Inspired by Byron (Don Juan)
FIFTEEN
It is certain, else I would never write
And risk your boredom and your putting down
This volume, and removing it from sight.
Certain, whether you are rustic or in town,
If you’re midday thirty or the night
Of forty plus, the past will have you down,
In dim and distant memory (or clear),
As being fifteen once upon a year.
To us fifteen is moody and best left
To pout and cope with all its stormy swings.
At least living was on fire and not bereft
Of sense: suicidal if no phone rings.
Insult is murder and unkind words are theft.
They hover in the brain then obstinately cling,
Obsessing our young thoughts and turning sour
The sweetest dreams - for nearly half an hour.
No wonder that to them, by “them” I mean the teens,
Anyone of twenty years or more is dead.
Especially effete are those in jeans,
Worn with a jacket and a shaven head.
And worse (to them) are those cringing
in-betweens
Who swear they grasp the drift of every grunt that’s said.
The young are cosy when they can despise
In comfort all oldies and their empty eyes.
and again inspired by Byron :
LUNCH
The story starts – to my purpose and intent-
One office lunch hour: time out of mind,
For follies, dreams, frustrations and well-meant
Meetings of both sober and the drunken kind:
When business men with hours and funds
mis-spent,
Out bore each other and delude themselves to find…
Well, nothing, if the truth be boldly told.
And I’m as bad: my story has gone cold.
Two parties to this slow unfolding tale:
The one a lady, in both thought and deed;
The other not quite gentleman but male.
Dramatic it would be (but there’s a need
For truth) to say they’d never met: I’d fail
If it were not made clear – they’d passed at speed
And seen each other well enough at times
With ‘hi’, ‘hallo’ and awkward waving mimes.
This once they lingered with split concentrations
Around some bookshelves. Edging ever nearer,
At last they spoke – but so full of reservations
That a listener would beg to have things clearer.
A bad novelist would refer to ‘palpitations’.
Beneath the talk of ‘tokens’, ‘cheap’ and ‘dearer’
There lurked the spectre of unseen excitement:
Romantic thoughts: what had “fancy a bite?” meant?
EXTREMES
(Inspired by Alexander Pope, or on second thoughts more by Byron!)
We can succeed, or at least we get along,
In knowing very right from very wrong.
We usually distinguish black from white
And huge from miniature at once on sight.
To emphasise the point ad nauseam
And bellow to the world because I am
So certain of my ground in this respect,
And will have no-one show it disrespect,
We see all these: the faster out of snail
And cheetah; and which most free: in jail
Or roaming on a tamed wild, coastal hill;
That a muscled athlete is not quite as ill
As a leper nearing the welcome end
Of a tapering life; and, finally to send
The message to complete my mission,
That less dishonest than a politician
Is almost anyone, it has to be admitted.
I doubt the cap could ever be more fitted.
Extremes are easy, and are quickly seen,
Impenetrable is the in-between:
All grey and doubtful, but so is human life.
So why the intense toil and zealous strife
To define, label, box and then set out
The indefinable limits of what it’s all about?
A line has to be drawn to mark a base?
But each person’s line is in a different place.
Inspired by Alexander Pope
THE VISITORS
Many there are who neither mind nor care
For history or religion, but still spare
Some precious time away from daily tasks
To gape in churches, hid in pious masks:
Frowning at tombs with death respecting awe,
Shuffling at the altar, praying for the door.
With thoughts of congregation, God will send
A priest to smile: “Come here on Sunday, friend.”
With vacant stare on yet another plaque
They’ll mutter “Yes”. They’ll go and not come back.
Inspired by Alexander Pope
THE VISITORS
Many there are who neither mind nor care
For history or religion, but still spare
Some precious time away from daily tasks
To gape in churches, hid in pious masks:
Frowning at tombs with death respecting awe,
Shuffling at the altar, praying for the door.
With thoughts of congregation, God will send
A priest to smile: “Come here on Sunday, friend.”
With vacant stare on yet another plaque
They’ll mutter “Yes”. They’ll go and not come back.
Inspired by Tennyson
THE STREAM AND YESTERDAY
She sinks upon a thirsty patch
Of grass: near barren and a perfect match
For listless eyes that do not catch
Her own hand make a sterile snatch,
Whilst the heat lulls her to dream.
Sheltered by a willows sorrow
Her present sleeps; there’s no tomorrow;
Only the past from which to borrow
As she gazes at a stream.
But dreams at first will not come near
This dust-parched girl too numb to fear,
Embracing her own sadness dear,
So tight there cannot be one tear
To help her soul to dream.
In the parched heat of an autumn day,
When even pap’ry leaves don’t play,
And the wind for rain is far away,
Still she gazes at the stream.
No other liquid can she see,
Just that which dallies lingeringly
Below the bank beneath her knee
Rippling her feet invitingly:
She cares no more to dream.
First wanting but then not receiving,
Her need replaced by wide perceiving
That strips her thought of all believing:
At last she sees the stream.
And as a late-stirred breeze unfurls
Its breath to play with languid curls,
Her mind in heaving madness whirls,
And conjures ghosts of watery girls
That tell her she must dream.
Then floats a past of pleasures flown,
And little glories once her own.
She longs to reap the seeds she’s sown,
But sleeps forever in the stream.
THE UNSYNCHRONISED SWIMMER
The moon-boned swimmer sighs
and sees her greased and lipstuck hours
sink to the rocky weed strung floor
of every seventh sea.
No smile can upturn on the painted skull
or sleek repellent hair or change
the skyward statue of her undanced feet
and all her frozen motions.
Straighten the shiny sinew, arrowing the stars,
invisible in the blue-hazed, sun-drowned sky;
unsporting is the head beneath the waves:
the donkey hours repeated just to mock.
Easier to burst a lung than splash prejudice away,
To strain to fail, and miss the lovely boat;
And dance the past with grief that never comes.
Seven rippled heads and
one calm water.