Mornings

mornings were once divisible by the touch and the caress, by the kiss, and by the hugs,

they were divided into the exchange of pleasantries and smiles, in the trade of intimacies

with others, now they have become lifeless and listless, as the forces of Nature, even her storms,

those harsh winters, the bright and sunny summers become one greyness; the mornings in a word

become a continuum of extended sovereignty and government of the ubiquitous internet

that switches you and I on in the mornings, we are subjects in its domain, its strangle hold

incrassates, so now we do not care for the tree that spans the view, its spindly branches

in abstract drawing close the blue and grey of the storm coloured skies awakening to our eyes

all become, like the blackbird on the wing, an email, a blog, a news digest, a banner a pop

up, our minds are parished by the servers, as the content of those mornings dissolve

in the repetition of the lonely and sad key tap as we the Babes lost, suck on the lit screen

nourished by truths furnished by Cyber liars and our moments across the table with love

enfleshed, in the tingle of the single finger tip the sensation of Life, are now saved for IT.

At random

At random I got the following five words from an 1804 Dictionary - as in Edward de Bono's lateral thinking exercises.

Five words at random

circumspective

drivel

scissibible

overset

Bible

　

The theme word was bicker - also chosen randomly

We would argue at the breakfast table

You would over the cereal box fire sallies

of rubbish, complete balderdash, drivel

and all those words and their hateful allies

Then I would in more circumspective mood

Seek out authorities from the good Bible

Hoping that the verse and chapter would overset

Your emotional outburst, but to no avail

You felt the religious assist, was more wood

to the flames, and you descended into atheist

diatribe, calling me a happy clapper female

I tried then to remain calm while you piled

up more inflammable thoughts, you brought

in Darwin, and I over the cornflakes and milk,

quietly mentioned, the argument for intelligent

design, in the decent hope that our bickering

would finish, but you outraged by the fake

science, quoted Hume, and I was then alight

burning in your logic and method, the licking

heat of your hatred for the unscissible Right

of my position, you left me consumed by facts.

October Day

Through the window of the art gallery cafe,

the slow October day unwinds, the sky grey

muslin, opaque to the eye, but for the God Ra,

Lord of all energy, working behind the scenes,

One can imagine, as I do, with the dictionary

of Egyptian Civilization, on the table petrified,

a flotilla of ships, instead of the Hans Christian

Andersen Swans tied up for winter, sailing past,

a barque with trapezoidal sail, carrying the Pharaoh

to his final destination, and under his mummified

form, beneath all the bandages, his lips pursed

in an ambered response; then I think, to turn

from what is at hand, to what can never be,

How power crumbles into subject of archaeology,

How lovers fumble to become the object of psychology,

How in laboured curse, we are together, two skiffs

sailing on the horizon, fishing in the shadow of fame

For the significance to what is life without magnificence

toiling in the field, a thousand million times, but two puffs

of wind, uncover our forms, and buries the ruler under sand

For by chance, not by work, the dead will inherit history

Then the peasant farmer or fisherman, in the museums

ruling over the kings and queens, curated by attitude,

Now we are postmodern, through the window , he leafs

through the Kindle, and finds the papyrus in pixeled forms

There the Google books, for how long, archive the Name

Then, more come, and more, and perhaps by twist of beams

The relevance of the Pharaoh will dwindle into the same

as the dictator, and the dread, is that a Holocaust could be dust

so too the architect, and by some virus, all history could go dead

By irony, the server which bows to a scam or pyramid scheme

May release the plague that like the locust will devour all info

Such as the dear family album, the time you and I made love,

The time you did this or that, would as in Alexander's Library

Be erased by a flame, by some teenager feeling rather low

Now, I look to the Swans that carry the tourist, the souveneir

of their stay, and I wish away the thought of the lonely barque

making its way up the Nile, imagined, and replace it with a duck

which quite ridiculous, looks to me as if to suggest - do not Fear.

