Posted for the Theme Thursday prompt - MAP
MAPS
Years later, maybe, you'll come upon old maps
boxed with your youth and dusted with misgivings.
And perhaps they'd crackle if unfolded,
as the first frosts hard on the heels of autumn crisp the leaves.
Beware! They lure like carillons wrenching you
back over moorlands where the curlew grieves.
Leave maps as metaphors you tramped among . .
A boot-cap scuffles and chunks of rock dislodged
whirr down to silence, falling far too long . .
memorials of hushed October glens
where voices drift miles and the ice-axe chink
lies like a bell note on the misting air.
Sip your memories in the firelight, but . .
let your maps be, or your finger
tracing paths once taken, could lead you
to years that rise like runs of scree,
and browsing through your autumn days, unfold
times creased with use and truths that dropped apart.
For those far, remembered hills could clasp love-close
dried blades of grass that pierce you to the heart.
Mar 19, 2010
Feb 8, 2010
In Your Own Words
Four vowels comprise her name -
say deft, say kiss, dance, death -
four smoke rings, linked exemplars
of her faculty, her advocacy
and her carnal grammars.
To formulate the margins of her eyes,
four steps to duskfall, moonfall snared
to mirror her momentum and her style -
say topaz, amber, auburn, black -
her lip and boyish shoulder, archer's stance,
and one impatient gesture of disdain,
an earlobe tethered in a straying curl.
Laughable? Now say charm, say warm, was warm.
Or perhaps subsume her
in four fragrances, four dialects
abandoned but still braiding
here with then - orchid, Havana,
Lentherique, quinine - to wrench the noose,
affirm and reaffirm her.
Nothing is willed or planned or made
inevitable - ever, say is it ever? -
even by chance, by one too many faces
in a room - but somewhere
leaves ash to smoulder
as she left scents on gowns, in cars -
whisper October, whisper smoke and gold -
forsook her shoes by doors left open -
say go, don't go, grown old -
or charred the lips of unfamiliar tables
with her frank, familiar,
discarded black cigars.
Four vowels comprise her name -
say deft, say kiss, dance, death -
four smoke rings, linked exemplars
of her faculty, her advocacy
and her carnal grammars.
To formulate the margins of her eyes,
four steps to duskfall, moonfall snared
to mirror her momentum and her style -
say topaz, amber, auburn, black -
her lip and boyish shoulder, archer's stance,
and one impatient gesture of disdain,
an earlobe tethered in a straying curl.
Laughable? Now say charm, say warm, was warm.
Or perhaps subsume her
in four fragrances, four dialects
abandoned but still braiding
here with then - orchid, Havana,
Lentherique, quinine - to wrench the noose,
affirm and reaffirm her.
Nothing is willed or planned or made
inevitable - ever, say is it ever? -
even by chance, by one too many faces
in a room - but somewhere
leaves ash to smoulder
as she left scents on gowns, in cars -
whisper October, whisper smoke and gold -
forsook her shoes by doors left open -
say go, don't go, grown old -
or charred the lips of unfamiliar tables
with her frank, familiar,
discarded black cigars.
Jan 29, 2010
Prolonged Immersion.
Rebuke, or pity? Spurning all life-skill guides,
oblivious to shellfish jaws and stings that leave
sure swimmers keeling, she dived young, keen to prise,
eviscerate and string the seeds.
The first heave
mesmerised. The seven sea-tentacles unfurled,
artful to drag her down. The laden wrecks
rebuffed her questing hands.
The glass-green swirl
yawed, paused and shifted her past hope of land.
Meshed with slow swells she grins and glides,
adrift on moon-drugged tides, which at their flood
roll, roll her shorewards, till brine cold rhythms guide
this prisoner from deeps misunderstood.
In the sea's time, formless remains are hurled
naked, flesh gorged by seabirds, spent, unpearled.
oblivious to shellfish jaws and stings that leave
sure swimmers keeling, she dived young, keen to prise,
eviscerate and string the seeds.
The first heave
mesmerised. The seven sea-tentacles unfurled,
artful to drag her down. The laden wrecks
rebuffed her questing hands.
The glass-green swirl
yawed, paused and shifted her past hope of land.
Meshed with slow swells she grins and glides,
adrift on moon-drugged tides, which at their flood
roll, roll her shorewards, till brine cold rhythms guide
this prisoner from deeps misunderstood.
In the sea's time, formless remains are hurled
naked, flesh gorged by seabirds, spent, unpearled.
Jan 28, 2010
Revenant
At parting, saying -
"Let us agree we both prefer
'Goodbye' to tears. Learn to accept
and not condemn. The past
never was the future's stage."
A carriage window sliced this valediction.
