in a corner bread and biscuit cake room
with their nephews David, Clive and Andrew,
who cling to the expectation of a quick death
for their sedentary aunts stuffed with scones
and honey, a life of unbending virtue
and enough of proper things to fill
many books with their tedium, Te Deums,
and memories of an occasional wayward hand
dismissed with anger but some regret.
The Miss Browns are certain of their final journey,
no slight misgivings here but rude and vigorous
acclamation with their favourite cleric Eric,
he of scrawny neck and sweaty palms but equal
faith in life’s misery but joyful end.
‘Pass the jam’ David, Clive and Andrew utter in unison,
teenage throats clearing, piggy eyes and pointed
heads watching and counting the slow decline and
money shed of the two snug, smug Miss Browns.
Another Friday spent in frugal contentment and
spite as out the window they comment on less worthy
souls passing with hunted looks and faded
frocks of white and strawberry of older time.
No clients of cleric Eric, these poor souls are of
little money or belief or want to take each
day as crossing the vale of tears to a happy
side where kith and kin are said to wait.
The knowing all, the happiness of truth,
the respect and perhaps love in this bread
biscuit and cake room, fill the Miss Browns
with an unknown, unfamiliar warmth
and affection for David, Clive and Andrew
who continue to count down slowly, lovingly,
the time to their just rewards for these
Friday afternoons wasted with old maids
and scones and honey.
Handing Down
One generation begets and beguiles
one generation flowering in splendour, before
one generation neglects the dreaming
wisdom of old men, their knowing smile
of knowing all.
Heroes
This is no land for peaceful heroes intent on
living dreams beyond a reach; here
there is no space to see and feel the silence
of the stars, the inky gloom of night,
the majesty of frigid dawn and
cry of break of day.
A falling off from heaven, a lazy slide
into a black hole of nothingness;
must this be my fate and by extension
those great of deed called heroes
or can I explain my plight with age
and body blight or foolish lust?
I have never wanted the tedium of our days,
smelled a rose but felt a thorn,
held a child and looked at death,
glanced upon falling stars
spread across the Milky Way and
wished and wished to stay in
a land of heroes, a country of smiles,
no pulling together the dismal solidity
of generation on generation,
no gold, frankincense or myrhh
crawling to a stable to be born.
I am of my time and falling out of my time
into this nowhere I cry to you
help me, help me, help me’
In Dreams
We coupled feverishly during the night,
awake yet dreaming of unknown days
between the waking and the struggling.
You at a party long ago, monstrous beings
dying on marble shining, me in a vacuumed
sports car hurrying nowhere until
in the coupling a peace of sorts fell on our
restless minds released now from time and space
into dreams of endless joined bodies.
Killing
The felled palm trees are dying on the
Paseo; sand encrusted from African
levantes they lie upturned in brown dirt
open to the air, the sap and moisture
hoarded for years fleeing from a shade
less intense, more frugal in its offering.
Victims of their own prosperity, earlier
growth snaking under baking streets
erupts in the carefully placed brick
promenade and pushes up through
walkways now hazardous for all.
Silent retirees shuffle by scarcely
noticing the death struggle of these
ancient trees; gaping holes left
by their felling, the wool jacketed
spaniel’s cocked leg pissing on
the dying trunk, ultimate indignity
in a proud life of majestic leaves made
huge and hanging by eked out water.
The verdict being handed down to end
their existence, lessen the destruction of
success, they are killed in their prime,
stunned by the gentle saw of the executioner.
Lady Of My Waking Dreams
Oh I could love you my distant woman,
in your voice the insouciance of youth
grinds into my soul, mocking my being
making you seem nearer, more desirable.
But, if you like, I can put on a new skin and
morning coated walk to an old ceremony
where under a buzzing humid light
with crowds of fervent believers and their
anxious trainers I could recite
‘Reach out my lady of waking dreams
kiss and tell of sweet love
visible in the fire of my eye
sleep in my dreams of dreams
rest in my time and shade and all.’
let me put my cards on the table
I am a worn out old randy poet
still turning a phrase or two to
beguile older women than you.
But my time is running out, like
a bagpipe shorn of wind waiting
to be coaxed back to life I want
your youth, your soft voice singing.
Although I cannot understand what
you sing I know the rhythm of love,
I know you are reaching out to me,
coaxing me into to you, making me
come alive again.
