Hope

Black Saturday

Black Saturday

Doubt and Despair

1

This is the day we go into ourselves
to work out who we really are.

It is the teeter-totter day
when the world balances on a knife-edge:
Yesterday, the dark deed was done.
Today the body is in the morgue,
far from the crime scene
where black and yellow ticker-tapes,
keep sight-seers seeking thrills at bay.

Today, there is no centre to hold.
Things gyre and gimble in the wake
of troubling scenes misinterpreted,
called fake, and deliberately misunderstood.

The unfortunate lie chained so they can’t
escape. Take these chains from our hearts,
the watchers say. Take these irons from
our wrists, your knees from our necks.
Forsake your vicious choke holds.
Go away and leave us alone.

2

A birch tree lies on my power lines,
and I am powerless.

No phone, no radio, no tv,
and all because of a snow-laden tree.
Why did this happen to me?

“It’s a day, man, a day.
It’s nothing but a day.”
“Imagine,” says my wife, “being
without power all your life.”

I clench my fist and pump the air.
Nobody sees me. No one seems to care.

A ghost’s voice echoes in my head:
“Stop moaning, bro,
at least you ain’t dead.”

Sun, wind, melting snow.
The lame tree rising, slow.
Then, at last, the lines are free.
Power is back again.
I breathe more easily.

3

For forty days
I have wandered in this wilderness,
walking from room to room,
climbing stairs,
descending to the basement,
sitting at the computer,
sitting at the table,
writing in my journal.

I have watched the minutes
as they turn into hours,
the hours turning into days,
days into weeks, then months.

How long, I ask, oh lord, how long
before peace and love, friendship and joy,
return to this world
where they used to belong?

4

A turkey-vulture flew
over the house this afternoon,
hungering for who knows what,
as I too hunger for things
I have forgotten
and no longer know.

Freedom to walk
in now forbidden places,
freedom to shop for groceries,
to stop at the liquor store,
to buy wine and beer,
other things that I adore.

For forty days
I have sailed in this Noah’s
Ark of a house.
Like John the Baptist
I have lingered here for forty days.

Strange and wonderful are thy ways,
oh lord, in heaven, where souls and angels
admire your beauty and sing your praise.

Dissolution

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

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.

Click here for Roger’s reading.

Blessings

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.

Erratic

Erratic
Four Elements pp. 156-159

Plucked before my time
by some glacial hand,
that tore me from my land
and deposited me on
this foreign shore.

Long did I languish,
worn slowly down
by wind, rain, ice, snow.
Now I am carved anew
and learning to grow.

The old land rejected me,
wouldn’t let me back.
This land had no choice,
but I found I had lost all
notion of a distinctive voice.

Now I belong nowhere, a stranded
immigrant, I cannot return.
Neither can I call this place home,
and yet I have sent my roots
deep into its landscape.

I have grown into it,
become one with its seasons,
accepting its long hours
of silence, with white snow
falling upon darkening trees.

World Within

World Within
Anam Cara, p. 15

I have rediscovered a world within me,
a secret world where I walked as a child,
a world that nobody else has ever seen.

When I was young, that world absorbed me.
In it, I went round and round on roundabouts,
and travelled high and low on swings and
swing boats, with their rough ropes.

Alas, as always, there were rainy days.
Then the sun would wear his hat but I knew
he would come out later and join my play.

Sometimes, in the summer, thunderstorms
would roll around and rattle our corrugated roof.
Dai Jones’ cows would rush through the field,
seeking shelter from the wind and rain.

In those days, every cloud had a silver lining.
I weathered tough times, waiting patiently
for the sun to return and light up the world.

One day, I don’t remember when, someone,
I don’t know who, slammed the door and shut
me out from that world. I spent my whole life
searching for it. At last, I have found it again.

Click here for Roger’s reading.

True Names

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.

Questions

Questions
Four Elements, p. 137

After my mother died,
I lit a candle in every church,
a real bees’ wax candle,
not those tiny electric lights
that glow for a little while,
when you insert money
in the insatiable slot.

Like the minuterie
on each landing of a Parisian
staircase, it gives enough light for
a quick prayer, or a very short
moment or two of silence.

Where does the light go
when the electricity switches off?
Where does the flame go
when the candle is snuffed?
Where did my mother go
when her light went out?

One day, but not too soon, I hope,
I will have to follow her and find
the answers to all of my questions.

Click here for Roger’s reading.

Time and Tide

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.

Light Breaks

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!

Click here for Roger’s reading.