tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-206192452024-03-08T04:52:17.191-08:00Poetry by Robin HillPoetry by Robin HillBananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.comBlogger340125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-16088269604735390362022-12-18T22:17:00.003-08:002022-12-18T22:17:35.939-08:00Famous Men<div style="text-align: left;">One rule for us, one rule for them.</div><div>That’s how we cope with famous men.</div><div><br /></div><div>At age thirteen, they drew a scene</div><div>of Venice with its Grand Canal.</div><div>By fifteen, they had met the Queen,</div><div>had fucked Mae West and Gore Vidal.</div><div><br /></div><div>At twenty one they’re having fun</div><div>with Alice Toklas on the Seine,</div><div>then off they go to Mexico.</div><div>They hopped the Albuquerque train.</div><div><br /></div><div>By twenty two they owned a zoo</div><div>and sailed beam-ends to Borneo,</div><div>sat in with Miles on Kind of Blue,</div><div>composed an oratorio.</div><div><br /></div><div>At twenty four, they went and saw</div><div>the Hindenburg come crashing down,</div><div>then fought the Spanish Civil War;</div><div>knew Orwell, Hemingway and Pound.</div><div><br /></div><div>At twenty eight, they found a mate.</div><div>They took a princess for a wife.</div><div>With two plays opening at the Gate</div><div>they settled in to Dublin life.</div><div><br /></div><div>At thirty four, another war!</div><div>They’re on the beaches on D-Day.</div><div>They’re liberating Sobibor</div><div>and flying on Enola Gay.</div><div><br /></div><div>They joined the nascent OSS,</div><div>assassinated diplomats,</div><div>beat commies at a game of chess</div><div>on Berlin Alexanderplatz.</div><div><br /></div><div>At thirty six, they got a fix</div><div>with Burroughs at the Beat Hotel,</div><div>sold Berber jewels to hippy fools</div><div>at Maxims with Coco Chanel</div><div><br /></div><div>and in Jamaica, took the sun,</div><div>a novelist at forty one,</div><div>a chocolatier by forty three;</div><div>they’re in the car with Kennedy.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then Christmas nineteen sixty three,</div><div>they turn their hand to poetry.</div><div>It’s simple, fun and worldly wise</div><div>and wins the fucking Nobel Prize</div><div><br /></div><div>and then begin the salad days,</div><div>the soaking up of endless praise,</div><div>the selling-out for millions,</div><div>the literary brilliance…</div><div><br /></div><div>and now I turn to my own life -</div><div>a dog, three children and a wife.</div><div>It all seems petty, routine, small.</div><div>as though I sleepwalked through it all.</div><div><br /></div><div>While others travelled wild highways,</div><div>I settled for mere holidays.</div><div>They seemed to live a hundred lives -</div><div>ten children, half a dozen wives.</div><div>They met with passion each sunrise</div><div>while every dawn I compromise.</div><div><br /></div><div>So much time I feel I wasted.</div><div>So much spice I never tasted.</div><div>All the chances I have missed.</div><div>My whole life’s on my bucket list.</div><div><br /></div><div>I try to think I’m happy now</div><div>and justify myself somehow;</div><div>those other men had different tools</div><div>and played their game by different rules.</div><div>They had more fun. They did more stuff</div><div>but I suppose I’ve done enough.</div><div>That’s how we cope with famous men.</div><div>One rule for us, one rule for them.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-86475240373892653372022-12-18T22:13:00.004-08:002022-12-18T22:13:19.032-08:00A Gift From the Sun<div style="text-align: left;">Your father taught you how to change a tyre</div><div>and how to fall and climb back to your feet.</div><div>The spark he breathed on grew into a fire.</div><div>I held it for an instant and the heat</div><div>rewarmed the frozen sun inside of me;</div><div>a star which spins alone in empty space,</div><div>that tiny unseen singularity:</div><div>the lover’s heart beneath a father’s face.</div><div>Now gravity is pulling us apart</div><div>and draws us back towards our hearths and homes.</div><div>Your fire flies to warm another heart</div><div>while I shall supernova on my own</div><div>for Nova always stands for what is new</div><div>and I am old and old dreams don’t come true.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-30251592770341003952022-12-15T15:33:00.002-08:002022-12-15T15:33:37.976-08:00The Story<div style="text-align: left;"><div>There’s a story I have to tell.</div><div><br /></div><div>In galleries we stand alone</div><div>to watch the angels holding hands.</div><div>We finance more machine gun nests,</div><div>proclaim ourselves the self-made man.