Dawn

S

un over earth, a brusque untimely warning

to nubile night, for morning pales the moon

with fiery chariots of dazzle dawning

and comes upon our loving bed too soon.

I am no tiller of infertile earth. 

I don’t expect a kindly, new tomorrow

to turn our mix of madness into mirth

to fetch us more of gladness than of sorrow

and give our failing enterprise rebirth.

Beyond the bedroom is a world of care,

precedent plenty driven into dearth.

Because I’m love-sick for the flowers there

I cultivate our couch for all I’m worth;

they grow the better for the purple night

and turn unwelcome day to dark delight.

What’s that went past?

The road is dark.

A doe has wandered from the park.

A furious approach she hears

that swiftly nears.

The road is black,

a blaze of light.

She cannot move to left nor right

a blinding dazzle binds her here

in rigid fear.

The tyres scream.

The hooters blare.

She calls in terror and despair.

The cry is passed from deer to deer

that death is here. 

The Third Law

I throw down my challenge, Fate,

Chaos, Fortune, Chance…

whatever you wish to call yourself.

I defy your imperative force.

In your anonymous face

I fling my glove.

Reader, why should I try to deceive you

in the attempt to deceive myself?

Chance rules the life of man.

I cannot oppose it;

for its creature, time,

works its Paganini tune,

scratching its legs like the desert locust

on a gypsy violin,

irretrievably eating its way

across the cosmos.

Kiss me and I shall return

Kiss me and I shall return

like the salmon to the burn

surely as the rising sun

comes to say the day’s begun.

I’ll return forever after

like the swallow to the rafter,

like the honey-seeking bee,

if you give your kiss to me.

On your ruby lips your laughter 

shines and sparkles like a sign.

Kisses of your mouth hereafter

bring your soul the gift of mine, 

Learn the secret of my heart:

kiss and we shall never part.

Spectacular art 

H

is spectacles left at the Tate

lay by a wall, artfully flung,

which started up a new debate.

What truth did they communicate?

We listened to their praises sung

which helped us to appreciate

this art of very recent date

by which significance is wrung

from simple things like bricks, a plate

that open hell’s or heaven’s gate

until all brazen bells are rung

in tones of transcendental weight.

We heard some prattle and some prate

as back and forth opinion swung

but all agreed the art was great

until a man came in to state

his spectacles had come unstrung:

his spectacles left at the Tate

which started up a new debate.

Wishing for skylarks

A sudden smile and lightening of the heart

were mine before I glimpsed her waiting there,

at that beloved corner. There I go

to linger yet though she can never come.

She sleeps with skylarks and one nightingale

who sings to her to gain the loud applause

of little birds whom she once fondly fed

who perch, side-by-side, in bosky shadows

until the pale dawn comes and skylarks sing.

Once she slept guarded by a little dog

who thought he was a lion. So did I

but neither of us guarded well enough.

Sestina

A billion billion stars or so

are dancing on the Milky Way

and grand they are but I must go,

because that’s not enough for me;

I want to find the brimming well

and burning centre of the show.

You seek the source of all the show?

Too far away it is and so

you shall be dead, my friend, and well

before you’ve travelled half the way.

So swallow truth and be like me:

let angels dance and let them go.

I’d like to know where angels go

or where they come from. Tell me, show;

it’s information new to me.

Perhaps some old book told you so

or did you learn another way

and are you sure you learned it well?

A thousand angels dance as well

as horses on a merry-go

upon a pin. That is the way

that I was taught. You cannot show

this wrong or even partly so;

it has been good enough for me.

But that seems craziness to me

and any of my friends as well.

Are you the sort of so-and-so

who knows he’s wrong but won’t let go

because he’s commandeered the show

and will not stop once underway.

All right! I shall not lie, no way!

A god confided this in me:

the boss who really ran the show

has blown it up, himself as well;

ineptly let a Big Bang go

ten billion years ago, or so.

God blew away his world as well.

For you and me there's time to go

so we’re the centres of the show.

Classifying Galaxies

The galaxy is simply smooth and round
with nothing odd? I choose that: nothing odd.
There's nothing odd except that I am here
on this old chair upon familiar ground
assessing images of faraway 
and long ago that no one's ever seen 
until today, 
on screen.

No one but me has ever judged it round; 
not shaped like a cigar nor in-between; 
assessed it neither merging nor disturbed.
As dull as any galaxy I've seen; 
it has no lens nor ring nor spiral arm
and nothing like a dust lane or an arc.
Without a charm, 
quite stark.

Good- looking galaxies are much like girls
with trailing tresses tossing out to space
and brilliant bulges clothed in starry whirls: 
a hundred thousand million stars in place.
Yes, they had girls; who many times evolved, 
became extinct and started up again. 
They had enlightenments, renaissances…
Men loved and died until love died with men, 
again and again
and again and again…

Poet, soldier, miner, builder, farmer and lover view the same scene.

There is no better spot on earth for this:                 

to tend our love with tempting sounds and rhyme;

to leave this place untouched would be remiss.

A soldier I. When bullets crack and hiss

I’ll dig a bunker here in double time;

there is no better spot on earth for this.

I am a miner. Life is far from bliss;

I render up the metal, slag and slime;

to leave this place untouched would be remiss.

         

I like to build; my tall creations kiss

the topmost clouds; here they shall higher climb;

there is no better spot on earth for this. 

I’d spread the scene with horse manure and piss;

then sow with liquid chemicals and lime;

to leave this place untouched would be remiss.

I was a lover once, I reminisce,

we lay together here in summertime;

there is no better spot on earth for this 

to leave this place untouched would be remiss.

              

On wastes of wishful thought

Your memory, the flower that I tend,
my insubstantial relic of desire,
grows pale despite the time of mind I spend
to bring alive a remnant of your fire.
A second’s thought, a minute or an hour,
an age of recall: you are absent still.
Too much of this has made my mind run sour
and no philosophy can cure my ill
for I am lost in wastes of wishful thought.
Without a prayer to mend a withered rose
the heavy weight of learning comes to naught;
the world is wearier than I supposed.
Of glorious Creation who can boast
it brings us love? It kills what we love most.