Hope

Waist Land

Wind-sculpted tree on rocky coastline with turbulent ocean and cloudy sky
A lone, wind-shaped tree stands on rugged coastal rocks under a cloudy sky

Image generated
not by Big Brother
but by Little Brother
who left the Frying Squad
to become a painter
and mind-reader

Waist Land

Jack Pine Sonnet

living in a waste land
surrounded by books
he writes in his journal
things false and true
in memory of the old days
when the world seemed so new

a life built on sand
slips through his fingers
wouldn’t it be grand
if the sand stays and lingers
refusing to pass through
the hour glass’ waist
so time stops to flow

then he could say no
leave me alone
there’s more sand to fall
I don’t want to go

Comment:

It’s a bit like a cliff-hanger, isn’t it? Hanging on by our fingertips and not daring to look at the depths down below. We know they are there, but look, there’s a tiny fossil in the fissure in the rock, so much older than us, we’ve got a long time to go to catch that up. And remember – 80 is not old, if you are a stone!

Treading air – great fun. Not as good as treading warm water in the local YMCA. Just a lovely sense of balance, floating there in the warmth, no weight on arthritic joints, and the world around us amniotic, as it was in the beginning. Ah, those original waters, we have all swum in them, the rich and the poor, the black and the white, and all shades in between. Even King Charles and the late Queen. And remember, they may speak of blue bloods, but all blood is red -and, if you cut us, do we not bleed.

Speaking of bleeding – blood-thinners – my favorite doctor’s latest joke. I cut my arm the other night, getting into bed. Didn’t even notice. Pillows and sheets soaked in blood when I woke up and my scalloped arm, stuck to the sheet, opened itself up and started to bleed again. Feels like seventeenth century Spain, the wounds of the dead man re-open and start to bleed when the assassin appears before him. Certain truth. Obviously 100% guilty.

And they tell me that in South Wales people are adding cooking oil to gasoline to make the petrol go further. Scotland Yard sent the Flying Squad to South Wales to sniff people’s exhaust pipes to see if they were cheating the tax man. I asked my friend – “Is this true?” “Ah, yes,” he said in his lovely Welsh lilt, “and we call them the Frying Squad!”

Rag Doll

A rag doll with button eyes and a patched outfit sitting against a wooden post near pink rose bushes in a garden at dusk.
A well-loved rag doll leans against a wooden post surrounded by blooming roses at twilight.

Big Brother read my mind
and painted the picture

Rag Doll

Jack Pine Sonnet

They fought over her
whenever they met
each one holding her
by a leg or an arm

An eternal tug of war
a terrestrial dog fight
with no truce called
and neither giving in

One day they went
a step too far and tore
the doll in two neither happy
with an arm and a leg each

as for the rag doll
torn apart in fury
she was discarded
thrown in the garbage

when nobody was looking
one child returned
rescued the rag doll
sewed her back together
and filled her with love

Comment:

Tragic, really, and really tragic. A reversed Judgement of Solomon in so many ways. An Allegory applicable to so many situations in this tiny, overcrowded world of ours. Every night, on the television, we can watch hour after hour of shows like this – minus the last stanza. Some endings can never be happy.

One night, for the fun of it, I counted all the deaths, shooting and murders on selected shows over a three or four hour period. I saw over 150 violent deaths. What sort of legacy are we leaving our children, our grandchildren. And what will their children learn in their turn? Food for thought to be taken three times a day while avoiding exposure to reality – or is this the alternative reality to which we will all be exposed?

Rain

Rain

Rain walks thick lines
down the window pane.
The waters below the dam
churn like white shirts
tumbled up and down
in nature’s laundromat.

The radio calls for rain,
more rain, four inches,
they say,
in the next two days.

The moose have already
migrated to higher,
drier ground.
They stand on the highway,
head to head with cars,
stubborn and steaming
in the never-ending rain.

Comment:

It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring.
He bumped his head on the top of the bed
and won’t get up until morning.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness

Poems arrive, as silent as the deer
that troop through my garden.

Some times they hurry past,
and catch them if you can.

Sometimes, they stay, wait, nibble
 at an overhanging branch.

Just when you think you can
reach out and grasp them,
they sense the bark of a dog,
the sigh of the wind
through leafless trees.

You blink, and they have gone.

Was your camera ready?
Was your note book open,
your pen in your hand?

Or did they flit away like dreams
 in the morning when the sun
comes into the bedroom
and sparks diamond fires
from the lashes that stand guard?