Work, infidelities and towns
slipped by to undiscovered ends,
while the unquiet ghost for half a lifetime
turned triumph - yes, even that - to puffs of smoke -
(Mists laid on English shires at twilight,
fingers on a candid lip in sleep . . . )
Then in some undistinguished capital,
Buda? Trieste? - in just that sort
of backwater cafe where conversations
hatched against despair
stutter towards another rented pillow,
the smoky lights revealed -
skin no longer absolutely young,
the smile that lay in wait -
a dress that could not - surely - be the same?
"No logic, dearest, please,
or laying blame. I answered only
the motiveless appeal of happiness . . "
(Quoting another poet! At such a meeting!
I should have . . . )
Ah, but her fingers, placed
with such complicity, such care,
placed where the bloodstroke like a habit burns,
sought my acceptance of her affirmation.
My actress on her stage,
ageless and English,
her tear precluding tears.
At parting, saying -
"Let us agree we both prefer
'Goodbye' to tears. Learn to accept
and not condemn. The past
never was the future's stage."
A carriage window sliced this valediction.
Work, infidelities and towns
slipped by to undiscovered ends,
while the unquiet ghost for half a lifetime
turned triumph - yes, even that - to puffs of smoke -
(Mists laid on English shires at twilight,
fingers on a candid lip in sleep . . . )
Then in some undistinguished capital,
Buda? Trieste? - in just that sort
of backwater cafe where conversations
hatched against despair
stutter towards another rented pillow,
the smoky lights revealed -
skin no longer absolutely young,
the smile that lay in wait -
a dress that could not - surely - be the same?
"No logic, dearest, please,
or laying blame. I answered only
the motiveless appeal of happiness . . "
(Quoting another poet! At such a meeting!
I should have . . . )
Ah, but her fingers, placed
with such complicity, such care,
placed where the bloodstroke like a habit burns,
sought my acceptance of her affirmation.
My actress on her stage,
ageless and English,
her tear precluding tears.
Dec 31, 2009
Dec 24, 2009
Dec 9, 2009
White Christmas, Anyone?
Five "Snow" poems.
"London Snow" . . . . . . Robert Bridges
"Snow in the Suburbs" . . . Thomas Hardy
Dec 2, 2009
I cannot find the following poem on the Internet, so I cannot link to it from its title. I break my rule, therefore, and post it in full. I heard it on the BBC, in the summer of 2009, in a programme fronted by John Prescott, formerly our unlamented Deputy Prime Minister. Bloggers from outwith the UK may not know that Mr. Prescott was formerly a ship's steward, then Shop Steward and thence to political prominence as representative of "Old Labour" in the Blair government. The poet, Maurice Harney, was an engineer in the UK Merchant Marine. This is a lovely little "regret" poem . . .
A Time For Sea
I shall acknowledge age
when the call of far wild seas no longer stirs my blood,
when I shall not see as a boy would see
the beauty of homebound ships harbouring on the flood.
Only then will I sit in the lee of warehouse walls,
Only then will I sit in the lee of warehouse walls,
Conjuring dreams from the river's mist.
Only then will I weep an old man's tears
For times that I have known,
For lips that I have left unkissed.
Maurice Harney
Nov 29, 2009
Him Downstairs
Him downstairs knows everything.
He stalks me. But when his sandals
rattle the gravel, I don't stay
to canter through old times
or take the "by-the-ways" that bait
his nattertraps. I don't need
doddergenarian advice.
I'm too young a dog
to be taught old tricks
and I've been caught too often
in his thickets of yesteryear.
So I skulk downwind or use
sly footwork to dodge
his monologue lassoos.
If snared I'll haw and hum
and keep a weather-eye
for the venom that stipples his view
of Empire, lawnmowers, schools,
and men who aren't men
if they can't use tools -
till he grumbles off to hunt his wife.
Once she plucked my sleeve and gently
hoped I wasn't bored. "It's his tongue,"
she said, "his years. He's so handless.
Stubborn." I hummed and hawed,
and we stood there speechless -
I at her loyalty,
she from her life, her tears.
Him downstairs knows everything.
He stalks me. But when his sandals
rattle the gravel, I don't stay
to canter through old times
or take the "by-the-ways" that bait
his nattertraps. I don't need
doddergenarian advice.
I'm too young a dog
to be taught old tricks
and I've been caught too often
in his thickets of yesteryear.
So I skulk downwind or use
sly footwork to dodge
his monologue lassoos.
If snared I'll haw and hum
and keep a weather-eye
for the venom that stipples his view
of Empire, lawnmowers, schools,
and men who aren't men
if they can't use tools -
till he grumbles off to hunt his wife.
Once she plucked my sleeve and gently
hoped I wasn't bored. "It's his tongue,"
she said, "his years. He's so handless.
Stubborn." I hummed and hawed,
and we stood there speechless -
I at her loyalty,
she from her life, her tears.
Nov 28, 2009
The End of Ambition . .
As Dubai sinks in its sea of debt . . . a reminder from a bygone age!
Ozymandias . . . . by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ozymandias . . . . by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)