Poems

Purple

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Purple

I pen poems
in emerald ink
but I prefer
the violence of evening’s
bruised violets

wind-beaten clouds
add dark depths
to a rainbow

a glow of satisfaction
flutters northern lights

the setting sun
hums low notes
to cello
and double bass

Comment: I like this, but I prefer the re-write. If you wish to express your preference, I would be glad to receive it. This is the third revision. Click here to read the first posted version of Purple. Any comments on the evolution of the poem would also be welcomed.

Purple

violent
evening’s
bruised violets

wind-beaten clouds
move through dark depths
a rainbow arcs
an iris curve

northern lights
flicker organ music
fugues of color
sound into light

low notes hum
bring tears to the eye
cello and double bass
serenade a setting sun

 

Butterflies

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Butterflies

butterflies
their ephemeral forms
flutter by
flickering
brief their sweet sway

they spread
paint-daubed
fanciful wings
fan flowers
flourish

eternity
perched briefly
on flowering bees’ balm

robin puffs out
his red breast
hauls down
tomorrow’s sun

white-throat sings
an evening elegy

Comment: 

“Poetry gives permanence to the temporal forms of the self.”
Miguel de Unamuno.

Migrants

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Migrants

Think natural disasters. Think famine,
wars, violence, plague. How our world changes
when refugees arrive, blend, contribute,
offer so much, their languages, cultures.

Yet we still exploit them, stealing subtle
things, their identities, their energy,
their ability to adapt, to give
so much and really to take so little.

Who would want to build a wall,
to reject them, to deny entry?
Maybe a million Indigenous people
can actually claim the right

to belong here. Most are immigrants,
late-comers in one way or another.
To accept, to grow together in peace,
to establish a nation where people

need not fear imminent expulsion
for the color of their skin, their language,
their religion, their political thoughts,
the fact they may not even vote for us.

Losing It

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Losing It
Island View

I searched for it everywhere: in the dry, dusty
pages of age-old books, in the spaces, white,
between words, in silences between bird songs,
in grey skies where raindrops formed into clouds,
in the pause between each cat’s paw of wind.

Nothing. I couldn’t find it. This morning
I searched for it in my shaving mirror.
I stirred the shiny film on my breakfast coffee
hunting for it. My Morning Glory lay open
on the operating table of my plate: nothing.

Mourning doves on the feeder called me by name.
The flicker drummed me a soothing rhythm.
I closed my eyes, dreamed of the river rising,
and found myself on an open beach. Homeless
hermit crab, I wandered listless, combing
seaweed, leaving fragile lines, footprints to
bear witness to my presence on this shore,
but as I looked for it, I knew I had lost it.

Comment: 
Forget-me-not. My father’s birthday. He would have been 108. Happy birthday, dad. I’m still wearing your watch.

Fisher King

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King-Fisher-King

King-fisher, wounded wing, Fisher-King
ruling a shallow lake, water-logged,
beaver-gnawed trees, trunks and branches

rotting under water, green growth bearded
upon them, lily-padded the pond,
transformed year after year, to meadows, silt

gathering, filling in smaller channels,
only the mainstream flickers, flows beneath
freckled sunshine. Change hides in plain sight.

All things wither, perish. Cherish this changing,
these modified moods, sun and cloud, the land
recovering, coming back to fertility.

Swift the flight of the swallow’s low dip,
mottled the osprey, aloft in her nest.
King-fisher flying, return of the King.

À Dieu

 

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À Dieu
(1920-33 & 20??)

nowhere have I found peace
save in a glass of wine
perfection in blood red grapes
long plucked from the vine

they say I cannot go again
and drain another glass
I say they speak in vain
their prohibition will not last

I know I will not live
forever but while I do
the wine will flow forgive me
I don’t want to walk out on you

sooner or later I’ll be called
I know one day I’ll have to go
bravely into the dark and cold
meanwhile let the red wine flow

 

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Flickers

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Flickers
(1613 & 2019)

a watch spring
this cuckoo-clock heart
fully wound up
time’s ticker flickering
waiting to strike

black hole its beak
poked the world’s fabric
shredded into ribbons
robin’s nest torn
storm-tossed onto lawn

constant this love
its warm ashes lingering
searing holes in shoe soles
soul-sick with yearning
bright bonfires burning

metaphor and meaning
real and imagined
hammering on chimneys
territorial flickers
spring heartbeats drumming

losers of somethings
winners of others
wings lofting upwards
light above darkness
all creature comforts

a spring need to nest
an old man’s need to rest

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Baby, it’s cold outside

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Baby
it’s cold outside
(2016-2019)

damaged and diminished
no longer great but grating
gritting grinding worn-out teeth
stamp collection of small islands
seeking annihilation

no longer a leopard or a lion
a cat’s paw of wind
drifting a rudderless craft
without captain or sails
crew abandoning ship

Britannia ruling no waves
making waves in land-locked lands
billows of bitterness
filled with sweet nothings
torn from a long-lost love

a disunited kingdom now
untied not united
its shipwreck revealed
verbal Freudian slip
so many between cup and lip

lemmings at cliff edge
no blue birds over
white faces frowning down
denying anonymity’s oblivion
old lady of Threadneedle

a wheel-chaired cripple
stay-cationing in the Caymans
stooping to conquer
a hollow centre that won’t hold
though she can’t stand up straight

Tug Turmoil towing
drifting and shiftless
a common weal of festering
failures and faithless
flying enterprises

Eden 2

 

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Eden 2
(1956 AD)

Mushrooms
cremini oysters pearl
love them

love them not
garlic mushrooms
flash-fried
in atomic frying pans

nor magic mushrooms
nor radioactive fungi
spores parachuted down
mushroom grey
clouds

built this berth canal
an umbilical cord
birthing oceanic links
not division
nor destruction

Eden’s Garden
a walk in the park
an earthly paradise
closed to many
open for few

lost now
that projected paradise
not much room
four maneuvers
all things
vanished in a flash
horizon’s banana
split in an instant
everything lost

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Eden 1

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Eden 1
(1956 AD)

wet rags of dirty washing
hang on the Siegfried
line’s barbed wire

flesh rent ripped
broken-glass anger bottled
blood-mottled concrete

bones mixer-crushed
blood sacrifice a keep-safe
ash-cross camouflage
stretched sketched
over grime and crime

heavy the spike-toll
rooted the rock
chips off old blocks
these flint flakes flying

faceless this sphinx
inscrutable smile
where now
sands of the Nile

ample ammunition
beneath this apple tree
flat-footed lame-duck walk
goose-stepped after expulsion

walled this garden
to lock what in
to keep who out

 

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