SENRYU #1: Freedom

Continuing my own experimentations with a variety of different verse forms, here is attempt at a SENRYU . . .

Senryū is a Japanese form of short poetry similar to haiku in construction: three lines with 17 morae (syllables). Senryū tend to be about human foibles while haiku tend to be about nature, and senryū are often cynical or darkly humorous while haiku are more serious. Wikipedia

FREEDOM

Longing for release
Knowing how Bonivar felt
I await freedom

N. B. Bonivar was the ‘The Prisoner of Chillon’. ‘The Prisoner of Chillon’ is a 392-line narrative poem by Lord Byron. Written in 1816, it chronicles the imprisonment of a Genevois monk, François Bonivard, from 1532 to 1536. Wikipedia

Hope – a Sequence from 2020

‘HOPE’ … G.F.Watts – 1886

Walk, Eat, Sleep, Wake,
Little to do
To myself I talk
Thus the story
of twenty-twenty
Gone the years
of more and plenty
Cover my face
as in disgrace
Cross my heart
and keep apart
Cuddles banned
Hugs verboten
Kiss me quick
all that forgotten
When will it end
and will it ever
A Life to live
A love to sever
Lock me up
they might as well
For where I am
there I dwell
Nothing but time
to fill each day
And time never ends
so here I stay
Locked in this cell
not feeling well
Till hope returns
and once again
within me burns

Let Life Begin

My covid story
I rehearse …
I tell its story
In rhyming verse.


To be in England
Now April’s here;
Come lockdown’s end
I’ll give a cheer.

I’ve lived alone
In a bee-loud glade,
And sung the song
That covid made.

Now let me dance
With the daffodils,
And no more seek
For frills and thrills.

A holiday
I can’t afford;
I’ll stay at home,
Not travel abroad.

A cold winter
We’ve had of it;
Let life begin,
Lickety split.

With appreciative nods in the direction of…Robert Browning; W.B.Yeats; William Wordsworth; T.S.Eliot

Cupid Curbed

Call me Cupid
catch my arrows
kiss me quick
then let me go
now a phony
feeling lonely
stitch me up
pity my woe

Watch me sigh
wither and cry
no more milk
of human kindness
no more joy
in joining hearts
as life crumbles
as it gets dark
now all my arrows
miss their mark

My wife Psyche
has let me know
that now at last
she has seen through me
cut me off
taken my bow
told the world she’s cottoned on
that I no longer sing its song

For time and covid
in cahoots
turned the tables
stopped my games
pulled my plug
left me bereft
no more playtime
no transgressions
canoodling killed
by lockdown’s laws
show me how I can continue
through the strictures
and the flaws

I’ve had enough
of covid’s rule
I’m being taken for a fool
I’ve parked my bow
in time’s sad bunker
I’ve been disturbed
my arrows curbed
so I’m retiring
going to grass
no more point
in joining hearts
I’m off to milder sunnier parts

Lockdown 3: Day 52

‘Hope’ (after Michelangelo) … WHB Pencil 1958

Sun comes with morning’s news
Bright sky floods the straightening horizon
And gloom disperses with the waking day
My tunnel view widens its purview
Funnels its Richard Of York colours
Revealing improving prospects
Pleasure-principled and hope-led
If-Only hopes
Offering release
Instead of regret
Along with a reinstituted Plan
Of Action
End of inertia
Perhaps and possibly
Depending on This and That
On Doubt and Uncertainty
On Doubt or Certainty
These Will-We, Won’t-We times
Tremble on the brink
Promising nothing
Yet
Delivering Hope
To our nebulous days

Lockdown 3: Day 51

‘Despair’ (after Michelangelo) … WHB Pencil 1958

After the drab-dull morning
The close shift-shadow
Hovered over the remaining day
And grey-clung cloud
Described yet one more of
So many days
Of such undistinguished gloom
So few delights to hollow out this tomb
For when the darkness comes
And with it fading hope
Then amidst the shadows
I calcify and mope
Regrets are worth forgetting
The future lost
Loses meaning
In the tangle of forgotten days
Each succeeded by yet another
Missed opportunity
One more goal-less draw
Reducing the life still left to me

Thought for the Morrow

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‘Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.‘
King James Bible . . . Matthew 6:34. ‘Sermon on the Mount’

Yes … Tomorrow is another day
One more locked-down day to bear
While for me the world outside attempts to hide from view
Yet I know that
Somewhere The sun shines,
while elsewhere snow’s warmth blankets the tumbling hills
The rain is working its vernal wonders in the forest
and the world’s waves beat upon its brackish shores

My life’s sideshow cowers in lockdown’s shade
The life I once learnt to live fades
And a new one awaits
Granted by science and by human endeavour
A new path to wend – to explore
A road less travelled
which I must learn to love
The old well-tbeaten ways no longer lead to certainty
only to danger and distress
And so
amidst a tangled understanding of right and wrong
The future lives on in uncertainty’s haze

Pandemic

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On This Covid Pandemic

The Chinese had a phrase for it –
‘May you live in interesting times.’
Double- edged, somewhat inscrutable,
As I read between its lines.

Intended as a curse it is said;
Perhaps we’re paying for our crimes?
As we live this life not led before –
Perdition’s paradigm.

Cometh The Lockdown

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Stop the world I want to get off;
Let’s have a global fire break.
Give me time to recuperate,
To stop this corvid headache.

We’re hoping for some respite now,
A pause in life’s short passage;;
A little rest may well be best,
A chance to send a message,

Let’s tell the world we’ve not gone mad,
Defy cynics and mockers;
Impress upon the populace
We’ve not gone off our rockers.

For every person, young or old,
Still living on this planet,
Has cause to love a life that’s free,
To live a life – not ban it.

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Deo Volente

DEO VOLENTE

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Cometh the day
Cometh the ban
Yet another deprivation
Another death for motivation
Covid Nine still running wild
Meaning for us
Nothing good
Nothing mild
Just another tight restriction
This is now life
It is not fiction

I tell my family they cannot come
They are not surprised
They do not blanche
Just another faded chance
Not something else to life enhance

Will I one day
Look back and say
When this black cloud has blown away
I lived through covid
Took its measure
Saw it off
Without a cough
Survived to tell new generations
How grandad lived through such privations
Knuckled down
Obeyed the rules
Derided all those other fools
Who didn’t care
Who took it easy
Yet also lived to tell the tale

I can’t help but think
With a nod and a wink
Life’s still worth living
D. V. – God Willing.