Thirty-Five Minutes

Thirty-Five Minutes (October 2012)

My phone stands as silent
as the Pyramids
though much less visited
My letterbox tells me of new
pizza parlours
and yet more life insurance

(Last week I won
eight million pounds
from the "Readers Digest")
I open my Fish and Chips
ready meal
Where's my glasses? Oh God!
I have them on my head
The back of the box
says "Best to oven cook"
Thirty-five minutes
Whilst waiting I glance
over the Pyramid
at my no-texts received
new mobile smart phone

It too is a silent
black obelisk;
Obelisks and pyramids
lonely as ticking time
accompany my wait

Thirty-Five Minutes to go
for the Great Event

of the evening

As I Weep The Grief of Ages (August 2012)

A million faces dancing past
smiling in hope their smiles might last
Ten thousand cities whirl aroundbut soon return to earthened ground

Wild pairs of lovers dance their steps
then fade and part with drying lips
come cities rise, come people fall
live on in books - yet that is all

I stand atop the ages gone
and age with them yet stand alone
I've loved and danced and laughed and cried
soon in some tome you'll find me laid
For I am Rome and Babylon
and Carthage, Troy and Epic Song
all part of history's splendid tale
rage passionate but doomed to fail

(I've lived and garnered life's great wages
 as now I weep the Grief of Ages)

The Black Sun
I. Contemporary
It's dark rays rained down
through distant times
stone man knew it
and feared its coming
the Black Sun shines

A purpling, billowing haze of sky
my eye perceiving the looming
dark; the gloom that pierces
and rains dark rays
into a tired world

Its coming is a trumpet blast
heralding a Darker Age
that shadows the world
the purple clears and
though its dissapation
the Black Sun still shines

I wrap my arms around
my tired tattered body
wrapped ina faded cowl
I leave the upturned pram
behind and shield my face
from the black suns harsh reign
Oft' sought by some
but dreaded by the many
its coming long foretold
the sky, the sea, the earth
and far above
Black Sun shines down
(- and it will shine forever)

The Black Sun
II - Traditional
The Black |Sun has
shone through the ages
The Black Sun has
cast its rays down
upon history's time, history' spages
bringing darkness to city and town
You who walk
under blue skies so freely
don't think the Black Sun
isn't there
It is watching and marking the ages
and waiting to see if you'll dare
If you'll dare
to walk 'neath stranger vistas
where the Black Sun now rules
in warped skies
so twisted, so bent, so awaiting
to reach down and to capture your eyes

The Old Man (April 2012)

A face, one bare of traffic
was now a transport network
tear drops turned to streams
becoming a thickening river
cutting deepened furrows
cross-lined a care worn place

Where time ago a field
of golden corn
had long been harvest aged
to patched, dry desert
edged with snow
All that twinkled is now fled
the windows give reflection
to naught
but shadowed memories of time

Usque Ad Finem

I will stand with you
'til the end my love
I will fight with my stength
and my Will
I'll be there with you
at the end my love
though the Storm rages down
on me still

I will go down into Hell
just for you my love
to where Satan sits
on His Throne
from that Fiery Place
I will bring Him my love
and your soul will be safe
and your own

Let the Legions of Darkness
arise my love
I will stand by your side
and will cast
them like seeds on the wind
'til your free my love
Yes, I'll be by your side
at the last

So sleep safe in your bed
through this night my love
may your mind and your heart
find their rest
An Eternal Guard at your door
I will keep my love
I will brave everything
every test

Until the end My Love
Usque ad finem
Until The End.....

Redemption

Redemption

Not overused, so hard to find
for clear of eye and for the blind
not harder
Yet still I seek for lifelong crime
where sins abound from blackened time
much harder

God's mercy not is at my call
Angels flee me one and all
in despair
Yet still I strive for peace of mind
for inner stillness I must find
it somewhere

So God be gone and Demons come
at Hell's Dark Gate I'll cal my own
acceptance
For I am lost but now am found
strange quarters call me with one sound
Redemption

Old poems found

I have just come across two notebooks full of poems I composed back in the 1980's. I shall put them on this Blog so they are not lost for Posterity should it care or not care to read them....

I am Him
I am scattered as the ashes of a pauper's cremation
I am morbid as Original Sin
I was doomed before your God ever thought of Creation
I am Him

I am as violent as the centre of a hurricane's black eye
I have Horsemen, pale and deadly, ghastly thin
And the Legion of the Damned will ride at my command
I am Him

So walk swiftly rose-tipped virgin do not stray in this night's way
hurry onwards past the Shadows ever grim
'Lest my hands reach out to snatch and drag you in
I am Him

The Hawk ( 28th January 2011)

My eyes see a million miles
to ditch and stream and dyke
through styles
and hedgerows
and there - a house
half-darkened in the dawn
and there - a mouse
from far aloft I swoop
a feathered stuka
hurtling down to scoop
the 'timerous beastie'
in talon's sharp it's held
so still, two souls now one
and I up I soar
into a crystal blue
towards a rising sun
a shape; a speck
and then I am no more

The New Poetry

 I was reading today John Wain's intoduction to the Oxford Dictionary of Great English Poetry and something he concluded with strucj a real and refreshing cord with me:-"The last forty years has seen the growth of a kind of processed, mass-market 'modern' poetry, very much the same in every country, easy enough to translate, to handle, to package, to ship across frontiers. This poetry is always in free verse, usually no more than a matter of witing it as prose and printing it to look like verse; it departs entirely from the tradtition and the forms that grew up naturally in that particular culture. The individual poems are like flowers that are cut and put in a vase of water; they have no roots and no soil clinging to them."

And as Auden puts it "Poetry is like a valley cheese; local but prized elsewhere"

This pushed me to write the following as a protest poem (of a sorts)

To 'The New Poetry'
All form and rules are
laughed upon
and rhyming rhymes
are damned as one

the way of poets
now betrayed
embrace The New
free verse parade

when rhyme and metre
fade away
no longer needed
in this day

then we have lost
something so deep
Hot poets strut
and cold ones weep

As heritage and time
dear bought
are fast replaced
by shallow thought

Belfast 1972

The reek of sulphur

swirls in bilowing clouds

about the masses

as yet devoid of shrouds

 

They stop, fall back

with each bombs roaring blast

the shattered glass

the Dead are siffening fast

 

A rifle barks

Another soldier falls

The sirens scream

echoed on prison walls

 

That's how it is

thats how its meant to be

we're far away

It's naught to you and me

 

Two tribes at war

as they have always been

Choose Orange lily

or a sham of Green