The Sea

We are on a dinghy, it is exactly the same one

as before, blue and white, as in the other poem

we are father and son, and the white cliffs form

a scar on the horizon, the herring gull on thermals

play with the laws of gravity, and below the cobles

are fishing for whiting or lobsters, we are at one

with each other and nature, for once, as the swell's

uplift takes us below the mound of grey-blue water

the same colour as your eyes, I am in a cardigan

knitted by mum, or maybe by an aunt, and wear

old school uniform trousers, and wellingtons,

we recover the view of land, as the sea pulls

us to where she wants, your fishing rod bends

with what we pray will be cod and not weeds

the swear word, the one worst than bugger,

is snag, I think I am snagged, then you take over

as the boat lurched toward the point of the rock

or weed, it started to surf the wave, the water

now coming in, you pulled, released, and in the arc

of your desperation, then it snapped, then anger

would come, for a moment, before it with a new line

subsided like the porpoise we saw, diving back

to the depths, its blackish form, escaping from us

then we started again, the lugworm, their soft

bodies, which I hated to touch, the seductive siren

to the fish and crabs, they gyrated in their agony

somewhere in the darkness, suddenly the bites

like the quick steps of a French court suite

here there was not one solid bow of the rod

but tell-tale sign of the mackerel, the trout of the sea

as it took with alarcrity the bait, raced away with it

here I was my own master, as I reeled in this victim

with deft movements, as taught by you, then sight

of its torpedo shape, the brilliant colours of existence

as it splashed and struggled, as it came closer

then with brutality but sureness, you took it from the hook

and dashed it against the hull, then it was no more

but something to be gutted and prepared for freezer

after its death, you hurried to your rod, for now it twinged

a sign that the two of us could go home with honour

of sorts, not that you minded if you did not catch anything

but I did, because if a son feels a sadness, that his father

cannot be better than him in everything, which is nothing

like the tragedies of Sophocles or Shakespeare, revenged

sons take the throne, or in Freud transfer of the love object,

no in plain terms, we were at one, as father and son

and this was for a second time, my poetic subject.

Optimistic

saw a storm in the slightest precipitation,

I saw the end of the world in a car backfire

I saw failure in the first mistake, I saw defeat

in the success: they would never make it,

I knew that they would never ever win,

I put a curse on a certain prime minister

and now he is to be for ever comatose

You on the other hand, could always see

the brighter side in your light poetry.

Mornings

Mornings began sleepily with the arms stretched

across the bed, a yawn stifled, and then you

would walk down the stairs, in frames like

the work of Eadweard Muybridge or Marcel Duchamp, I see you descending

each step, your blonde hair in a state of disarray,

and you drowsy and warm, you disappeared

into the succession of mornings.

The Shrine

You can climb up the pine decorated islet,

along a perilous steep slope to the very top

where there would be a lonely shrine

with a thick sacred rope that bisected that

which was spiritual and natural from the mundane

but you did not have to climb such a summit

you needed only to put on that particular CD

and he would take you into another plane

where I was to be excluded for an eternity.

Lies

Once one is spun, then another is undone,

so then another is started, and then another parted,

so it goes on this web of deceit, and as in the apartment

of a recluse like Miss Haversham, they begin to collect

and obscure the wedding table; they cling and stick

to the clothing, and as you go about they after awhile

begin to show, everyone can see now the strands on your body.

Autobiography

You are never in your poetry, and I am always present

like Hitchcock, I simply must be there to be the auteur,

claim this is my Art, of course it will put off the masses,

to have this amateur always popping up in the middle

of a nature poem, or even in the midst of a battle scene

like Kilroy - so with Stephen, yet one cannot be sure

if I am me, and indeed that you my darling are her.

Today the Weather will be cold...

guy goes into an inconveniece store

and asks for some soap, and the old

guy in the back shouts is there anymore

and the guy in the front replies I told

you I wanted some salmon and coke

and the guy in the back says we are sold

out of all the shoe polish, come back

on Thursday, and the guy begins to fold

his newspaper, and shouts off the rack

and another guy comes to the threshold

he sees one guy with a gun and grey mac,

the weather today will be rainy and cold.

Five minute poem while waiting for the bus

Would it not be wonderful

to somehow live without

a single tweet, or the chirp

of the telephone, the burp

of the sms, it would be full

of silence, and would it not

be an exercise of great courage

to say enough, say stop

information in the flow

and have nothing but thought

of the eternal being of now

in a New Age kind of way

and if you could manage

to keep and stay offline

you are in all probability

a Ghost on this the Eve

of Halloween - tweet, chirp, burp, hello how have you been?"

Martial type poem Men & Sex

Men are so robotic in matters of sex

they seek the simple in what is complex

they work at the spot for only so long

before they need a coffee break

then after the pause for air, or for a muscle,

they look at you as if you are in the wrong

I do not know what is going on, I gave it my Max!

At which point you had enough and can't relax!

He proceeds with his duty, but not for long

You try to get him to be precise, there is a tussle

and unilaterally as if it were a natural reflex

he is now having his way "nice and hard"

You gave in to him, just as you have to pay tax

he is excited and reaches his balance score card

you unfortunately have nothing but a blank.

This is the man who tells his mates he can go for hours

as long as he remembers to buy her some cheap flowers

But in reality, he says over a beer, he prefers a quick w**k,

Such is his deep understanding of the feminine mystique