Nights

Nights

There are nights
when the trees
seem to whisper
your name,

cautioning you
against the wind’s
knife edge.

“What have I done,”
you ask,
“to merit this?”

The soft fall
of burnt brown leaves
weeps over
your woodland grave.

You will walk
these woods
no more, save
on a frosty night

when deer shiver
beneath naked trees
and the moonbeam’s
icy blade.

Comment:

Poems arrive, as silent as the deer that troop through my garden. Some times they hurry past, and catch them if you can. Sometimes, they stay, wait, nibble at an overhanging branch. Just when you think you can reach out and grasp them, they sense the bark of a dog, the sigh of the wind through leafless trees. You blink, and they have gone.

Was your camera ready? Was your note book open, your pen in your hand? Or did they flit away like dreams in the morning when the sun comes into the bedroom and sparks diamond fires from the lashes that guard your eyes?

House of Dreams

House of Dreams
(1 & 2)

1

The clematis unfolds
bruised purple on the porch.

Jazz piano:
beneath the black
and white hammers
of ivory keys,
old wounds crack open.

A flight of feathered notes:
this dead heart
sacrificed on the lawn.

I wash fresh stains
from my fingers
with the garden hose.

2

The evening stretches out
a shadow hand.

I feel my heart
squeezed like an orange
by long, dark fingers.

Somewhere,
the whitethroat
trills its guillotine
of vertical notes.

I flap my hands in the air.

They float there,
white butterflies,
amputated
in sunlight’s
net.

Comment:

So, rogermoorepoet.com returns to poetry. Happy days are here again! And Moo is happy too. I need hardly tell you he has been so upset since I started using AI to generate my images for me. Oh dear. He has been very Moo-dy (sic) recently. “But you don’t have a drawing of a clematis,” I told him. “Neither do you,” he replied. “That’s a holly hock.” “At least it’s the right color.” “How about if I find you a purple painting?” He smiled a shy, half smile. “Sure,” I said. “I don’t want to lose the human touch completely.” “I should hope not.”

So he present ed me with this painting. “It’s called u-r-my-sunshine,” his smile lit up the room and we were both happy. Joy to the world – it’s +5C here today and the sun is shining. In my heart. And in Moo’s eyes. We are all glad that joy has not forsaken us!

Rage, Rage 59

Rage, Rage
59

You cannot hide
when the black angel comes
and knocks on your door.

“Wait a minute,” you say,
“While I change my clothes
and comb my hair.”

But he is there before you,
in the clothes closet,
pulling your arm.
You move to the bathroom
to brush your teeth.

Now,” says the angel.

Your eyes mist over.
You know you are there,
but you can no longer see
your reflection in the mirror.

Comment:

The last poem in the series and Rage, Rage against the dying of the light is over and done. Many of you will recognize the title from Dylan Thomas’s poem Do not go gentle into that dark night. I guess the theme itself has become part of the Welsh culture. And now we have exported it to New Brunswick, Canada, and perhaps beyond.

I bought The Black Angel, pictured above, in Avila, Spain. It is a plaster cast of one of the Angels in Roger Van der Leyden’s paintings, if I remember correctly. Here is the angel’s face in close up.

She or he brings a promise of rest and peace, a freedom from earthbound woes and sorrows. She stands on the shelf above the fireplace insert in our sitting room and brings blessings to the house. I look at her every time I light the fire. And she smiles down and blesses me. I think of her as a lady, but her peace and beauty outweigh any formal signs of sex.

As for that reflection in the mirror, well, I don’t have one of me. But her is a photo to reflect upon:

Raining in Avila and puddles in the street. Now you see me, now you don’t. But I am there, holding the camera, and looking down at the water where —- rain has stopped play. The bails have been removed. Old Father Time has gone back to the Pavilion at Lord’s, and the cricket game is over for the day.

Rage, Rage 58

Rage, Rage
58

“What is this sound?”
It is your own death sighing,
groaning, growing
while you wait for it
to devour you.

“What is this feeling”
It is the itch of your own skin
wrinkling and shrinking,
preparing to wrap you
in the last clothes you’ll wear.

“What is this taste?”
It is the taste of your life,
bottled like summer wine
once sweet tasting,
now turning to vinegar.

“What is this smell?”
It is waste and decay,
the loss of all you knew
and of all that knew you.

