Poems

Monet at Giverny 5-8 /16

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas 

Monet at Giverny
5-8 /16

5

wisteria and his curly blue locks
Narcissus clad in an abyss of lilies
imperial his reflection and perilous

slowly he slides to sleep
merging into his imaged dream

a vaulted cathedral
his earthbound ribs
the blood space immaculate

6

night and day and sun and clouds
leapfrogging over water

something survives
sepia tints
dreaming on and on

exotic this sudden movement
Carassius auratus flowering

 7

Clos Normand and the Grande Allée
closed to him now
folded his flowers
their petals tight at his nightfall

dark their colours
mourning for his mornings of light
fled far from him now

8

can we soften this sunstroke of brightness
le roi soleil threatening to blind us?

rey de oros
the sun glow braiding itself
an aureate palette

a susurration of leaves

 

 

Monet at Giverny 1-4 /16

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas 

Monet at Giverny
1-4 /16

1

his lily pond
a mirror shattering
shards of clouds
flames beneath the lilies
fractured fish

2

the executioner stripes evening
a+cross the sacrificed horizon

in blood we were born
in earth will we rest

our flesh turned to bread
empurpled this imperial wine
streaming with day’s death
these troubled waters

3

green footprints the lily pads
a halo
this drowned man’s beard
liquescent

like the gods
he dreamed
he walked dry over water

flowering goldfish
this thin line of cloud

4

maples flash ruby thoughts
ripples flowing outward
as heavy as a henge

this altar tumbling
downwards
through a liquid sky

Building on Sand 7-9 /9

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas

Building on Sand
7, 8, & 9 /9

7

Tight lips.
A blaze of anger.
A challenge spat
in the wind’s face.

High-pitched
the rabbit’s grief
in its silver snare.

The midnight moon
deep in a trance.

If only I could kick away
this death’s head,
this sow’s bladder.

Full moon
drifting
high in a cloudless sky.

8

After heavy rain
the house shrinks.
Its mandibles close.

 A crocodile peace
descends from the jaws of heaven.

I no longer fit my skin.
Iguana spots itch.
Walls encircle me,
hemming me in.

 The I Ching sloughs my name:
each lottery ticket,
a bullet.

 None with my number.

9

Late last night I thought
I had grasped the mystery:
but when I awoke
I clasped only shadows and sand.

 

 

Building on Sand 4-6 /9

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas

Building on Sand
4, 5, & 6 /9

4

There are striations
in my heart, so deep,
a lizard could lie there,
unseen, and wait
for tomorrow’s sun.

A knot of
sorrow in daylight’s throat;
the heart a great stone
cast in placid water,
each ripple
knitted to its mate.

Timeless,
the worm at the apple’s core
waiting for its world to end.

Seculae seculorum:
the centuries
rushing headlong.

5

Matins:
wide-eyed
this owl hooting
in the face of day.

Somewhere,
I remember
a table spread for two.
Breakfast.
An open door.
“Where are you going, dear?”

Something bright has fled the world.
The sun unfurls shadows.
The blood whirls stars
around the body.

“It has gone.” she said. “The magic.
I no longer tremble at your touch.”

6

You can drown now
in this liquid
silence.

Or you can rage against this slow snow
whitening the dark space
where yesterday
you placed your friend.

The silver birch wades
at dawn’s bright edge.

Somewhere,
sunshine will break
a delphinium
into blossom.

Building on Sand 1-3/9

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas

Building on Sand
1-3/9

1

Everywhere the afternoon|
gropes steadily to night.

Some people have lit fires;
others read by candlelight.

 Geese litter the river bank,
drifts of snow their whiteness,
stained with freshet mud;
or is it the black
of midnight’s swift advance?

They walk on thin ice
at civilization’s edge.

Around them,
the universe’s clock
ticks slowly down.

2

 Who forced that scream
through the needle’s eye?

 Gathering night,
the moon on the sea bed
magnified by water.

 Inverted,
the big dipper,
hanging its question
from the sky’s dark eye lid.

 Ghosts of departed
constellations
walk the night

Pale stars scythed
by moonlight
bob phosphorescent,
flowering on the flood.

3

 The flesh that bonds;
the bones that walk;
the shoulders and waist
on which I hang
my clothes.

Now they stand alone
beneath the moon
and listen at the water’s edge
to the whispering trees.

