LIFE’S EPITHET

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Night
no light
And all is dark

Sleep
Deep sleep
No time to mark

Dream
Sweet dream
Life’s hurt forget

Death
Last breath
Life’s epithet

 

 

Ars Poetica – A Licence to Versify

Pen & Wash – ‘Herrick’ … WHB   (1956)

Archibald MacLeish  ends his poem ‘Ars Poetica’ with the words

“A poem should not mean
But be”

Licence to Versify

My poem exists
Not because
But in spite of me
A virgin birth
Wrenched from an empty womb
An absent father
Mother-smothered

A moment’s thought
spilt words
simultaneously apt
yet contradictory 
In black
On shaded parchment
Devoid of sense
Yet full of purpose
Intent on birth
But clutched by death

Flying free yet
tightly bound
A stillbirth
Suspiciously silent
A jewel in jet
Contradicting sense
By being senseless

Licensed to thrill
For good or ill

 

 

 

 

To Sleep … To Dream

To Sleep … To Dream

 

Sleep drifts across my consciousness
as I enter that make-believe world
where reality sees through a muslin mask
draped damask silk obscures truth
and a samite screen falls across my past

The difference between then and now fades
as a haze envelopes my senses
featureless clouds descend
and my dream-world begins

Reality now hijacked by myth and legend
a new world
untried
untested
a concoction distilled from my history
as unlike my waking world
as noonday is from midnight
as I am from my shadow

SLEEP

Life’s parade ground

Death’s practice ground

 

Two Word Tales: #5

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Two words

‘At Rest’

They said

It all

 

My ‘Two Word’ Verses

Throughout this week, I shall publish each day one of a series of short verses which, together, by the end of the week, will have told a story. 

 

Two Word Tales: #4

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Two words

‘Good Bye’

Were all

It took

 

My ‘Two Word’ Verses

Throughout this week, I shall publish each day one of a series of short verses which, together, by the end of the week, will have told a story. 

 

Reverie #7: Dead Drunk

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… A Dirge in the Key of D 

 

Drunk 
Distended and Distressed 
Doped in a Downtown Dive 
what have I Done to Desire to live 
what have I Done to Deserve a life 
what Dread Deeds Do I Declare 
Why is all Despair 
 
Down and out and 
Done to Death 
Dipped in Diesel 
Dressed in Dirt 
Dished up 
Defeated 
and Drowned in Drink 
Doing my Damnedest to Die 
 
Deftly Dealt 
It was a Diamond from the Deck 
Doom’s Deliberate Dance of Death 
Done and Dusted 
Drowned in Dread 
 
IN CASE OF DEATH 
DO NOT RESUSCITATE 

Reverie #6: Doubt

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Reverie #6: Doubt

 

Nothing in the world is certain
Pull up anchor
Sink or swim
Switch the light off
Draw the curtain
Do it now upon a whim. 

You’ll find your destiny has spoken
Only when you realise
That all is doubt
Some lows
Some highs
And all good fortune  rests
Upon that final funeral hymn. 

Abide with me
Do not forsake me
You are needed by my side
A life is given
A life is taken
Now fast falls the eventide
Stay for ever
Leave me never
‘Lama sabachthani’, He cried.

 

 

 

 

Reverie #5: On Birth

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I remember Birth . . .

Warm womb,
emerging
into cold January,
suckled and succoured
into the life
and death 
of a warring world.

Heedless 
of pain 
of worry,
my unconsciousness
nestled in love,
cocooned in blessings,
future undetermined
but on course for
the perdition of
being ordinary.

One more mouth
to be fed,
one more life to be led;
another census tick.
Reconstituted dust
become bone,
flesh and vital blood,
to be both burden
and blessing. 

Only now,
a life lived,
aware that it is
irrecoverable
here to be forgotten.

Until resurrected
in whatever next there may be.

Thy Will Be Done

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Cold to the touch
And past all hearing
Blue-mottled skin
Taught held and cold

The throb of fear
Intensely gripped
Constricted throat
Gulp
Retch 
Took hold

A life switched off
The dark descended
The past screwed up into a ball
Coated with fear
The future threatening
How to sum up
This final call

Che sera
Will be
What was
Was me

The now 
The then
The future
When
Melt into one
Not lost
Nor gone
All rest upon
Thy will be done

Fond memories remain
To feed our forever future

A Literal Death

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A Reverie – on linguistic bugbears, slang, cliché, and the vernacular

Have a good day
You guys

You know what I mean
For back in the day
That bad hair day
I have to say
To be honest
At this moment in time
I’m not gonna lie
I found out the hard way
I’d lost the plot

So they told me
Keep it real
It’s the only way
And anytime soon
Do you know what?

Well, like I said
At the end of the day
We’re in uncharted territory
We are where we are
So as they say
just let’s do it

So I ran with it and
To coin a phrase
Let’s be absolutely clear about this
I literally died

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