A poem: The Visit.

The Visit.

Again! The question made and answered same
tho' answer, provèd true, was heard in vain.
And more! O words unvary'd, yet shot anew with pain.
Should dotage be, shall I not wish myself remain.

PM

A poem: Three Early Memories, 1974. Also, a dream.

Three Early Memories, 1974.

Sat fast, high-chaired
as shattered shell
scattered, fell, then lay beyond grasp. Scared;
they couldn't hear me yell.

The screaming, unreasoning.
Faceted yet unreadable,
gliding and sliding without hurry,
in single-file, silvery
(both hunter and quarry).

One last show, then it's time to sleep.
Tired boy, tries his best to keep
awake, can barely raise his head.
No matter; carried easily off to bed.
Lights out on the Christmas tree.
Oh, what happened to you?
Whatever happened to me?

A dream.

The date on the discarded local newspaper was Thursday, October 17^th 1974, but the paper was damp and had been trodden on several times. Furthermore, the lack of traffic at what I guessed from the twilight to be about 6pm suggested a day of closed shops and no work. Sunday, the 20^th October, 1974, then. 

I walked down the hill, marvelling at the old buildings that were standing, soon to be demolished — and the newness of the ones that I grew up only to know as old seventies constructions. The fields in the gaps between the houses looked identical to how they would appear to me when I’d smoke on the benches there as a lad in my twenties. 

Finally, as the dark enclosed me, I stood outside my home. I looked admiringly at my father’s cherry red Daimler in the garage, its length rendering the garage doors uncloseable. Through the leaded glass in the front door, I saw the kindly light on in the hall, heard my father’s voice, clear and confident from somewhere within. 

I was afraid to knock on the door. Somehow I felt he would know who I was and be frightened by it. 


PM

Captain Scott: a poem.

I am moving house at the moment. While disinterring and transferring all kinds of things from boxes perhaps best left unopened, I found a folder full of poems and other bits of writing dating back to the early Nineties. This poem comes from 1993, so I was probably 21 at the time. Forgive me. 

Captain Scott

Ill with ‘flu and lying in bed one day

I was struck by an alarming thought

about the final entry in the diary

of Captain Robert Falcon Scott:

“Had we lived I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman.”

The story that hitherto for me was legend

suddenly took a human turn of thought

as I realised I could never comprehend

the feelings that could make a man write

not of regret at a lost chance of glory

but his life in past tense before he was dead. 

PM

Between 6AM and seven: a poem

Between 6AM and seven. 

For one moment

(and maybe more than one)

everything — the potential — is yours.

The Emperor of dreams, fading

the King of silence, preceding

a Prince of darkness, diminishing

the Lord of birds, awakening

a Knight of day, dawning

squire of a squirrel, enquiring

scullion, cook, fast-breaking

your humble servant, counting

courting

and lightening the hour.

PM

These are the things that cause confusion: an anti-poem.

These are the things that cause confusion.

When people

with pretensions

write phrases

that are short

and stacked

the one

on top

of the other

so that when

you read it

the breaks

create pauses

that get

mistaken

for gravity

and then 

call it ‘poetry’

we’re in trouble.

PM

Oh well, whenever: a poem

Oh well, whenever.

Your single-worded message,

the frown in sympathy,

even a kiss within a dream

elicits a breath unbidden, sharply caught.

A reaction more erotic

than anything thought.

PM

Block: a poem

Because when the music isn't coming, words are all there is... 


Block.

The passion, dissipated,

contemplates indolence.

The doleful absence,

a sense of hiatus

and high dudgeon

and does no good. 

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