fasting.

I proffer you this blessing shared with all.

Mirror

'Now we see through a glass, darkly;

But then face to face:

Now I know in part;

But then shall I know even as also I am known'.

Looking again for recognition and acceptance,

Cleansing skin and wiping sebum

From the oily insets of your nose lobes,

The time has gone for greeting yourself -

Smiling back to the self-stranger in the mirror

Searching for the younger of the two of you.

Something is lost every day,

Every day we die a little

Neurons fail, memories fade

Hours, places, names

Houses, rivers, continents -

Losing yourself is half the battle,

Each wrinkle accumulating

Without artistry or mastery.

Behind every door is a scream

Open carefully - there may be

Tigers, virgins or executioners

Awaiting the turning of the lock.

Forget threats and inducements

And the regrets of incarceration

What do you sniff - the scent

Of innocence or feline ferocity -

Is perfume deadlier than dander?

Which side are you on?

No matter how you consult the glass

Your interrogation will not turn the key

There is no walking through the mirror

No matter then of liking or disliking

The apparition of ordinary normality -

There is nothing that you cannot face

And no turning away or seeing it through.

You will not find yourself,

It was only ever reflection:

Wipe the sleeps from your eyes

And put away your tissues

They may be useful yet for tears.

Miss J. Jade – Enchanted Game

Miss J. Jade, Miss J. Jade how well you have done

Aceing at anchor the Island Bay sun

Calling the lines to an admirer buoy

Tether'd and weather'd with murmurs of joy.

What storm sets we shared you and me

Toss’d and returned by the firmament sea

With crafty obliviousness lightly you float

I’m weak from your net calls fishy red boat.

The sound of the wind, the scent of the surf

Iconic and tonic your importunate berth

Flashing your stern where the bay breakers run

Matching the waves, you've played up and won.

Modesty Their Standard [from Ice Picks And Violets]

Where wonders, wars, misfortune

And stirring deeds are seen

Where peace and wild confusion

Have come and gone again

I could rhyme of Robin Hood

Or Ranulf Earl of Chester

England's ancient blood

Its shield and its protector

But greater strife the country tore

Wide wasting land and kin

And Lads had died in mud and gore

That hid the kind old sun

Now nature generation shows

And young men take their place

So noble is as noble does

When scions pick up the pace

Like Gawain and Bayard

Perfect knights of old

Modesty their standard

For quests and ventures bold

Called then the far dominions

With bitter frosty skies

The demons' dark pavilions

Where devils hiss their lies

And though their mothers scheme

And urge them not to go

They smile and then explain

The answer must be no

Before they reached the shore,

What promises they made!

And how high country's store

Was stocked with glory's tread

Now huntsmen take their places,

And all the hounds run free,

As blood's up honour paces

Swift to crag and shifting scree

Those lads their eyes grown bright

Would soar, surmount the way

Climbing on with great delight

As sets the end of day

Bold Mallory unflinching drew

His pick and staked his claim

His mind's eye upward flew

Summit set to be his aim

Then Irvine said with cheerful face:

'Why shrink back from the quest?

Though fate bring glory or disgrace

A man must meet the test.'

Life can only little mean

With loss so much in mind

All faults they may redeem

Through fellowship in kind

Spin the prayer wheel letters

Tell of ancient noble truths

Their story flagged in pennants

The mountain people choose.

Moments In Waitarere - New Year 2015

I was in the 4-Square at Waitarere

Buying a Dom-Post and an icey-pole

When I lost it and bought ‘Vs Moments'.

It promised a Cinematic View

On Fashion and Culture

With specials on Uma Thurman and Kirsten Dunst.

Kirsten tries to looks louche

But looks spoilt and blasé

Among the marble in the photo-shoot.

Apparently she gave her cats cat-nip

And they went ape-shit.

Outside on the bench, I sort of

Half suck, half buck teeth razor

My orange-lemon paddle-pop

And glance between Kirsten's

Santa Monica Mansion

And the assembled beach raff

With their bulging shorts and bonhomie.

