Poems

My Collected Poems 2000 - 2014 is in preparation.

Supper

Like dead green fish

the sliced beans lie

submerged in boiled water

waiting for my consummation

with sausages

and an over baked potato

in front of Channel Five’s

reprise of the death of the Titanic

and the tired eyes of the dog

(torn fragment from dog brush box)

OR USE

brush in the dire

initially with the Pin

followed by the Bristle

smooth and shiny.

through the body, to the

underbody and the legs.

for medium coats and daily for

Ecce Homo

The judge sits in his court

by turns silent and stern

listens to the pleas of James,

Martin’s defender, and to his accuser.

He looks like Caravaggio’s Jesus at Emmaus,

a soft, clean shaven face, dark curls around his shoulders

his fingers bleeding, nails bit down to the quick.

The arguments are made and the judge must decide;

Like Pilate, he weighs and agonises –

what is truth, and who are you?

And Martin stands silent,

awaits his fate, a kind of death, or a resurrection.

The judge sits in a silence so profound

the court might be buried underground.

There is theatre here, as well as justice.

“Stand up” he says, and Martin stands;

judgement is given and the accused walks free.

The Prodigal Son

I am the prodigal

you are the father

he (it) is the elder brother

I am the elder brother

you are the prodigal

He (it) is the father

I am the father

you are my sons

Jesus tells the story in the third person

looking in on the three characters

these three make a unity – me / you / us

the father, son and brother, are in us, are us

For Sal 31 December 2011

it’s going to be all right

it really is

there is nothing to be afraid of

in the distance between life and death

breathing and not breathing

now and not now

in the gap

between the peak and trough

the earth and skies

this note and the next

the deep dark {that cradles the} cradle of our stars

the answer lies

from being to not being

and back again

Lost in space

There was a moment

four billion years ago,

light years away,

when I stood upon that star

and knew I was

at one with everything

that is and will be.

Bring it back to me,

soon O Lord;

no longer lonely me

but just this great universe

of being, all at once.

Death

Death walks in our shadow

a young man in Afghanistan,

OP Herring, waiting for an IED

or an Afghan driven mad by 30 years of war.

A woman, her third chemo,

her lymphomas in retreat;

hope springs, but not eternal.

A step into the former roman road

cars parked on either side

as four tracks bolt through the chicane

crossed by the cat a dozen times a day

a moment’s inattention, a slip,

a sip of something not quite right,

a sharp pain in the left arm -

a conclusion drawn, the story completed,

and a puzzled crowd around a hole

unable to comprehend

waiting for the answer.

Our Garden

Our garden is lovely.

You and I have cared for it

in our separate ways,

fought over it, swore at each other,

but each of us, in our separate ways,

have gone back to loving it

through all our separate days.

Death

I have spent today

thinking of death –

how to bring it nearer

without pain or inconvenience

to anyone I care for.

It appears not to be possible.

O for a piano descending

out of a clear blue sky;

unwanted, unexpected,

but welcome, all the same.

A simple extinction, an accident,

no-one to blame, and,

for those not close, a laugh {a cause for mirth}