</div><div>With golden hearts in burning fields </div><div>we talk about the gorgeous flame.</div><div>When alleycats play cards with mice,</div><div>we all pretend we’d do the same.</div><div><br /></div><div>In blinding light toward the sun,</div><div>we search for Heaven one by one</div><div>as though our life’s a race to win</div><div>and fellowship’s a mortal sin</div><div>as every leaf shakes loose its tree</div><div>and every lonely honeybee</div><div>looks happier than you or me</div><div>but none of that is true. You see,</div><div>there’s a story I have to tell.</div><div><br /></div><div>Your toaster says you are alone.</div><div>Your money says you are alone.</div><div>Your trainers say you are alone</div><div>but there’s a story I have to tell:</div><div>that every heart you’ve ever known</div><div>is just like yours. You’re not alone</div><div>and every hearth and every home</div><div>is somewhere you can call your own.</div><div><br /></div><div>So let’s hold hands and try once more</div><div>to find the rose above the door.</div><div>As time unravels, we’ll ignore</div><div>the smiles of those who won’t explore</div><div>or come together; who cannot see</div><div>that I am you and you are me.</div></div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-32105527964258216862022-12-15T15:29:00.005-08:002022-12-15T15:29:51.638-08:00The Dream<div style="text-align: left;">I held you in my dream last night -</div><div>a dream of overwhelming bliss.</div><div>Two lovers in the fading light,</div><div>I stole your heart. You stole a kiss.</div><div><br /></div><div>A dream of overwhelming bliss</div><div>that made me sorry when I woke.</div><div>You stole my heart. I stole a kiss</div><div>then watched you fade and my heart broke.</div><div><br /></div><div>That made me sorry when I woke</div><div>and so I chased you back to sleep</div><div>but watched you fade and my heart broke.</div><div>I’d held you tight and kissed you deep</div><div><br /></div><div>and so I chased you back to sleep</div><div>and found you there at midnight’s stroke.</div><div>I held you tight and kissed you deep</div><div>and found you with me when I woke.</div><div><br /></div><div>I found you there at midnight’s stroke.</div><div>I’d held you in my dream last night</div><div>then found you with me when I woke,</div><div>two lovers in the fading light.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-69176626592402348342022-12-15T15:28:00.003-08:002022-12-15T15:28:17.453-08:00Devil’s Night<div style="text-align: left;">Tonight the Devil’s here and God is small -</div><div>a night for sinners who have never sinned</div><div>and out there in the dark I hear your call -</div><div>the welcome gift of words placed in the wind.</div><div>You sigh another spell, oh sorceress</div><div>whose magic echoes somewhere in the night,</div><div>and wear your darkness as an evening dress -</div><div>it falls in waves to keep you out of sight.</div><div>Yet from your throne of skulls and ragged fur</div><div>tonight I hear you whispering for me</div><div>to cast my spell, to be your whisperer</div><div>of things the lighted world must never see.</div><div>I sing this song to darkness and I pray</div><div>this devil’s night shall never yield to day.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-8693312872927162902022-12-15T15:14:00.005-08:002022-12-15T15:14:49.271-08:00The Mummy<div style="text-align: left;">Forget for once the stupid mummy’s curse,</div><div>that lame-brain bane of Egyptology,</div><div>for mummies have to deal with something worse:</div><div>our ignorance of their chronology.</div><div>I know you know in abstract that Egypt</div><div>was long ago and went on for a while</div><div>but did you know that Tutankhamun’s crypt</div><div>got covered up by flooding from the Nile</div><div>a thousand years before the Romans came?</div><div>Or that the Sphinx was more removed in time</div><div>from Cleopatra’s Ptolemaic reign</div><div>than Cleo is from me writing this rhyme?</div><div>I’m hoping that these fourteen lines of verse</div><div>might go some way to lift the mummy’s curse.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-44467179976745597422022-12-15T15:13:00.004-08:002022-12-15T15:13:17.783-08:00The Fox<div style="text-align: left;">The snow drifts down like gently falling stars</div><div>as cars illuminate a cardboard box.</div><div>I know this town will leave its mental scars</div><div>but scars become this sleeping urban fox.</div><div>His dream brings him an image of a girl,</div><div>a swirl of words surrounding her in streams;</div><div>extreme emotions gradually unfurl</div><div>and curl around them both in both their dreams.