Leavings
My end may be in a strange place, perhaps
in a Solomon Trench five kilometres drifting
down, the light on the ocean fading as I sink
amidst startled creatures of the deep.
I may evaporate in a cloudless sky, journey
to a sun touching heavens on the way
and see stars grow dim at the going down
of final evening.
But if you have my body wake me in a house
far from tea and biscuits, surround
the coffin with family and friends,
dress me shoeless in my wedding suit and
thus attired I will accompany you, my bride,
groomed to an altar of your choosing.
There they shall sing the ‘Ave Maria’
and speak these words pondering on the
odyssey of a sceptic soul now released
to traverse the universe.
In the singing of ‘Going Home’ take my
body to our place of rest and lay me down
with loosening ropes. On a stone, cut to lean
into pitiless winds, carve my name and the
instant of coming and going.
Afterwards speak of me as one who loves you,
leaves no lasting monuments but a legacy of
words, a roaring water of ideas, bound in modest
pages, yet open to all who seek to know the
sealing bonds of a once turbulent life.
Little Death
We worked harmonious in black bag rhythm
packing memories into small openings, vessels of
loss, sides pierced by emerging hangers and other
detritus. Then a phone call; a girlfriend in trouble
I think as I dwelt on last night’s rest of bed and instant
darkness, waking refreshed but no dreams, no shuffling
or snoring you said, just a motionless body still alive.
Now for me the unease of a perfect night preparing one
through a little death for nothingness, no waking awaiting.
My Beloved Goes On A Journey
Although gone she is with me in this room;
in fleecy indentations of silky legs and calves,
in ankle socks smaller than a marsupial’s arrival
in the pouch, in shoes left with a message to
walk with me, in the tidiness of drawers of
underthings, electric to the touch, in love notes
scattered like confetti.
Although gone she is with me in a crowd;
I see her face in every face, I smell her skin
in every flower, I hear her in my heart of hearts,
I feel her touch in every bone.
Smothering in frail words I am a soul in lonely flight.
New York City 1969
My nineteen years are running for life east
on 52nd Street, the bridge ahead, crowded
sidewalks and a sweating man behind shouting
Sonny stop! I want sex, I want sex!’
Later in the YMCA near Madison Square
Gardens, a large black man, apprentice butcher from
Austin Texas, sits on my narrow bed
and leans across trying to stroke my leg.
‘Fuck off, fuck off now!’ I cry trembling
with fear, reaching for a scissors under
my pillow, a saviour rescuing me from the
brotherly ignorance of a christian manling.
At the Hotel Roosevelt on 6th and 34th Street,
Mr. John Rosen assures me of a stack of gold
awaiting new baggage handlers at Kennedy
Airport and can I start tomorrow early.
Leaving the hotel, mind filled with a vista
of dollars, I am accosted by a small mouthed
man, who enquiring about my new job, threatens
to crush my legs if I strike break at the airport.
In a studio apartment on Lexington, with six
girls lying on the floor, Armstrong says ‘One
small step for man’ and I turn over trying to
sleep, moon dust minded until dawn and work.
And then it is late September and I am flying
The Atlantic, wishing the hours away to landing
and the telling of tall tales of daring and
bravery in a city far across the ocean.
On Rereading Death Notices
He died peacefully yesterday at his residence surrounded
by family, wanting for nothing but life at the end, his spirit
and the fruits of his earthly work embodied in a real home
of distinction, with truly stunning interiors, including detailed
architraves, decorative ceiling covers and recessed lighting.
He lies now in the magnificent master bedroom, a convenient
dressing room to the right and a marbled en-suite dripping
to the left
His family mourns in their own way in one of the other five
bedrooms - two en-suite - while downstairs ancient clergy await
instructions in the formal dining room - leading to a study
and family room clustered around the double Aga-warmed
kitchen sensitively fitted with pine units.
While the rest of his four thousand square foot residence is
filled with friends and the curious, the play area in the attic,
the cooling hot tub, the clay tennis court and heated outdoor
pool wait despondently for the next generation.
Outside a Mercedes hearse drives sedately up the mile long
avenue, the smiling, morning suited undertaker clutching an
account equal to the occasion.
