Bucha, March 2022

 

24 February 2022

Father, Father tell me why
these fires of crimson cross the sky,
revealing horsemen all aglow
with weapons at the saddlebow.

The flames are pyres of Pestilence,
the worm that rides by night and day,
that hurdles thorny hedge and fence,
to fall on unsuspecting prey.

Look! Stamping on the burning earth,
you see the rough-shod steed of War,
whose rider was a god at birth
now changed to something all abhor.

There, equally to be reviled,
rides one to wither grain and grass
called Famine, War’s unsightly child,
with eyes as pitiless as glass.

With fury’s fever gone at last
comes Death to rake the smoking embers;
to tamp them down into the past
until nobody quite remembers.

        Painting Father

A grainy photo, shot in sandy hills:

I catch a glimpse of Dad in World War One,

unwounded yet, untouched by peacetime ills.

He smokes a fag, his tunic is undone;

expressing discontent, perhaps disease.

It’s otherwise a well turned-out parade:

the London Rifles smartly stand at ease,

the Lewis gun on legs correctly laid.

For poetry and paint to flow in tune 

it’s better to be lucky than inspired;

as I portray him on his dusty dune

my Lady Fortune’s graces are required

but suddenly he’s here. I feel his breath.

A moment only, he returns to death.

On watching a video made by Isao Hashimoto

Cassandra knows she’s listened to no more

but still I hear her crying in the wind,

in fear of fierce white horses far offshore.

Her eyes are wild, her ragged hair unpinned.

She shouts a warning of calamity and war.

She sees the incarnation of her fears

on ocean’s edge, where sea and sky are twinned,

where keen eyes catch the flash of shields and spears.

She hears the grind of keels upon the sand;

the savage rush and tumult of the Greeks;

the missile rain of rock and firebrand;

the storming of the city; dying shrieks.

Cassandra’s warning is a waste of breath

but contemplate this catalogue of death

www./youtube/WANQrqg-W

On watching a video made by Isao Hashimoto

Cassandra knows she’s listened to no more

but still I hear her crying in the wind,

in fear of fierce white horses far offshore.

Her eyes are wild, her ragged hair unpinned.

She shouts a warning of calamity and war.

She sees the incarnation of her fears

far out to sea, where wave and cloud are twinned,

where keen eyes catch the flash of shields and spears.

She hears the grind of keels upon the sand;

the savage rush and tumult of the Greeks;

the missile rain of rock and firebrand;

the storming of the city; dying shrieks.

Cassandra’s warning is a waste of breath

but contemplate this catalogue of death

www./youtube/WANQrqg-W

Love lines

I see her love lines curve and zoom

in shades of blue all round the room.

They turn and sweep, now wide and slow,

now fast and thin, now high, now low.

The best of love lines to be seen

are hers, to show that she is Queen.

Her lines are wise and strong; they wind

their way through any block they find.

Their touch is soft but when it’s felt

stone walls go soft, turn pale and melt

to let a flood of grace pass through

from glad, new worlds we dimly view.

I light with joy to hear her voice

and wait in hope to know her choice.

On reading Catherine Mansfield’s ‘Bliss’

‘Why must it Always be Tomato Soup?’

a question worthy of the drills of Zen;

like ’What is bliss?’ and other thoughts that troop

unanswered through the cluttered minds of men.

Bliss comes from common things, no need of thrills:

we make tomato soup for friends and dine

or plant a sunny spot with daffodils

and then this joyful light begins to shine.

To shop exquisitely is happiness

for those endowed with ample energy and wealth

but not complacent in their state of bliss

for ruin ever watches us in stealth

while those white horses, far off from the shore,

like creeping cats, could turn to tsunami,

to car and corpses soup and muck galore,

that sweeps away our final ecstasy.

Lincoln Cathedral Choir

Once on a time we climbed Steep Hill and stood

before the quiet carvings in the choir.

For you loved poetry spelled out in wood:

the angels, pipes, the King, the drum, the lyre,

miserichords of toughened heart of oak…

Among these masterpieces, stall to stall,

each craftsman added his religious joke,

till plague arrived and put an end to all.

So here and there, some blocks are chisel-spared,

abandoned, lumpen logs, or if you will

are limitless potentials, left prepared

for handy chance and time to shape skill.

Since chance is quite as infinite as time

perhaps we’ll go again, up that steep climb.