B & W
black words white page
thoughts
floating in space
airs and graces
the world’s wind
blowing through
freshening cleansing
cotton clouds silky sky
that one word
waiting
to be spoken
that one thought
soon to be borne
out from the dark
a new existence
brightens
blinds with its light
Click here for Roger’s reading.
“If you look at a page of poetry, the slim words are couched in the empty whiteness of the page.” John O’Donohue, Anam Cara, p. 69.
Dissolution
When I am no more myself,
will I know what I have become?
What last breath in the mirror
will reflect my passing from this self
to the next, if there be another one?
Does it matter? No, to most of us,
yes, to the lusting soul that seeks,
but what does it seek, I ask myself?
I watch the deer crossing the yard.
Muted, dark against winter trees,
I can scarcely make them out,
let alone understand their wanderings.
If they scare, they raise white flags of tails,
then run, dancing down their tracks,
as light as thistle-down, though the snow
be deep beyond their walk-ways.
I want to see them as they really are,
the original inhabitants of this land that
a scrap of paper, drawn up by a lawyer,
says I own. Nobody owns this land.
It was here before me and will be here
long after me and mine are gone.
Only the deer truly belong, passing
through, each generation similar
to the one before, knowing no lawyers,
holding no legal papers, but aware
instinctively that we are the intruders,
that the forest is their heart and home,
and that they are sole owners of this land.
Click here for Roger’s reading.
Comment: from a poem by Guillaume Apollinaire: “I am no more myself. I have become the fifth of the twelfth.” I bought a book of his poetry (Livre de Poche) from les bouquinistes in September, 1962, when I started the school year in Paris. I picked it up last night, and started reading it again. The result – this little poem and a host of memories that came flooding back as the deer walked through the garden and all was right with the world.
Spider Web
for
Ginger and Michael Marcinkowski
I do love long and complicated sentences,
stuffed with clauses and dependent clauses,
and all strung together like a spider’s web,
an enormous web with silvery threads that glisten
with dew drops in the early morning sun that
blanches them, turning them white, and look,
there’s a little fly caught in this one, trapped
by his own struggles, and struggling even more
as the spider emerges, advances towards his prey,
soon to be his breakfast, or lunch, if he lets his victim
stew in the poisons soon to be injected, and look,
dew drops are falling as web shakes, and threads
tremble, and the dark and seamier side of life
emerges with its stark, black lines, from beneath
the advertising mask of glorious beauty that distorts
reality, as the spider turns into an assassin and the fly
into his victim, and yes, each of us must choose whether
to be an assassin or a victim, meurtrier ou victime,
as Camus phrases it in one of his books, L’Étranger,
though I read it so long ago, when I was a teenager,
studying French in school, and that was one of the books
I chose to read, but I was never labelled, meurtrier or
victime, just trouble-maker, first class, because I didn’t,
wouldn’t, couldn’t tow the official line and kow-tow
to a rigid authority, that walked set lines, like this spider,
the meurtrier, who turned that fly into his victime, and I,
I who could so easily become either, became neither,
but merely the observer, who stands on the outside,
looking in, and watching as the show goes on and on,
year after year, seculae seculorum, world without end,
and yes, the English Master told me never to mix
metaphors, nor to add foreign languages to my poems,
but what if they are not foreign to me, but a part of my being,
as part of the spider’s being is to be a meurtrier, and as for
that fly, well, he is the victime, in whichever language you use,
and yes, this poem is only one sentence, and I love it, amen.
Blessings
I wish I could bless you
as you have blessed me,
with gifts of love and life.
Together, we have walked
this world, wandered its shores,
scaled rocks, seen rich tapestries
of land painted beneath us.
Only you know me as I am,
know what I want to say,
the difficulty I have in saying it.
You know why words trip
on my teeth and lip, and exit
with those little slips
that make me hesitate to speak.
Do tree roots speak? Does
the yucca, blossoming each
spring, share words with
the hollyhock growing beside it?
Do the birds and the bees
silently commune, as we
so often do, sitting together,
peaceful in our silence,
and doubly blessed?
I wish such blessings to fall
on all who need this verse.
Click here for Roger’s reading.
“When you feel love for your beloved and the beloved’s love for you, now and again you should offer the warmth of your love as a blessing for those who are damaged and unloved.” John O’Donohue, Anam Cara, p. 35.
Comment: I changed read [sound reading] to need in the last line, because most people who need such blessings will probably be unable to access this blog. My apologies for my initial short-sightedness. My thanks for being allowed to make the correction.
Sound of Silence
Cara Anam, p. xv
Where do the deer go
when they leave their tracks
behind them and pass out of our sight?
