Category: poetry

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. 

Twelve

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– not a number you associate with 

The age of the dead. Four hundred – not a 

Measure of kilometres you think of as lying 

Ahead. Hundreds of thousands – an amount

That exceeds the space in my mind, so many

Hearts beating that when one of them burst, even

Its silence seems impossible to find. How do we

Claim to think of ourselves as one, a number

So invisible that we may never know its kind.

How will we account for fares unrefunded,

Trains unboarded, homes unreached, the lives

Discounted, the peace unbreathed, the pity

Unspoken. One, a number divisible only by itself

On every step of every long march home 

Lies broken.

April is the [your poem here] month

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Disastrous as it was, it happened in April

Insignificant as it seems, I saw it in April. Cool

As she always is, I met her in April; fun

As it is each time, this time it was done

In April; breathtaking as it appears in the mornings

This morning was a morning in April. Myth-making

Sense-waking voice-breaking choice taking

Tree-shaking leaf-raking only happens when every

Branch gifts a leaf in the pages of poetry that

Pile at your feet that you scatter with your

Pen in the verse-shattered sheet that is April.

The Curious Case of the Incident in the Kitchen

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Such a good word, ‘supine’. I 

Thought about that, sighing, as I 

Felt the bones uncrack, the muscles

Unscream, the nerves unjangle, 

Stretched out my crumpled spine,

Happy to finally uncurve my back. Of

Course, that is when the kitchen chose

To attack. First I heard the mixie whirr – 

The younger was there pottering and I

Seriously thought it had helicoptered away

With her. I ignored it. The demand on my

Supined Self was high, and I couldn’t afford it.

Then came the shrieks and squawks, the splash

The spill. I mean, forget explosive, we’re talking

Chernobyl. 

Long story short, it was everywhere. Banana mango

Ooze on counter, cabinet, oven and chair, gloop

Underfoot and glops in the hair, and the wailing

At the loss of labour and shake too much to bear.

The family wonders now why the kitchen is shining.

I wonder what happened to my plans of supining.

Lullaby for whoever needs it (to the tune of ‘Greensleeves’)

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Anxiety, you do me wrong,
To task me so discourteously
For I have shunned you, oh so long
Undesiring of your company.

Deep sleep is all I want,
Deep sleep here in my bed
Deep sleep would be nice right now
So please get out of my head.

If you think you and I are friends,
I can’t say that I blame you
But this is where our friendship ends
Don’t make me up and shame you.

Anxiety, you’re meant to be
A sign of dysfunctionality
Anxiety, oh don’t you see
No fun is had in your society.

So Anxiety, farewell, adieu
There’s other words that I won’t use
But one begins with an F and you
Will hear it if you refuse.

Anxiety, if you were me
You’d find someone else to do
And I would find somewhere else to be
Anxiety, if I were you.