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note: all poems are protected by copyright davidgoulding 2011
LOCKED
Only things you never did go with you when you’re dead
Mistakes, successes, failures equally remain
Try to remember words that never have been said?
Stalled writers throw dismembered novels in gagged dread
Of scathing criticism with cruel smiles scanned on the train
Only things you never did go with you when you’re dead
Silent lovers stare, fret, even dream an empty bed.
Without approach or moves they unwillingly abstain.
Try to remember words that never have been said?
Friends and family may recall some of the path you tread
But, untrodden, these journeys cannot touch another brain
Only things you never did go with you when you’re dead
Worse is the phrase that sadly is misheard, misread
And worst the unhealed hurt from failure to explain
Try to remember words that never have been said
Reserve is praised, but if it locks your spirit in your head
Then no-one knows, will ever know: it's fading mist again
Only things you never did go with you when you’re dead
Try to remember words that never have been said?
RUSHES
the rushes whisper verses in the intermittent breeze
sometimes their sighs are like insults, mocks or derision
when my body’s tuned to hear, expect and almost love
the dark nightmares of spring sunshine
there must be times when the rushes
are kind and all still and blameless
but I don’t remember any
short rushes and film clips make my memory
no sagas or unending series on TV
I hesitate but still rush in, foolish and blind:
can’t wait to grab the moment
which slips quickly through my fingers
like the rush of wind from a suddenly opened door
I’m the same as everyone
my rushed life is all imagined and not seeing
DO NOT FEAR
Do not fear the walk
or, walking, the word
Do not dread each step
Or, stepping, the sound
Do not hesitate through the wheat
Or, rustling, the touch
Welcome the grass
And, resting, the melting
The scene is beyond your changing
Have no wish to reshape the fields
When freedom is to move within them
The walk will be love
Each step will be telling
The touch and the melting
Are already ours.
r
The red sun
beckons the black clouds
to cover it’s embarrassment
and begs the warm winds to assist.
The undamaging storm is my friend,
although my cobwebs may be too thick
for even hurricanes to rip.
DIFFERENT
Not liking the same things is fine
Just as long as it doesn’t go all the way down the line.
Films, music, books and especially food:
To attempt to convert would be abortive and rude.
Don’t get me wrong, some tastes we still share,
But it’s not a prerequisite of continuing to care.
It would be more trouble if it turned out to be
That just one of us liked myself – and that one wasn’t me.
BLACK DOG
Black Dog the inexplicable,
Black Dog the acceptable.
The frock-coated were afflicted
and their friends just read the Tatler,
played a little more Quadrille,
drank another brandy
and then wondered in gentility
whom melancholia would next send to infinity.
Depression is analysed,
Depression is not endured.
We strain to explain in ever decreasing circles
the cause, the roots,
the reasons and the cures.
We imbibe, we swallow,
even inject,
take therapy three times a day
and find to our surprise
it goes away.
writer's note: contrary to some rumours or myths, Winston Churchill did not invent this phrase. It was common in the 18th Century, when, especially in autumn, the suicide rate for young English men of respectable families often dramatically increased. This prompted the French to label such melancholia as "La Malade Anglaise". Confusion is added by a counterfeit 18th century coin also being called a Black Dog!
NIGHT WALK
I walked one night in town,
Passed 50 men if they were a day.
Glared past one who hated his wife.
Danced past another in love for the ninth time.
Stared red-eyed at the tv watcher.
Grinned at another without any money.
They all get hungry and eat.
Winked at the suit who’d come from his mistress.
Scowled at the prim one just because it was Sunday.
One was boss-eyed – perhaps I’d been drinking.
Dragged past another who lived like a habit.
They all get thirsty and drink
I jumped past the one who was getting promoted.
Had a job getting past the one with eight children.
I smiled a bit at the man with no clothes on.
And I think I made the man with the dog itch.
They all get frightened and hate
THE HEART TICKS
The heart ticks
whilst no clock beats.
The life moves on
though curtains are drawn,
not caring whether the day-light sun pours bright or filtered
onto north or south,
or is moon-bounced and sickly flickering east or west.
The cell splits
to grow and sub-divide
The organ forms
to be a part of you,
that is itself, in part, a part of swirling gaseous
all or nothing.
And what’s complete then? Never you
who cannot see today the microscopic stars
Or feel the dying atoms of your distant brain.
Then float with the ceaseless movement
and sink with straight-lined circles
and with those spiralled ripples into tiny space.
Do not grieve for lost visions that have never been;
when, after all, you are the abstract movement of an instant comet:
gone before your own arrival.
when daffodils die
when daffodils die
next winter is seen
when crocuses cry
grey suffocates green
when snowdrops flop
swallows pass through
when bluebells drop
snowstorms ensue
as each spring ends
Christmas is there
summer only pretends
autumn is where?
as first youth is lost
old age can be seen:
your prime is a ghost
middle age a has-been
v
SUNSET
Sunset on a guilty day
with no dreams collected.
The fall of night is only the pre-dawn curtain
where resolutions offer sumptuous fairy tales.
Instead:
the morning twitter of sanity:
a black ripple of a shadow on grey water.
The only certainty is drowning in a trivial lake
and coming up for breath again to see the setting sun.