</div><div>For somewhere in the night you’re sleeping too</div><div>and you are dreaming of the urban fox.</div><div>You somehow need the fox to dream of you</div><div>those nights you want to curl up in his box.</div><div>When snow is falling from the sky above</div><div>you know this sly old fox will dream of love.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-16701054000688110162022-12-15T15:11:00.005-08:002022-12-15T15:11:51.985-08:00White Lunar<div style="text-align: left;">The more I see of you the more I miss</div><div>the hand I cannot hold, the more I see</div><div>that we shall never lean in for a kiss;</div><div>the more I see how much you’re missing me.</div><div><br /></div><div>I am that lesser bird</div><div>who paints in blots and clots,</div><div>who paints the blood-soaked moon</div><div>upon your door.</div><div><br /></div><div>You break into my poetry again</div><div>decode a line of sanguine semaphore.</div><div>“The more I see of you the more I miss”</div><div>then briefly, softly, sadly speak my name.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-44000238377809985122022-12-15T15:10:00.004-08:002022-12-15T15:10:20.095-08:00Quatrains<div style="text-align: left;">Her portrait forged in fog and smoke -</div><div>a dancer dancing just for me.</div><div>The gentle taps of her pen stroke</div><div>echo metronomically.</div><div><br /></div><div>The withered leaf, the nightly pain -</div><div>November brings her some relief.</div><div>She listens and transcribes the rain -</div><div>her symphony, her masterpiece.</div><div><br /></div><div>And in my hand I find a note</div><div>which she has written long ago:</div><div>“Don’t love me but don’t love me not.</div><div>Don’t hold on but don’t let go.”</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-50791253870936832972022-12-15T15:05:00.006-08:002022-12-15T15:05:54.757-08:00Grace<div style="text-align: left;">Those lunatics who stare into the sun</div><div>or shriek at pigeons in the local park</div><div>are childhood friends who we have left behind</div><div>when all the games they played stopped being fun.</div><div>We know they wander somewhere in the dark</div><div>but keep them out of sight and out of mind.</div><div>We eye them cautiously when passing by,</div><div>say ‘There but for the grace of God go I’</div><div>as though God chose us as His favoured son</div><div>and opted for His other son to die.</div><div>We notice as the ambulances come</div><div>and yet we never stop to wonder why</div><div>we didn’t help or what we might have done</div><div>instead of looking down and walking by.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-70766521801807552452022-12-15T15:04:00.005-08:002022-12-15T15:04:35.145-08:00Love Affair<div style="text-align: left;">I write these lines as if in prayer -</div><div>on bended knee, I choose a pair</div><div>of rhymes I think will be okay</div><div>and suitable for smart wordplay.</div><div>This endless game of solitaire</div><div>is one I play with savoir-faire</div><div>and, though I see you’ve ceased to care</div><div>what unloved online poets say,</div><div>I write these lines.</div><div><br /></div><div>I’ll call this rondeau ‘Love Affair’</div><div>and post it here without fanfare.</div><div>It’s not a prayer and yet I pray</div><div>you’ll notice your sad protégée</div><div>and understand that in despair</div><div>I write these lines.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-11051237077224260172022-12-15T15:00:00.008-08:002022-12-15T15:00:53.496-08:00The Fox<div style="text-align: left;">The snow drifts down like gently falling stars</div><div>as cars illuminate a cardboard box.</div><div>I know this town will leave its mental scars</div><div>but scars become this sleeping urban fox.</div><div>His dream brings him an image of a girl,</div><div>a swirl of words surrounding her in streams;</div><div>extreme emotions gradually unfurl</div><div>and curl around them both in both their dreams.</div><div>For somewhere in the night you’re sleeping too</div><div>and you are dreaming of the urban fox.</div><div>You somehow need the fox to dream of you</div><div>those nights you want to curl up in his box.</div><div>When snow is falling from the sky above</div><div>you know this sly old fox will dream of love.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-55328875000605620962022-02-10T14:17:00.002-08:002022-02-10T14:17:09.733-08:00The Jester<div style="text-align: left;">The words retreat into a distant place</div><div>and I can’t find a single thing to say.</div><div>All poets must eventually face</div><div>the silence of a thoughtless, wordless day.</div><div>The bull is sleeping, quiet in his shed.</div><div>The peevish lover shrugs and folds his hand.