Category: poetry

As ever, my last poem of April for Anannya

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I’ll spare you the metaphors of flowers, we
Are all April phools after all. And I’ll desist
From images of gardens and blooming and
Other such, because this one is for Anannya
But also for all of you – all of us, who resist
The stifling of words, the impossibility of
Poetry. To all the pictures of loveliness
That we have sent each other, I add this,
Of lilies. Because they so proudly proclaim
So shamelessly confess to their beauty.
Like trumpets, each head, triumphant
In its glory – and yet, you can close
Your eyes and breathe in its story. Each
Unique, each like its other, they are a
Cluster of gratitude, a world together.

The lily and the amaltas – a May Day labour of love

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Fill your lungs with marvel, a wonder
Full of exaltation. To breathe
Each open red heart into your own
A kind of beatitude. They toil not
Nor do they spin yet which of us is
Freed from this sin. I have other
Places I want to be and other flowers
I need to see other labours
That beckon to me so far away
Unreachable so deeply lodged within.
Hours spent in the work of hands when
Other homes and other lands bloom
Yellow, gold, and shades of fire.
Give me an ecstasy of scents or
Bring me a fiery magnificence
But grant me no special beneficence
From this cleaving desire.

Vista

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 :a pleasing view;
:a mental vision of a succession of remembered or anticipated events.

The dignity of lamps lights them still
Even when felled. The freshly dug pits
Receive them with the compassion of
A mass grave for unaccommodated
Humankind. Their roots do not flail
Naked, expelled from earthy homes.
Their heads do not bow, bending and
Leafy, green amidst sandstone
Domes. No cry no shout no wail
Of iron links sundered from brass
Headed rail no sound of an ending.
So silent, this raising of dust in the
Awkward extraction of the mighty
Stout-as-stone heart of a nation.
Where grief, quiet as smoke,
Stands sentinel, asking neither
Elegy nor pity for the vast cremation
Ground that is this city.

On letting my kid go to the volcano from which she brought back fresh lava

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It hurts you when you hold it. Resentful
Of your thin skin your nerves that scream
Your wondering fingertips wincing
Along crevices. Not ready to take its place
As a hard sharp thing. Birth is difficult, the clean
Hot liquid womb a descent full of forcing
Out. And however cautiously you brace
Yourself, children are so hard to set
Free. Distrustful of your squeamish care.
So beautiful it hurts when your forge it.
In this almost-Spring, a hammering out
In the smithy of creating, a laying bare.

On reading Yeats suddenly

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I don’t much mind grey pavements. The sun
Is not the fiercest of my gods and I have many.
Alters abound about me where deities of various
Hue are summoned and when my prayers are done
They cluster about me. You might call it my
Bee-loud glade. Obeisance paid and worship due
Are the quiet desperation of battles hard-won.
Unmoored, deep-mired, sweet-sung, self-sired,
You are the way and the wayfarer and the tired
Kindness of strangers is sometimes the only boon
Granted. So we could arise, we could go now, but until
Peace comes dropping slow, perhaps some goddess
Of fire will rain yearning upon these pavements
Grey and in those pooling lakes we will build
Our cities of desire to guide the way.

Zen and the Art of Smelly Sock Placement

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It isn’t just that among the tulips, the matching
Napkins and scented candles, the wedding
China and newly shined floors, I left
Yesterday’s socks in my fancy artwork bowl.
Or even that in all the conversation amongst
Crystal and wine, silk frocks and fine
Cuisines, the subject of clothing and feet
Never once arose. Invite your guests
With care, my friend, but even this moral,
Howsoever neat, is not the regenerative end
Of this Easter tale. I’m hardly a novice at
The epic fail, but I’ll tell you this: if you arrange
Your evening like a still-life, every spoon
And plate, cushion and salad fork and knife
In intimate accord almost musical, the memento
Mori that keeps it real is, of all things beautiful
And true, the most brutally essential.

The Voices in my Head

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Are so often from pages of books

That I have read. Somewhere in my 

Youth or childhood, no doubt, spent

Buried in other people’s words rather

Than  bringing the hills alive springing

About gamboling as a lamb to the 

Tabor’s sound making my own rhythm

And rhyme. Twain’s best thoughts, he said,

Were stolen by the ancients, but mine

Are couched and cast in the impeccable

Words of the wise in my literary past. How

Then should I begin, as TSE asks, in this

Spencerian month of the death of the Bard and 

So many others. It’s a mercy, perhaps, to

Think in more than one language. It’s hard

Enough to have English masterminded by

Bards with songs already sung. What a relief

That my kids are scolded only in their 

Mother tongue.

Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Corona

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It isn’t just the my right eyelid twitches

Or that sleep is a rumour started by people

Who could probably be found snoring standing

Up or in the middle of lunch or by the roadside

In ditches. It isn’t even that I don’t enjoy

Making Nonograms fifteen by fifteen in bed

At 2am or 4 or somewhere in between. It’s also

Not a huge deal that that my eyes get heavy and 

I sometimes collapse headfirst into a meal. It’s

Just that sleep is supposed to knit the raveled sleeve

Of care and maybe its twiddling the knitting needles

Over its thumbs because it can’t find the wool 

Of the lamb that is worried threadbare.

Dearly Beloved

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We are gathered here in spirit and in

Spirit only. The body of death eludes us

Now as it promises to do after the 

Holding close denied the heart. This

Holding apart of love and death, this

Mourning denied the touch of breath,

This burying of presence, this closing

Of the eyes howsoever brief, this 

Standing before the burning pyres

Of the cleaved body of grief is gathered

Here, in our empty hands, dearly beloved,

Gathered here. Our empty hands.