“That carriage outside?”
It is the dark hearse
come to carry you
to your everlasting home.

Comment:

Moo thinks that his portrait of me is perfectly good for this poem. He told me not to rage, rage against the accuracy of the portrait, but he did tell me to rage, rage against the lack of paper. Où est le papier, indeed. As for the rest of it, he said it’s the same for everyone, so stop making a fuss about it. “You’ve got one last bottle of mescal on the shelf,” he told me. “I know. I’ve seen it. Just swig it down, worm and all, and you’ll have nothing to worry about.”

Oh dear. The worm in the bottle. They used to sell the gusanos in Oaxaca’s mescal street at a price of five for ten pesos. I used to buy a two litre coke bottle, filled with mescal from a barrel, and drop ten worms in it. They made yellow streaks as they descended through the liquid. Sweet dreams when you chewed on that lot – and an end to your worries. El brujo, the witch doctor, told me to stick a marijuana plant in the bottle of mescal and when the leaves turned white to rub the liquid into my arthritic knees. “Which doctor was that?” one of the tourists in my apartment block asked me. But I didn’t tell her. Nor did I do it. A waste of good mescal. And to think I now have one last half bottle left. And one little squirmy, crunchy, chewy worm.

Speaking of chewy, crunchy – I had never eaten chapulines, fried grasshoppers, until I went to Oaxaca. I didn’t like the look of them. At the first party I attended was confronted by the host who demanded I eat some. I told him they were taboo, against my religion. He shrugged. When he, and the other guests lost interest in my presence, I tried a couple. They were delicious. A real delicacy. I loved their crunchy little legs.

I guess one is always afraid of the unknown – the gusano in the mescal, the chapulines on the plate, that first plate of calamares en su tinta – squid in its own ink. I love bara lawr – Welsh laver bread – or Welsh caviar, as Richard Burton used to call it. I also know that people who have never eaten bara lawr won’t go near it – it looks like cow pats – but luckily doesn’t taste like them. Don’t ask me how I know. Some people get over their fear of the unknown, others don’t. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Rage, Rage 55

Rage, Rage
55

I walk on thin ice
at the frayed edge
of my life.

I search for the key
that will re-wind me,
but I fail to find it.

Who will winch up
the pendulums on
my grandfather clock,
resetting it
in spring and fall?

Who will watch
time’s sharp black arrows
as they point the path
of moon change
and the fleeting hours?

Each hour wounds,
or so they say.
Who will tend me
when that last one kills?

Comment:

Omnia vulnerant, ultima necat. / Each one wounds, the last one kills. That’s how the Romans thought about the collection of hours that make up a day. An interesting way of putting it. In lapidarian fashion. Four words that are worth a whole book of philosophical thought.

What is this thing called time? Good question, and one which is being asked more and more. Clearly time does not flow evenly within the human mind, though it is remarkably regular on the clocks we have invented to mark time for us. And remember, there are many types of time – seasonal time – spring time, summer time, autumn time, winter time. Strange that autumn – or fall as I have now learned to call it – is the only one that doesn’t have the word time attached to it.

And what about time changes – spring forward, fall back – when we change our clocks in order to make the most of daylight hours. A tedious process for many of us. I see some provinces are rejecting those changes and sticking to the same time, all the year round, from season to season. Personally, I would prefer life without those time changes, as would many of my friends.

Celestial time also known as sidereal time – the time as showed by the planets as they seem to march around the earth in the terra-centric universe. Rephrased, the positions of the planets as the earth turns slowly round the sun in the helio-centric universe.

Then there is the personal time of individual experience. An hour watching football or rugby on the tv set passes much more quickly than an hour passed in the doctor’s waiting room or the dentist’s chair. Of course, an hour watching a five day cricket test can also be a slow process, unless England are playing Australia in the Ashes. As one friend of mine commented, a long time ago, “I thought those English cricketers were unfit. But I’ve never seen anyone go out to bat and come back to the pavilion so quickly. They must be super-fit.” Alas, their cricketing problem, as usual, was centered on the three cants – can’t bowl, can’t bat, can’t catch.

En fuga irrevocable huye la hora.
La que el mejor cálculo cuenta
en lectura y lección nos mejora.

Irrevocable is the hour’s flight.
The one that counts the most
in learning or reading improves us.

Francisco de Quevedo
(1580-1645)

And remember – the hours fly by and your time is limited – spend it wisely and enjoy each and every day to the full limits of your abilities.