</div><div>The great white shark stopped swimming and is dead.</div><div>My castles have all crumbled into sand.</div><div><br /></div><div>Alone, the jester howls his madcap song</div><div>for he’s the part of me that will not sleep;</div><div>that carries on as though there’s nothing wrong,</div><div>blows raspberries at me when I want to weep.</div><div>I know he is the part of me that’s best</div><div>and yet today I wish he’d let me rest.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-72929776001832448032022-02-10T14:16:00.001-08:002022-02-10T14:16:08.496-08:00The Dreamer<div style="text-align: left;">In poetry we hide our dreams</div><div>so nothing’s ever what it seems</div><div>and though it feels this meter’s tight,</div><div>between these iambs, there’s a fight -</div><div>two lovers sing their sunken themes,</div><div>his songs are whispers, hers are screams;</div><div>she shakes him but he still daydreams</div><div>of endless lovebirds taking flight</div><div>in poetry.</div><div><br /></div><div>She has her sensible routines,</div><div>grows bored of his romantic schemes</div><div>and yet, too often, in the night,</div><div>she dreams of fictions they could write,</div><div>her bedroom lit up with moonbeams</div><div>and poetry.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-11743233981508268652022-02-10T14:14:00.006-08:002022-02-10T14:14:55.413-08:00Night Crawlers<div style="text-align: left;">Inside my dull head</div><div>words whirl out of orbit -</div><div>thoughts buckle together</div><div>centipedes churning</div><div><br /></div><div>parallel lines</div><div>sharp as black flints</div><div>burn as they fall</div><div>rhyming like mirrors</div><div><br /></div><div>the gravity of you</div><div>rearranges a blizzard</div><div>builds a man from the snow</div><div>provides a fresh carrot</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-24061335240303572562022-02-10T14:14:00.002-08:002022-02-10T14:14:14.715-08:00Ophelia<div style="text-align: left;">Ophelia, your burning heart</div><div>gives off more light than heat</div><div>but even though we are apart,</div><div>I hear its mad drumbeat.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ophelia, I do not know</div><div>which of us is insane.</div><div>You beat me up with great gusto</div><div>yet know I love the pain.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ophelia, I think you’re great.</div><div>You handed me a match</div><div>and told me to self-immolate</div><div>so you could hide and watch.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ophelia, my burning love</div><div>gives off more heat than light.</div><div>I hope that it is just enough</div><div>for you to think I’m bright.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ophelia, you will not drown</div><div>if you come swim with me.</div><div>Instead, together, we’ll sink down</div><div>in love and poetry.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-70640569257668944302022-02-10T14:13:00.004-08:002022-02-10T14:13:32.855-08:00The Contents of this Sonnet<div style="text-align: left;">It’s fourteen lines, ten syllables in each.</div><div>It has its turn, obeys those ancient rules</div><div>reluctant boys don’t listen to in schools</div><div>but there are many things you cannot teach -</div><div>the meanings hidden deep beneath the words,</div><div>the things which just the two of us can see,</div><div>the secret story told of you and me.</div><div>The words themselves are for the fucking birds</div><div>who only see the beads and not the thread;</div><div>who hear the meter, not the beating heart.</div><div>They only understand what can be read</div><div>and even if they tore these words apart</div><div>they would not ever see what goes unsaid:</div><div>you’re always at the centre of my art.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-73513463929203477292022-02-10T14:12:00.003-08:002022-02-10T14:12:40.373-08:00To Bang a Nail<div style="text-align: left;">I see a nail, I bang it in.</div><div>I contemplate the daily news.</div><div>A steady hand, a jutted chin,</div><div>and when I listen to the Blues,</div><div>I only hear a strummed guitar</div><div>and some old black guy wailing.</div><div>I drive a boring family car.</div><div>How I love to bang a nail in!</div><div><br /></div><div>But now I’ve read some poetry,</div><div>deep water is disturbed somewhere -</div><div>I watch the wind dance in a tree</div><div>and find I’m thinking of your hair</div><div>and how it dances in the breeze.</div><div>My steady hand begins to shake -</div><div>Why should I stop to look at trees?</div><div>Why does the Blues make my heart break?