Hallo and greetings, knight-at-arms,
all PPE accoutred!
Your presence conjures fresh alarms.
What variant is bruited?
What apprehension holds you here,
when deadly foes are ravening?
‘The sedge is withered from the lake
and no birds sing.’
‘I see pale crowds in multitudes,
with fever moist and blue of lip
they cry, La Belle Dame sans merci
has us in grip.’
‘And that is why embattled here
on never-ending trials
I labour like a Hercules
with viruses and vials.’
Ships Pass in the Night
I want to sing when love comes to my heart
but songs of sorrow linger in me still.
We are at sea on passages apart,
night-passing once, bathed in a mutual thrill:
the swell, the wash of wakes, ships' lights ablaze,
the song of sirens,tables laid for two…
Our ships continue on their different ways;
beyond the rim of sea and sky are you.
The ocean's vast, erratic face is bare.
The albatross in his incessant flight
alone can see our kisses floating there,
where ocean liners lingered in the night
the roses and the wine flung on the waste,
a momentary splash, a fleeting taste.
Silent Air
Lord,how I long to snatch
what swiftly flew away
and went with all despatch
despite my plea to stay.
Scant was the time and space
the kindly gods have lent
when I could stroke your face
to heal my discontent.
A desert route I see;
a setting sun behind.
I know that I am free
but freedom is not kind.
I walk without a will.
I call. The air is still.
Allegory
I found your love was stronger than I thought
Upon the brink and hesitant to leap
I dipped a toe and by a current caught
I tumbled headlong in the rushing deep.
I learned to float and drift through pleasant dales
where willows overhang their images
and listen to the river telling tales
of castles high and lowly villages.
I little thought of where a river flows:
its slow meanders, jagged cataracts
where over booming falls the water goes
to die of thirst in dusty, desert tracts
but over mud and estuary to sea
which swallows rivers great and small we passed.
I lost you there, the river ceased to be;
upon a lonely seashore I was cast.
Japanese Garden
The mistress of the mini-masterpiece
was fixed upon her purpose of renewal,
her garden of Japan, her plot of peace,
her precious gem set in a royal jewel.
One day we saw her tending plants at Kew.
‘We should remember this', I think I said.
So there among the foxgloves and bamboo
I drew her in acrylics on the shed
and now she is a memory of you.
She gardens on when all the flowers are dead.
I see her toiling there the winter through.
It's not a fertile spot but some flowers grow.
She talks to them perhaps. Would it were so.
v
Train passenger
She did not see the endless stands of trees,
their hollow eyes in shadows by the tracks,
through once-enchanted regions where the bees
were sealing clover honey up in wax.
She did not see the murmuration write
its fleeting charcoal message on the sky;
girls diving like kingfishers in the bright,
reflective river as the train passed by.
The chapel, listing in eternal rest
to founder in the soft, decaying earth:
she did not see. Her thoughts were unexpressed.
Perhaps she wondered what the world was worth
while she sat there with neither smile nor frown
as if a final sun were going down.
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.
Paganini's theme
It seems to summon demons all around
with snatches of the devil's private prayers;
to fill the air with wild, disturbing sound,
with doctrines dangerous and rebel airs.
The kick and stamp and dash of heel and toe
go on until a master stroke, unplanned,
comes in to soothe the endless welts of woe,
to put a treasure in the master's hand.
The eighteenth variation changes all
as if some jungle balm made from a leaf
had turned to flowers every cannonball;
made us forget the price of love is grief;
put scarlet roses in the armoury;
turned all our conflicts into harmony.
Night Ambush
Above our heads the night is glorious and bright.
Rain has relieved the fever of the day
and compo rations stay the appetite.
In all its nakedness the Milky Way
provokes eternal questions which are quite
above our heads.
Nothing must give our rendezvous away;
the chilly stars are all our firelight;
the music of the spheres our cabaret;
we are as silent as the comet's flight
above our heads.
We are not creatures of the shining day
but fall from shadows with a hidden might
on foes unready or in disarray.
We do not hate though theirs is not our way
for fighting soldiers share a common plight,
above their heads.
We are not shepherds, only wolves at play,
until we show the power of our bite.
If angels come to speak they do not stay
but leave among the noises of the night
above our heads.
The Strider of Worlds
Where there are only bare and empty fields
he scatters stardust, drenching it with light.
He harrows every plot until it yields
a new creation worthy of his might.
His words are furnaces with fearsome blast
of metals born to bear his hammer stroke.
Niagaras of flashing stars are cast
to swirl in maelstroms where he trailed his cloak.
He walks in empty worlds, by barren seas,
globes clothed in fertile greens or airy blues;
in fragrant forests diligent with bees
where orchids dress up in outrageous hues.
Sometimes he talks with things that grow and thrive
upon these ashes, glad to be alive.
Limericks
Whatever you're writing is prose
or it's verse; it depends how it flows.
If it rings like a bell
then it's music as well
which is terribly hard to compose.
You must think and then carefully weigh
every word lest your thoughts go astray.
‘But', she said with a wink,
‘I don't know what I think
till I've seen what I happened to say'.
A troubled young man said, 'I swear
there is nothing to breathe, only air
and to eat: only food
so I go about nude,
but for clothes I have nothing to wear'.