A bleary, ouch-tanned gaggle of ordinaries

Pose for a cell-phone moment:

‘A real Kiwi Summer Photo, eh? '

And I turn to look at the 10-something

Blonde-braided pig-tail perfection

Who I had seen pirouetting on the beach

In her black swimming costume with the gold stripe

Faultlessly leaping and twirling

Carefully practised ballet steps from

Gillian's Modern, Tap and Classical Dance School

In Palmy.

Kirsten's mum who looks after the cats

Says once we could look out to the beach

And say ‘isn't this the most beautiful place in the world?

But now our visitors train the balcony telescope

On the car lot beside Ernesto's

And say ‘I wonder what

Celebrities are down there today? '

As I finish my Frujo, I put my jandals back on

And the beautiful little girl becomes

Resentful of my stolen adoration.

Last night we walked back after

The rain had stopped and we had spent

Most of New Year's Eve playing

Some American game where you

Pick black cards that provide questions or blanks

And white cards that provide bizarre, rude or crude

Answers or fillers that you can slot in when your time comes -

In a tent as the southerly coming up the South Island

Blew itself out.

Some of the questions and answers

We didn't really understand

But we laughed a lot.

By midnight, it had cleared

And the revels at the Bowling Club ‘All Welcome'

Died down for the countdown

Five, four, three, two, one! ! ! !

Boom, cheers, fireworks - Happy New Year

And then ‘Auld Lang Syne', ‘A Scottish Soldier'

‘Dirty Old Town'.

It was a great!

And we walked home through the clear, dark night

Along the mud-sand drifted streets and their puddles

To our batch or beach cottage

As the sea celebrated

With its own momentous song.

Monday Crossroads - Epifanio De Los Santos

Expressway, Metro Manila

The car door closes,

I step back alone

To dirty streets

And dark shapes.

I make my way

Warily - as

EDSA roars above

The underpass.

The poor bring water

To sidewalk homes

In plastic buckets

Yoked or dragged.

Vendors roll their mats,

Set out their goods,

Cigarettes and gum -

Trifles and trivia.

On a concrete step,

A dark-haired child

In t-shirt and shorts

Sleeps fitfully.

As dawn is rising

In the viscous grey air,

The traffic crowds

To cacophony.

Reddening clouds -

In the steel grey dawn

Skyscrapers emerge

In serrated edge.

The hotel canopy

Takes me in

Cool marble and sweet air

'Good morning, Sir’.

Entering my room

There is disorder

Sheets and pillows

Thrown aside.

And you have gone

And with you love.

Sweet-heart stay well

As day breaks hearts.

Monkeying Around With Shakespeare's Sonnet 3

[update]

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest

To grin and grimace and strain another

Bardic turd - that if now thou not renewest,

To besmirch the word and rhyming smother

Will consign fair Shakespeare to the tomb,

Disdaining the tillage of his husbandry -

Endorsing those whose fatuous farts still bloom

In monkey shit to stop posterity?

Art thy primate glass is best dark to thee

Leaving the lovely screen of empty time

So thou through windows of each age shalt see,

Despite the crap, the word still reigns sublime.

For if macaques, in plenty to infinity,

Type his words, mankind will not remembered be.

More On Marilyn - Lagos Forty Or More Years Ago -

For Theresa Lola

In Lagos, the atmosphere stands over you like a dark genie

The water has failed in the smart concrete apartment

And I shave using Sprite to foam my face

But the electricity works, so the paddle-fan moves above my sleeping place in

the lounge.

Burning myself out from work up-country for my engineering company

I have come, fighting for my life again, to this dense dark city

On the way home - back to Heathrow and the Home Counties -

If they'll recognize my ticket at the Nigeria Airways desk - dash permitting.

I have somehow made it to a nightclub and become a little drunk

And found myself liking and loving a girl who has excellent English

Who also speaks Italian - having been what we would now call trafficked -

My beautiful girl, my Black Marilyn, my night club pick-up.

The fan is still turning above this stifling ceiling of inadequacies

That most beautiful of deep, dark lustrous skin to be cherished

For both of us a petit mort - death itself in touch

You were so much more than your beauty - I still can't take my eyes off you.

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Keith's Poetry Anthology [Keith Shorrocks Johnson]

II. Quietly I Catch Its Presence

Quietly I Catch its Presence

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