</div><div><br /></div><div>And in a rose I see your face,</div><div>each passing cloud’s a ship in sail.</div><div>I find I’m staring into space.</div><div>Ah, who has time to bang a nail?</div><div>For now I find I’m writing too -</div><div>at least one poem every day.</div><div>Ignoring what I ought to do,</div><div>reality drifts far away.</div><div><br /></div><div>It gradually occurs to me,</div><div>as all these clouds go sailing by,</div><div>I’ve lost my mind to poetry</div><div>and when I hear the Blues, I cry.</div><div>Perhaps this is the poets’ curse?</div><div>A fragile mind of grief and woe</div><div>which feeds on chaos for its verse.</div><div>I think of Plath or Lowell or Poe</div><div>whose dismal stories are so sad.</div><div>What spectres were they fighting?</div><div>Did writing poems drive them mad</div><div>or does madness drive the writing?</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-2957811723283811612022-02-10T14:11:00.010-08:002022-02-10T14:11:54.834-08:00The Birds<div style="text-align: left;">I’ve been in love too long</div><div>with a scoop of empty air</div><div>to hear a voice that isn’t there</div><div>sing tumultuous birdsong.</div><div><br /></div><div>A bird poised at the edge of a wood</div><div>made everything a toy.</div><div>She slit her own throat, singing,</div><div>to beguile a passing boy.</div><div><br /></div><div>He bent to dip a feather</div><div>in a drop of her spilled blood</div><div>but when he came to write of her</div><div>the words flowed out as mud.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have been swallowed by my own heart,</div><div>sober and fever-less at last</div><div>and everywhere</div><div>confused crows on windowsills</div><div>contemplate tapping.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-34680799101749902982022-01-30T14:35:00.005-08:002022-01-30T14:35:55.197-08:00King of Shadows<div style="text-align: left;">He spoke to me down where the wild thyme grows:</div><div>‘Good fellow, do my bidding in the night.</div><div>Return before the randy rooster crows</div><div>at the dismal dullness of midsummer’s light’.</div><div>So down I danced and heard a silly song</div><div>sung by an actor who seemed asinine</div><div>(perhaps I have remembered this all wrong</div><div>but he looked to me just like old Kevin Kline).</div><div>Then as I crept down past the eglantine</div><div>I spied a sight that stilled my rowdy heart:</div><div>a fairy on a bank of celandine</div><div>with something puckish troubling her heart.</div><div>I know that our two hearts should never rhyme</div><div>though we both know they syncopate in time.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-3119108562987373232022-01-30T14:34:00.005-08:002022-01-30T14:34:55.072-08:00Elephant<div style="text-align: left;">I choose the wine -</div><div>a glass of sweat between us</div><div>like Diana’s Mirror,</div><div>her sunken wrecks</div><div>the shoes kicked off by giants</div><div>in stupid violent history.</div><div><br /></div><div>You wear the tablecloth -</div><div>‘Friends Romans Countrymen’</div><div>and my SS officer, heels tutting,</div><div>salutes the pepper pot.</div><div>My smile is carried at the speed of light.</div><div>You giggle at the speed of sound.</div><div><br /></div><div>After the salad and tsunami,</div><div>Siamese twins joined at their junk</div><div>totter across a car park,</div><div>pirouetting around kisses,</div><div>punching puddles,</div><div>hunting tigers with an elephant gun.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the barnyard of the night,</div><div>beneath a gibbous moon,</div><div>we become drunk piglets</div><div>between each other’s legs.</div><div>A conch mouth roughness glows</div><div>smooth with a single breath.</div><div><br /></div><div>See how that fingertip reddens -</div><div>all blood where it belongs.</div><div>Inhaling distaff wisdom</div><div>at the true edge of the world,</div><div>two thieves nail themselves to the same cross,</div><div>broken backed and screaming.</div><div><br /></div><div>In a pinprick of silence,</div><div>you place your exquisite hand</div><div>into the willing glove of my throat,</div><div>cradle the raw egg of my heart -</div><div>that spoonful of not very much</div><div>and squeeze.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-66179928030810478132022-01-30T14:33:00.006-08:002022-01-30T14:33:34.419-08:00The Omega Man<div style="text-align: left;">The empty streets run round me like a curse</div><div>I pinch my nose and hopscotch through the dead</div><div>to find a wall graffitied with some verse,</div><div>a still-wet message scratched in cherry red</div><div>which fades to brown as it begins to dry.