Face

 

On this empty page,

I suddenly see your face,

a watermark.

Time-drained,

blurred features, mute;

loved face.

Memory,

a boulder dragged behind,

still sweeter

than vacuity;

so smile,

holographic smile.

The Ocean

 

I put my back to it, push the boat onto the limestone-coloured sea,

where the water takes it onto its own shoulders and I,

with feet firmly dug into the ribs, can row into the eternal.

The sea slams against the hull with my every stroke:

the clockwork of the ocean, of the universe,

inseparable from my blood’s tides.

I trust its speech resounding in the hollowed chest beneath me;

I believe in the anointing of my face with brine;

I get the measure of myself from none but the ocean.

War-torn Landscape

 

Her eyes bombed out,

mouth a crater,

rubble her skin.

The war on her face;

no matter what face,

this face will always be beneath.

These, millions,

devastated landscapes;

and hers, to have and to keep.

Awestruck

 

You climb and climb,

see the detail of your everyday diminish;

climb higher, higher, see it disappear.

Mountain ranges, rivers, plains, cities;

the coastline, the ocean spreading away

to another continent, beyond continents.

A world of craggy peaks, sky and sun;

a horizon-less vision, earth into universe;

awestruck, rooted,

you marvel at the infinity of your soul.

Camera, transport my skin of bones

 

Camera,

transport my skin of bones

to the breakfast tables of the first world.

These legs, arms, ribs

without muscle or flesh;

lay them there, inedible stuff.

Your readers, in the salve of their pity,

may impress themselves

with the rawness of their reactions,

be moved. And, yes, I understand:

with the turning of that page, the bones

will be returned to my private ownership.

In Bed

 

The bed clothes

white clouds, and

her head, an abandoned object,

thrown upon them.

Behind her shut eyes,

who knows what stirs

though still,

so very still.

Snow prints

Brilliant sunlight, gleaming snow;

a new morning, a new earth

except for the trail of footsteps;

some philistine has damaged the canvas.

On closer inspection, a parchment

rich in some Neolithic script:

multiple series of tiny arrows speaking of gods,

grandeur, confusion, berries perhaps.

Bird prints, their writings

on the mysteries of a new earth.

Gilmour's guitar solos

I 'm a sucker for Pink Floyd and those beautiful guitar solos. Sometimes I get a longing to hear them, then light and sound are the same. If you fancy listening try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uchUg0AKcAU

Gilmour Guitar Solos

Played that guitar with its mouth gaping

teeth spilling out

spinning resorts

high as cumulus

sharp as rain flints

molten fingertips pulling notes

drill-bits pulverising the starry skies

steel tear-strings’ cut ends

whipping around

stratospheric

granite blades

alchemy

wisps into blue.

Going to the Moon

 

T'ang Dynasty poet, Li Po, is said to have died in 762CE when he fell drunk out of a boat trying to embrace the moon.

The enamel white moon made a ladle on the water.

Li Po, a tick full of wine with a romantic heart

rowed his boat up the long handle towards the bowl,

from which light poured bright as molten magnesium

and with the fondest memories of all his loves,

fell into water with arms wide to embrace the moon.

The embrace was chill and shivering; there was no light,

but, deceived by his last lover, he fell through that glory

into the dank cavern that takes us all to our final knowing.

High up above his head the light continued to beckon;

it beckons still to wine-drinkers with love in their hearts..

Troubling Me

 

Last evening I gazed into water,

water gazed into me

and first to speak,

‘you’re lost’, he said.

The eyes seemed empty

to be unthinking,

but they were

and the message was full.

‘Both of us then’, I said

and his eyes were in mine;

I moved along

because he was troubling me.

Words Lassoes Blackbirds

 

Words,

swallows not trains,

swoop and dive;

blackbirds

lassoing the world

in their song,

trout leaps

through rings

in the river

sings;

not trains

no tracks,

but flies

flickering

light and sound

and swallows

swim

and blackbirds

lasso the world

in their song.

Photograph Found

 

I find you among the strewn things in the attic

and pull you clear.

You all but demanded to be lifted

but then go mute.

I drop you back, watch a moment to see you settle;

you’re giving a porcelain vase your lop-sided smile.

It’s not the memories that holds me that bit longer;

but your smile in that heap of junk.

For My Country

It is hard to come to terms with the vicious inhumanity that comes with war. Men, women and children so recently going through the normal routines of life; how hard it is to comprehend the obliteration of that day to day normality we take for granted. All the more so that so many are now giving their lives to have it restored.

For My Country

I am dead

flesh torn, brain unplugged.

For my country,

my body,

all eighteen years of its growing,

I give to its soil.

Dignity

 

Mantegna's wonderful painting was in our family bible. When I was young I used to look at it and marvel; I still do. It wasn't the only painting of its time to take this perspective, but it is the most masterful. The colour reproduction is particularly important in this painting; to my mind the more stone- coloured, marble-coloured, Christ's body the more effective. The monumentalism of the image holds you, not just for spectacle sake, but ties you that bit longer to the experience of lamentation along with the two grieving women. 

To my mind the overwhelming impression is the dignity it conveys, in Christ's expression, His bearing, the setting of the scene, the calm that emanates from the body.

Dignity

on Mantegna’s ‘The Lamentation over the Dead Christ'’

the holes left by nails

the ripped flesh

later inspected by fingers

serene

those sins impounded

beneath closed eyelids

and monumental perspective

marble-like folds in the cloth

rippled upward in musculature

a transfiguration David to pietà

the falling tears

as rain might stir a seedling

A child of four years complains of his worries

 

A child of four years is complaining of his worries,

the television exploding nightly in his living room,

talk of nuclear bombs and he already fearful for the life

he barely knows.

Listening to the news, his father’s forehead wrinkles,

so he wrinkles his; feels that tautness inside but lacks

the words to ask what his worries are and how they got

to be inside him.

Night-time, he cries with the fear of the horrors lurking

in the dark corners of his bedroom, screams out of sleep

and carries those charred eyes into the following day to see

yet again torn bodies and buildings being heaped around him.