That final trespass:
the undertaker preparing her corpse for viewing.
When I knock at the door he all but screams “don’t come in”.
She is now a commodity of the death industry.
Her taut face will hold the appearance of shutters pulled;
life folded neat as she exited.
Everywhere, humans altering the landscape,
not just governmental, but farmers, developers:
ourselves imposing designs on landscapes that
need follow their own evolutions or, as Darwin
might indicate, they become unfit for survival.
And so, the most transitory, those with least
claim to the future, gouging unmercifully through
nature’s processes, which include in their present
their future possibilities, persist in pulling the means
to live from under the feet of their grandchildren.
They talk, panoplies of perception;
Picasso-like profusions.
Tourbillions, the stones’ eyes
as would reflect in Van Gogh’s skies
and mouths: plastic, scream-shaped
as Munch would devise.
Their thoughts run together;
disparate landscapes; maps;
fusions of time and space and dreams;
beyond Einstein.
A woman at a window;
her back to us,
still.
Window in a blank wall,
open
to the sea;
it flows into her:
the bay,
oceans, landmasses,
like air.
She rests,
arms on the window sill.
An updated version of a poem from 2018 that was inspired by Cagall's weightless lovers.
Love made us lighter than air;
we careered, wheeled and banked
above the town.
Time, gravity, all forces;
we were the unifying principle.
Curved like quarter moons,
fitting into each other precisely,
loving each other beyond norms,
we freed ourselves.
In that love nothing hurts;
in that love all is healing.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Victory++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In that moment their eyes told everything:
the young woman in love,
the older seeing a young suitor hamming it up.
One smiling, the other concealing laughter;
in that one moment, in their eyes,
see how the broken wheel turns.
Lough Graney
1.
Walking the jetty over the lake;
lying there.
Eternity. A June afternoon
in that place of peace;
no one to disturb you
but yourself
rushing over the water
to be with you,
to complete
your happiness.
2.
This
surface gifts the heavens to you;
I’ve always wondered how you could leave this place;
what finer existence could inveigle you?
Between lake and sky, soul stepping clear of body,
instantly ecstatic; did you imagine there was somewhere
the wings of your heart would find greater span?
Here, where the soft insistence of eternity enters your soul
and time bows to beauty.
This blog compels me to write, without it I don't think I'd have the motivation. Most would think twice about posting their undistilled efforts; I find it helps to get ideas down, later I can come back to work them, and so, I'm re-posting some amended poems from a few years ago.
It does mean I get to look back on quite a few posts that should never have been let out, but I console myself with the thought that even the greatest photgraphers have taken god knows how many average photographs in their quest to capture their most prized images.]
Explorer
Collecting your warmth on the palm of my hand:
explorer of exotic landscapes,
brushing over the warm skin,
the shallow arc of your back.
Behind closed eyes:
the sunlit concave of a desert dune
amidst an undulating vastness:
the sun-warmed backs of dreams.
cross the bridge
of your childhood
rolling it up
as you go
keep it
over your shoulder
ask for directions
to the desert
you’ll have arrived
when you are nowhere
unroll your pack
set up home
Far down; a glimmer of light
from inside the earth;
a wonder to our young eyes.
We lowered the bucket
through the ferns and darkness
to collect magic
and drew it up, heavy with mystery.
Pristine, icy; we drank
and believed it to be purity.
What is the law that states:
a particular quantity of liquid
is available for spillage from a glass
without changing the quantity
that remains within the glass.
We’re in Slattery’s front lounge;
it’s packed, a lively Friday-night crowd;
a small lady, slightly tipsy, more than actually,
is having another glass of red wine,
and in the act of bringing it to her mouth
sends a curtain of it around the room
catching everyone at chest height
with, what I would consider, a generous
portion of her drink.
Genteel-mannered all around;
“not at all, not at all, it's only a drop of wine”
“Aw this blouse, I was never fond of it anyway”;
she drinks on
totally oblivious to the cacophony of jangling nerves.
Won’t we remember our day at the pump house;
I played jangly old piano, you danced in sequins;
a few people came, a few more seemed to leave;
the trees were what trees should be in warm sunlight,
cast shadows dark enough for their leaves to be richest green
and the old buildings, with their stories peeling, stood there
like it was old news, and it was to them, but lives are short.
And won’t we remember you lay prone on the grass for hours;
it wasn’t the best of days and still, one day, it will be the best of days;
our day in the grounds of the old spa, the warm sun;
and I playing jangly old piano; you dancing in sequins.
Hedgerows sagging;
buzzes disappearing into shadows,
droning 'oh my God its warm';
cows, still statues, contemplating
but not quite remembering what
and the house of gables with the wicker fencing
seemingly empty
but there’s a bedroom window gaping
with a lush darkness within.
Sometimes the art of poetry is too much:
the poem moulded to magnificence;
its message, with an oh so scrawny neck,
strangled inside it.