</div><div>“I love you but I hate love and that’s why</div><div>I hate you and I hope you fucking die”.</div><div>Above the words a scribbled evil eye</div><div>stares down at me as I begin to smile</div><div>the broadest grin this empty world has known.</div><div>Despite the flood of vitriol and bile</div><div>the message tells me I am not alone.</div><div>I dance off down the hollow, blood-soaked street,</div><div>day-dreaming of the poet I could meet.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-79572031893958859652022-01-19T12:06:00.003-08:002022-01-19T12:06:33.118-08:00The Hare<div style="text-align: left;">She settles into her depression</div><div>achieves her perfect form </div><div>in flat still camouflage</div><div><br /></div><div>The dim farmer cannot know</div><div>how she surveys his labours</div><div>behind beaded spider webs</div><div><br /></div><div>The fox and the hawk care not</div><div>that she has taken the earth</div><div>as her lover. She pushes against</div><div><br /></div><div>his silence, his intransigence,</div><div>feels cold strength spreading </div><div>to the tips of her scarred ears</div><div><br /></div><div>The sun is lost in a barley pod</div><div>but spring will come again</div><div>with its frenzy and its terror</div><div><br /></div><div>In the grip of her loins’ madness</div><div>she will take her place in the wind</div><div>to box and bite their necks</div><div><br /></div><div>The farmer barks something</div><div>in his tongue and she feels right</div><div>to run, springs out across the field,</div><div><br /></div><div>quicksilver in the jelly of his eye</div><div>sinews packed with surviving fire.</div><div>She has unanswerable questions</div><div><br /></div><div>One night she dreamed she was an owl.</div><div>Another night, she swam in warm seas.</div><div>Another still, she grew old and died.</div><div><br /></div><div>She lives by phases of the moon.</div><div>She holds what she has close.</div><div>Everything else cannot ever matter.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-51508608777110556332022-01-19T12:05:00.005-08:002022-01-19T12:05:20.421-08:00Country Sonata<div style="text-align: left;">The mushroom steeple bell</div><div>balls its fist</div><div>rages twice</div><div>throws larks in flight</div><div>sings brother brother</div><div>to the distant sea</div><div><br /></div><div>Men with orange necks</div><div>suck grass</div><div>beat the earth</div><div>in time with</div><div>the inchworm</div><div>lambing</div><div>the Seaford train</div><div><br /></div><div>Light and air -</div><div>this mountain of may flowers</div><div>come friend</div><div>take nature’s pulse</div><div>dance a bee-wing waltz</div><div>drop glad to caper</div><div>at the copse</div><div>trudge dark to spring with me</div><div>two wasps against</div><div>the lazy sun</div><div><br /></div><div>Down among the men</div><div>they love a barefoot girl</div><div>a piglet flower</div><div>holding the moon sideways</div><div>her dance is swift magic</div><div>her rhythm </div><div>the pendulum of daffodils</div><div>of hot pricks</div><div>Ask the ploughman for his song</div><div>he’ll sing of her</div><div>in his grave he will hear</div><div>a tambourine.</div><div><br /></div><div>Shovelfuls of cemetery</div><div>shake off a blade</div><div>the ancient gate</div><div>rises on a rusted hinge</div><div>thanks the lost dog</div><div>the historian</div><div>the odd picnicker</div><div><br /></div><div>The gravestones low at night</div><div>wind songs settle</div><div>on a reef of bones</div><div>a soul held voiceless</div><div>in a tree root</div><div>her pickle heart beating still</div><div>listens closer than</div><div>the living</div><div><br /></div><div>Spring clover</div><div>borage floated in my wine</div><div>the chalk pit passes</div><div>a station approaches</div><div>with its own sad songs.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20619245.post-11773295505516033282022-01-19T12:04:00.002-08:002022-01-19T12:04:16.056-08:00The Road Out<div style="text-align: left;">You ran away to get away</div><div>from all the silly things I say</div><div>and while this may not be the end,</div><div>it’s hard to write that and pretend</div><div>tomorrow’s just another day.</div><div><br /></div><div>You must have noticed my wordplay</div><div>was camouflaging dull cliche</div><div>for when you read what I had penned</div><div>you ran away.</div><div><br /></div><div>I’m clumsy so my mad display</div><div>of fondness sounded like foreplay</div><div>and now I dimly comprehend</div><div>how I have lost a precious friend</div><div>and endlessly replay the day</div><div>you ran away.</div>Bananashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10152813825431219026noreply@blogger.com0