Un-poems

 

The Friend, the Foe

I see you are back my old friend, Dogblack

I know you well from the inside and out

now your muzzle is starting to show grey

I know even more fear for Beyond-Black

who has stayed away quite awhile.

 

Lolloping along, up and over, then down

my old familiar Dogblack beast, could

you see the ogre off, for past the beast

lies the foe, Beyond-Black into which

I am drawn from time to time

 

Beyond-Black is an outrider on the edge

waiting for the tiny slip, the smallest fall

there he is closing in with his stranglehold

seeping energy, leaching will, so there is

nothing to move, only time will tell if you will

 

Beyond-Black comes from the inner core

relentless in consuming from within, what

little is left of me to resist the flow both ways

of sound sleep but not of mind, maybe just maybe

my friend Dogblack will be back and save me

Jul-15

Listen to The Friend, The Foe (read by the Author)

 

I Hear the Rain

I hear the rain, unremitting dripping, washing down the pane.

Just the weather to clear the blood off the line, track into the mud.

The severed head wobbles down the black track between the lines.

 

What a senseless waste of human life but what else to do with it now?

Just the bitterness to cry in misery on a cold day in the lead up to summer.

Mud gunge and life gore, fecund of thought, nerves raw and fraught.

 

Not love for myself, that indeed is an empty vessel but one that does not float

but sinks gushing, gapes letting in the dark, that way I will sink without trace.

Mud spilling in, pulling me down, vicious circle, vortex sinking, dejected and round.

 

I can see myself in the dark of deep depression, braced against the silent onslaught,

what weapons can I draw to cut through the darkening mud?

To stop the stinking flow I have to raise up and halt the deep creep dead.

 

Call upon love to try and block deadly through, slew out from death,

into life and the love of light, how pure love can strike and cleave the thick

black of despair, back down, like some unruly dog sent running tail hanging.

 

Love fights the black, unlikely though it sounds, love flowing in and spreads out,

love of people, those that care, love by those who understand, love lifts up life.

Bear me forward over jagged edge, steep precipice and through the deep chasm.

Jul-15

 

Winter Onset

From the winter of age there is no following spring.

I can feel my strength being sapped, my muscles slackening.

Oh yes – that reminds me I must see a man about a dog

while I have a chance. It started slowly, stealthy,

now it is rolling, gathering momentum, inexorable time.

I can think of nothing as quiet as the sound of hair turning grey.

 

‘The best is yet to be’ is from times when age was

an achievement, now it is a test of endurance.

How often do you hear the word venerable now –

in reverence of age? Gone from the west.

Look to the east for acceptance of worth of winter age.

Nov-14

 

Warrior Woman

Warrior woman wearied by time, once furious, often feisty.

Now  prone, doing Saint  Vitus’ dance on  her own.

Bruised with age, ring worn thin with passing years.

Her lover dead for half her life. His memory

the core of her grief.

Soon to pass.

Oct-13

 

Not Quite a Minute of Memory

Can art be locked into numbers,

rhyme or meaning?

For forgetting

art knows no bounds,

is crime indeed as well as words.

Memory crime,

not to commit

a clerihew,

is innocent of nothing new.

Just forgetting

this minute is

easy to do.

Oct-13

 

Shadow

Not always attached but definitely belonging.

Has no direct use but useful in the heat.

Quite often disturbs as it flits and flickers

in the corner of your eye.

But try to live without one –

the only way is to die.

Ghosts do not have one.

Jul-13

 

Human Situation

If you hear a lament does it make you sad?

Do you feel a pain of human missing and loss?

Would you do without this pain if you could?

 

If you sit too close to a barbecue, on a lonely evening,

when the heat gets uncomfortable you turn or shift away.

But that is not so easy when the pain comes from within.

 

There are some kinds of pain which do not discourage you

from probing – like the socket of first tooth gone on a thread

what is not so easy to flee is the chance encounter that is the end

 

before the beginning is underway, do they feel the way you do

how difficult it is to tell, how hard to make way for feelings

that you hardly know yourself. Listen to your inner

 

self and be true to the human condition or

else venture, so little nothing gained

in the end only pain

 

Poetry For Mortals

Poetry is to me the most complex art

A poet must be a writer of brevity

With adherence to rhythms

A dancer of characters

A philosopher

A worthy wordsmith

A sequence choreographer

A master of timing and piquancy

A selector of syllables and sibilance

 

Oh dear I nearly forgot to mention the rhyming too

 

Unlucky for Some – Punishment: Write Thirteen Lines for not Writing a Poem

I saw a cat

with a can.

In the can

I saw a poem.

Can the cat

see a poem.

If the cat can

I will say damn.

That cat is

sure sore

that I saw

the cat

with a can.