We lose them when, like school children,
they scale the snow bank,
stop at the roadside, and look left,
right, and left again, then walk sedately,
one by one, across the road, and blend
into the dark woods opposite our house.
Too many friends have walked a similar way,
crossed the great divide, and lost themselves
in the unknown that lies there, out of sight.
All too soon, we will be faced by that same
decision, whether or not to cross.
Our paths already tell us where we’ll go,
but the hands of our body clocks don’t yet
point to how, or when.
True Names
Iron John, p. 236
No one will know our true names
until after we have left this place.
Like that elusive moon in tonight’s sky,
our paths will be visible, seen, but not heard.
Orion herds the stars, steering them westwards,
away from the sunrise, to moon’s golden circlet.
So much has been lost, so many of us have gone,
leaving us to mourn unspoken thoughts, silent words.
In spring, sometimes, we can hear voices whispering
to us among burgeoning blossoms and leaves.
Who will bear witness to lovers’ wishes and desires
when the great separation springs upon them?
Who will sing songs, give speech to the little children
taken before their time and lost in the silent night?
Click here for Roger’s reading.
Time and Tide
Sitting, waiting patiently for
whatever may come along,
that is all I have left,
save for impatience, anger,
and frustration.
These canes that help me walk
will sometimes slide on the ice,
or catch in a crack and tumble me
forwards, into a stumble or fall.
I can only sit for so long
before a screen or an empty page.
Anguish gets the better of me
and I rise to my feet and lumber
round the house, avoiding
the loose ends of carpets
and the skittering cat.
A dropped plate that I can’t pick up,
the table shaken so that liquids spill,
such events are more frequent now.
I sometimes think I am sitting,
enthroned on time’s sea-side sand,
trying to hold back the rising tide,
that cares not, nor listens, nor obeys.
Bandits
Two shadows,
at three in the morning,
their faces masked,
shifty in the moonlight,
slip soundless over snow,
as they move towards
the bird feeders.
They huddle together,
forming a darker patch.
I watch the feeders move,
but cannot see the seed
nor hear it as it falls.
The feeders empty,
they move again
towards the back porch,
climb the steps,
and settle once more.
I know that by morning,
all traces of seed will be gone,
devoured by Dyson and Hoover,
scavengers and professional
seed removers.
Comment: Light Breaks
“Light breaks where no sun shines…” but sometimes it takes a long time to happen. The name of my blog is rogermoorepoet and it’s main function is to showcase my poetry, above all, to my friends and followers. In my efforts to publish in print form, I have neglected to pay attention to the main function of this blog – poetry. Why? Because when I submit poems I always find the phrase – ‘must be unpublished – including on social media’! So I stopped publishing poetry on my poetry blog and on other social media. Okay, okay. I know. I am an idiot. BUT – light has now broken where no sun shone – Dylan Thomas, of course, another Swansea Boy, and as of today poetry is back. A big thank you to any and all who have been waiting for its return. Give me some encouragement – let me know if you like what I am doing – paintings and poetry!
Deer, oh dear!
Deer
sitting here watching the deer
wandering through the garden
five six seven ten
never seen so many
twelve fifteen
a caravan
a convoy
one behind the other
walking in their footsteps
following on
so silent
then
ears pricked
turning watching listening
existential
here long before us
forever following old trails
knowing each change
each new direction
a connection
between us
and how it had been
for thousands of years
before we came here
to disturb them
Hearth and Soul
The kitchen – hearth and soul of the house. Here we gather, sit around the table and talk our hearts out. But here, in Island View, we have a kitchen, a gathering, but no hearth, and hence no real heart around which the household revolves.
In spite of that, old habits die hard. I remember the old coal fires in Swansea. My grandmother’s house in the Hafod, with a kitchen in a separate room from the stove, with a huge cast iron fire-place where cookpots and kettles could be hung or nestled into the coals. My grandfather’s house in Brynmill, where kitchen and hearth were separated, but the fire-place still held its magic. Banked in at night, those fires gave warmth and light ar hyd a nos and then they we resurrected the next morning.
We have a woodstove here in Island View, but we rarely light it as the fine particles make breathing difficult after a while. We keep it for emergencies. This winter we lit it when the temperatures dropped to -40C, with the wind chill factor, and heat pump and electric furnace needed assistance.
Warmth, comfort, the family gathered, the wisdom of the old folks shared with the young, and the passing on of traditional melodies. All the old memories and thoughts, the wishes and desires, the hiraeth too, handed down, from old to young. Everybody was welcome and everyone had his or her special place.
Such memories tug at the heart strings – hearth strings. Anyone who shares them with me will know what I mean.
rogermoorepoet 