Once Upon A Full Moon
In a china shop across the street a hereford bull is examining
a plate depicting a handsome bald lawyer pleading a case
to an empty court. The bull is threatening to run amok if a
second plate, with the same representation, is not found.
At the busy intersection, alive with car horns, two laughing
hippopotamuses from the Gambia display their vast incisors,
conscious of the discerning crowd commenting on their bad
breath and urgent need for remedial dental work.
Watching quietly near the spectators is a tiger burning
bright, his flaming stripes catching a dazzling Sun
and giving off a strange translucence blinding
the sullen horde, some of whom are already drifting away
to O’Reilly’s select bar (‘Best Food and Drinks’) where
three elephants, trunks in an open beer barrel, are
drinking to forget an incident of the previous night
when they trampled to death an old owl who unwisely
crossed their path as he turned his head to watch an elegant
horse drawn carriage, filled with cartons of single, double,
long life and clotted cream, driven by a fat Persian cat,
slowly make its way to the end of the street where
a man stood under a full moon, large stone in hand,
waiting for two unsuspecting birds.
Physics For Poets
He was running out of creative ideas in
an ocean of surplus words in the fifth
stanza of a Paradelle on the mysteries of
the universe and the distance across it.
At the delicate point of eliminating words
and revising repeating lines the light
bulb in the sitting room fizzled and died.
A loud voice from a large stationary object
nearby bellowed out ‘You good for nothing
bastard, how many times have I told you to
buy bulbs. But oh no, you would prefer writing
rubbish which puts no money on the table.’
Sighing he reluctantly laid down his pen,
lifted a gun from a drawer in his writing
desk and took careful aim.
Questions
I probe another lifetime seeking answers
fastened to future dreams;
curious we never met and were you
there too, happy before our time?
Perhaps we should have had children, the
statement dancing provocatively, sinuously,
my mind pondering the colour of their hair,
age and place in a different past.
Strange how we are filled with the same
dismal family histories and stories of anguish;
lengthy in time and short in the telling,
their end trailing into moments of silence,
minds alert to the similar, the hope growing
the other knows, understands, and is setting out
to build on fragile foundations a house of joy.
Impatiently I blurt out ‘I love you.’
Rhymes Of God
When I am young I shall mould the fortune
of my days into meadows of my own clay.
Donning the trousers my mother wore I shall
sing of wisdom as I walk and patient be
the one all will love and looking after aged
parents in their silent house call the laughing
children home to tea, tuck them in and talk
delight; linger in doorways watching eyes grow
dim and in th
e light of first new morning time
create rhymes of God and everything.
Yet in this new skin I can feel the past calling
from the void of my own creation, the tolling of
indifference, great songs of nothing from my
hurrying years, telling of a life laid end to end
amongst troubled people, and how I must to climb
the high steps unburden stone at the heart’s core
Rome
Across from me two priests sip Tommasi Amarone
and eat pasta e lenticchie with coniglio bianco.
Glancing in my direction they speak quietly leaning
one to the other. Outside Asian and African nuns walk
by with shiny black briefcases, white veils contrasting
with their dark features and the black limousine waiting to
take the feasting clergymen back to the Vatican.
On Via Condotti the pretty Gucci girl, bending down to put
shoes on a fur-coated moustached matron, winks at me with
her pert bottom while over at Brioni a security guard
theatrically stops me taking photographs of a black raincoat
reduced to a month’s salary. I want to show this to my mother,
who tired of life but not money will make more of it than my
story of gold and silvered sacred vestments in the tiresome
Vatican museum.
Near the Borgese a young couple on a bench, she facing him
on his lap, darkness falling, stop gyrating when we walk by
talking earnestly about the marble creases in Pauline’s couch
and how Bernini could have done it, and what time we will eat
after a rest and a bath, and how to get back to our small hotel,
and how cold it is in this dim park and what is lurking behind
the growling bushes surrounding us.
On the Via Del Curso pretty young things in mini-skirts and
leg warmers fight their way into overcrowded shops. Nearby
the smell of chestnuts and homeless in boxes does not detain
eager Japanese pushing their way to the Trevi fountain, and I,
imagining Marcello Mastroianni grinning waist high in water,
wonder was it Candice Bergen or Audrey Hepburn with him and
are they still alive and smiling?
At the Piazza Venezia crowds risking death cross to the
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