 They have caught the words
of snowflakes
strung at midnight
between the stars.

 Moonlight is a liquor
running raw within them.

 

 

Dalí’s Clock 5, 6, & 7/7

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas

Dalí’s Clock 5, 6 , & 7 / 7

5

In a distant ward,

an alarm bell rings.

White rabbit

with a syringe;

dark tunnel

down which

I must plunge;

bitter draught

I must drain

to change

my life

forever.

I wait for Dalí’s giraffe

to burst into flame

and call me

with its voice

of fire.

6

I grasp

with fingers of gorse

at moon and stars.

Everything I touch

turns into gold.

Sleek

aureate plumage,

bright tiger’s eye

of this yellowhammer

chipping at

his block of song.

7

When I lose it, whatever it is,

my fingers pick at seams,

tissues, skirts, shirts, jeans,

or strip a label from a bottle;

or they break bread, or

there are so many things I can do,

personal things.

On the table,

a vacant cereal bowl,

a silver teaspoon in a saucer,

an empty teacup

returning my round moon stare.

My hands terminate

in pointless needles.

They unpick stitches;

then try to knit them

back together again.

Dalí’s Clock 3 & 4 /7

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”

Dylan Thomas

Dalí’s Clock
3 & 4 / 7

3

When I look at my watch:

time flies off my wrist

and flaps its hands

helplessly.

I taste the bitterness of bile,

squeezing each moment,

between finger and thumb,

rolling it about

like a breadcrumb

or a shred of label

stripped from an empty

bottle.

4

How long can I sit here,

staring her down

as she flourishes

then fades,

her eyelids closing

at day’s end,

like flowers?

Daffodils gild

garden and hedgerow,

their yellow mouths

devouring April.

Sunshine so loud,

the hills and valleys

set ablaze.

Golden voices

raised in a floral

requiem.

Dalí’s Clock

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas

Dalí’s Clock 1 & 2 / 7

 

 Dalí’s Clock

 1

I have folded Dalí’s clock,

draping time’s dressing gown

over the foot of her bed.

An elephant with a crane-fly’s

spindly legs

stands on the bedside cabinet.

Is the human body

a chest of drawers

to be opened and closed

at will

and things removed?

On the operating table,

a sewing machine

and a bread knife

wait inside

a black umbrella

for their next

victim.

 2

A hedgehog caught in the glare

of onrushing lights,

she has curled herself into a ball.

My words are wasted

movements:

lips, tongue, bared teeth.

Limp kites

with nothing to fill their paper sails,

they hang like abandoned bodies

on the old barbed wire

stretched between us.

A metallic sun

gashes harsh light.

The needles in her arm

throw an ever-plunging

sea of shadows:

bruised sunsets

on a purple horizon.

Decisions

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Decisions

We make them all the time: what shirt to wear, jeans or dress pants, black of brown shoes, loafers or lace ups, sandals … socks or not … and then there’s breakfast … tea or coffee, cereal or toast, sugar or honey … most days, we don’t even realize we are making decisions. We certainly don’t need to write out a page of pros and cons in order to choose between coffee or tea …

Then there are the big decisions, like where to go next on this blog. I have been weighing up the pros and cons and I am finally getting close to a decision. My blogging possibilities include Literary Theory … Writing about Writing … How to Read … Revising Older Texts … Reading Don Quixote Online … Writing New Texts … Preparing Books for Publication Offline … These are much more difficult decisions but I must think about them and make them.

Literary Theory sounds good. But what do I know about it? Nothing but the dry academic literary theory of an abandoned academia that wasn’t really very interesting anyway. An occasional question arises in the blog world, one on which I feel competent to comment, and that for me, is the way I go with my literary theory: a quick response. All that academic literary theory is money in the savings bank that I can draw on if I, or anyone else, needs to access it. But to access it on a daily basis and pontificate my way to the limbo of a blogger’s boredom? I don’t think so!

Writing about Writing also sounds good, but in many ways it is a poor person’s literary theory, rather like literary theory without the long, obfuscating technical terms. Again, if the need is there, I can contribute; but it’s not the way I want to go, not here, not on this blog, not on this particular watch.

