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.

                            

                  Graphiti


The mistress of the mini-masterpiece

was fixed upon her project of renewal,

her garden of Japan, her plot of peace,

her little gem set in a royal jewel.

We saw her tending plants that day at Kew.

‘We should remember this’, I think I said.

So there among my foxgloves and bamboo

I drew her in acrylics on the shed.

Now she is just 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.

                        I miss that room

I miss that room where favourite poems hung,

the sweetest bed, the best of furniture…

The last song of the skylark has been sung

and shadows show where things familiar were.

Foolish it is to think that any art

of paint or words can fill the empty space

that once possessed us, heart and loving heart,

returning us a moment to that place.

Eternities of emptiness are worse

than empty where they once held you

with all the happy memories I nurse

now underwritten with  a last adieu.

‘Don’t die before me’, once I heard you say.

I have been faithful to you then, in that hard way.

More songs

            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,f

a momentary splash, a fleeting taste.

                        Castaway

I found your love was stronger than I thought.
Upon the brink and hesitant to leap
I dipped a toe and by the current caught
I tumbled headlong in a rushing deep.

I learned to float and drift through pleasant dales
where willows overhung their images
and listened to the river telling tales
of castles high and lowly villages.

I little thought of where a river goes,
in slow meanders, jagged cataracts
or over booming falls in torrents flows
or dies 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.

            Bird song

In the wind the tree top swings,

there the storm-cock sits and sings.

Of their troubles and their joys

few can make a better noise.

When there is no more to say

then the singer flies away.

Music is not meant to last

soon as sounded it has passed.

Now the circling bat takes flight

through the scented shades of night.

Fades the pink on shades of blue

night will hatch us something new.

The spinning earth renews the day.

What's to happen none can say.

The blackbird's sweeter than the wren.

The thrush is better yet again;

long ago his song began:

let me love you while I can

Every morning paints the rose

fresh with colours no one knows.

Change is what the lover fears,

first the laughter then the tears.

Time and chance are hand-in-glove.

What is life unless we love?

            April Cherry

When snakes of snow went shivering like eels

down frozen ways, wind-twisted, whisked and whirled

I thought of you and how the springtime feels

when we have left the winter underworld,

when countless petals, plenitudes of pink,

dance overhead in the uplifting breeze

and shake their pom-poms. Up and down they jink,

in can-can capers, kicking up their knees.

My favourite dress you wear, as well you know.

You've made your face up, put your lipstick on.

O cherry tree, do not accuse me so;

tell me no more my lust for you has gone,

that beauty passes briefer than a rhyme.

I'll love you in your green of summertime.

            Christmas Parties 

Did I ever tell you I'm frightened of parties,
of all those bright people and heavyweight hearties?
Well I am. Now it's Christmas, I'm trying to find
how to go to these functions and keep peace of mind;
to wake up clear-headed and free of disgrace
for something I did or I said out of place.
I shall try to come late; I shall tarry an hour
go straight to the hostess and give her a flower
and say she looks lovely; her party's the best;
the buffet delicious; I love every guest;
I've been here for ages; that's what I shall say
I am having such fun. Then I'll leave straightaway.
Or perhaps I'll come early and drink all the punch;
snog somebody sexy and bring up my lunch.
I'll drink upside down on my hands in the hall
and eat twelve mince pies using no hands at all
I'll break into song then I'll ski down the stairs;
stunt roll from a window till everyone stares
and says 'did that happen? ' or 'is this a dream? '
then I'll lick off the hostess, well covered in cream.