How to Read is a subject on which many books have been written and I recommend that all people not just read, but learn to read deeply and properly. In some cases, depending upon the quantity of material that crosses the computer screen (it used to be the desk), speed reading is essential and I recommend speed reading for everybody except poets and those who love poetry. To speed read a sonnet is not the way to go. I would love to sell the film rights to some of my sonnets, but apparently, that’s not the way to go either. Ah well, we can’t have everything …

Revising Older Texts is another excellent way to run a blog. The material is always there in one form (old) and the reworking of it into another form (new) is regular, instructive, and creative. I have done that on this blog with At the Edge of Obsidian > Obsidian’s Edge and loved both the process and the result. However, at least three of my commentators, Al Lane, Chuck Bowie and Kevin Stephens, suggested that the past is in the past and should remain there, while the future lies ahead of us and needs to be created. After much thought, I have come to the conclusion that Al and Chuck and Kevin are right. I will put older material up on the blog, but I will no longer review it for future re-publication, except in exceptional circumstances, and these are yet to be determined.

Reading Don Quixote Online has been in my wish bucket for a very long time. It is something that I would love to do one more time. I have already done online readings on several occasions. I have twice taught DQ in an online hybrid environment: hybrid — an online portion and an in-class face to face portion –. To return to DQ is, for me, to return to academia, an academia that I rejected several years ago. No: much as I would like to re-formulate this project and to lay out online my definitive This Is How To Read Don Quixote, I feel in so many ways, that this is not yet the time to do so. I want so much to turn back that particular clock, but I know how much work, reading, and commitment is needed and I am not yet ready. Perhaps, like the Flowers of Scotland, those days are past now and in the past they must remain. We’ll see. I checked my DQ notes last night … they are all there, ready and waiting … and I can set out on that adventure anytime … alas, through the mists of time, I can hear those bagpipes playing Will ye no come back again? I will, my friends, but not just yet.

Writing New Texts is fun. This is a new text and it is helping me to focus  on what I want and do not want to do. There is always room here for new texts. But new texts need revisiting and revising. Maybe some of my creative texts just aren’t ready for publication yet and yes, online writing is a form of publication. Thankfully I can revise these texts, and I may yet revise this one; indeed, I will probably come back both to this text and to these decisions. And maybe I won’t and that’s another decision for another day.

Preparing Books for Publication is where I am right now in my offline life and I think this is where I want to be online as well. I have two texts in preparation: Bistro (Flash Fiction) and Echoes of an Impromptu Metaphysics (poetry). I have thus far shared 17 pieces from Bistro on this blog. There are another 17 to go. Each time I prepare a piece of Flash Fiction for publication here, I re-read it, re-think, re-frame it, re-structure it, and re-write it. Those of you who know me offline are well aware of the nature of that re-processing. Sometimes the pieces are merely sharpened and polished; often they are totally re-written. And yes, when flaws are pointed out or doubts expressed, the texts are changed. I deeply value the comments of my below the line commentators. Echoes is the other text I need to re-write. I will share that online as well. The sharing will be difficult … Echoes is a difficult and very personal text … but it will be done.

Decisions have been taken and my thought process has been shared. There will be no turning back of the clock even though I am always looking over my shoulder. Here, then, are my decisions, but remember, they are always open to revision.

  1. I will re-publish on this blog Though Lovers Be Lost, one of my favorite poetry books. I will do this as and when necessary if I need more time between blogs with my re-writing.
  2. I will finish publishing the other stories from Bistro online on this blog as I prepare it for offline publication.
  3. I will start the re-write of Echoes online. I have been away from this book for about eight months now and re-reading it earlier today I saw how and where it could be improved.
  4. I will add in literary and philosophical commentaries when and where I see the need to do so. I consider this particular article to be a literary commentary with philosophical connotations, or is it the other way round? As an academic, I could prepare a treatise on the question; as a blogger, I can leave that question in the capable minds of those who read and follow this blog.

    Vale!
    Et vade mecum!

Though Lovers Be Lost …

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“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas

Dalí’s Clock

1

I have folded Dalí’s clock,
draping time’s dressing gown
over the foot of her bed.
An elephant with a crane-fly’s
spindly legs
stands on the bedside cabinet.

Is the human body
a chest of drawers
to be opened and closed
at will
and things removed?

On the operating table,
a sewing machine
and a bread knife
wait inside
a black umbrella
for their next
victim.