sonnets & vignettes…the ghosts of gnosis…collateral damage…prose, prozetry & leftover poems on love, nature, the passing scene…sometimes mystical, sometimes philosophical, largely agnostic.
Lions don’t make war
on gazelles – although they could.
They’d rather just have ONE for lunch
.
That irresistably beautiful tabby
you love with all your human heart
has no compunction about eating
the runt of her own litter
.
Man fances himself
wise and kind-hearted
but is he even as intelligent
as a cat?
A sort of eulogy for those who have died prematurely
It was when Roz died that I knew
I no longer believed in god.
Not that god anyway –
The resurection thing.
.
Going over it in my mind
I can see her death as the final nail
in the theistic coffin – belief
had finally taken hold (somewhere
in the bowels of my being)
that ashes to ashes was it.
Period. No second go.
No Easter bunny bullshit.
.
There is a reason for everything?
No there isn’t. A cause isn’t a reason.
When a pig lines up behind a chicken
one has not produced the other.
.
Lapsed catholic meet community-shifting Jew:
we had found each other in protestanism. Litterally:
a kids’ summer camp in Pennsylvannia.
I had the better voice, but I never sang holy holy holy
as good as she did. I think she really got off
on bellowing the god-in-three persons bit.
.
So much more could be said, but I’ll leave it
with Nietzsche: without music
life would just be a mistake
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: spoke three languages,
played more than one instrument, worked for several
humanitarian causes…why is she gone and I’m still here?
.
.
.
My father was a pinko
and my mother (who worked
in Manhattan and had riding
boots but no horse) well, she was
whatever was chic that week.
I was born in the Bronx
so whenever a Jew tries his
You don’t know what it
means to be a minority…on me
I’ve been known to say:
Blow it out the other way.
The only other goy in my class
was the Irish Catholic super’s oaf.
Green teeth and thick as a brick.
Azoy…azoy..and lately I’ve been thinking
my native language is really yiddish.
Until I was ten, I thought the lions
in all those wide-screen epics
had finished off that breakaway jewish sect..
.
And in a way, they did. With the
possible exceptions of Francis of Assisi,
Gandhi, and a handful of
Quakers in sandals (who travel like
a school of fish and are often seen holding
candles worthy of a sabbath seder)
I don’t know any serious followers
of rabbi Yeshoua.
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: me? I’m the last of the red hit Ebionites.😎
.
.
with calves like tree trunks
she occupies half the bench –
not so much fat or overweight
as well-upholstered – an impression
reinforced by the loud print of her
polished chintz dress – a type
you would have sworn
no longer existed.
.
on a string around her neck
her sun glasses dangle, open,
just above the head of her tiny dog –
who is so immobile he looks like
a photo – a blowup of a prototype toy
made of toothpicks and pocket lint.
.
They have but one love between them
and that is to watch the pigeons
in the warm light of late afternoon.
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: I write out of love for what I see. Writing seals things in my memory.
once upon a time
cans didn’t just open
.
you didn’t just
slip your finger in a ring
and give a tug
.
there were keys that were
a cross between
a bishops hat and
a screwdriver
(think about it)
that were mostly used
on cans of sardines
.
and then there were
two-handed jobs
that looked like
a pair of pliers
wedded to a skatekey
.
and then things got fancy
and went electric…
.
all have pretty much
vanished – BUT
stiil hanging in my kitchen
the original bottle-cum-can
thingamajig made of
stainless steel that looks
a bit like a pair of
3D-movie glasses
with mismatched claws.
on either side.
.
It has NEVER failed me.
I will NEVER part with it.
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: that’s me in the title
(for Refaat Alareer)
These are not metaphoric tears
emoticans of praying hands
emoji –
no, salty tears
sting my cheeks
blur my vision
and only in my mind
is his soul clearly defined
as a sweet white kite
against a cloudless sky –
smiling young teacher
whiteboard marker in hand
not ready to become
a savage to save his land
his Palestine.
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: Rachel Corrie, Aaron Bushnell and now Refaat. Names and faces that have become indemible in my museum of the Gaza Holocaust.
.
Listening intently – somehow
even moreso – as my hands
are busy making a salad –
.
and suddenly
i have to poise myself –
both hands on the buffet –
just to stay the sway
.
you could say
my heart’s been attacked
.
but then it happens
once a day, if I’m lucky
.
today because some long dead
white european male
[and an orchestra under the direction
of another more recently deceased
white european male]
.
shot a diamond-edged arrow
.
into that place where hope –
[which I tend to revile]
springs nevertheless,
with its siren songs
of longing eternal…
.
… happily, the
human animal
is eased – cleansed
a bit – in a rush
of its own tears…
.
or there’d be fears
I’d have nothing
to serve for lunch.
.
§
.
Notedi n the margins: Mock if you choose, but I weep for the stupidity of my fellow man. For the record it was Brahms 4th under the ridiculously(and rightly) demanding baton
of Segiu Celibidache.
Evenings in October
when everything seems
as velvet to the touch…
.
Evenings when –
as winds begin to threaten –
and I am grateful to be reassured
by the moon-faced street lamp
in its nimbus of yellow leaves…
.
On nights such as these [despite
the strange Chinese airs whistled
and thumped by my ancient radiator]
on nights such as these
I pick the best overstuffed chair –
the one with elephant ears
and biceps for armrests-
and I pretend to read.
.
Yes, on nights such as these [just before
winter sets in and sets us all
in our sheltered corners]
I summon all my old friends
or is it they who summon me ?
Together we recite those poems we seem to share –
me and Will, or me and Dylan
me and Edna, Emily, Rupert and the guys.
.
No. No young turks on nights like these –
nothing that might disturb
the anchor in the silt.
No jelly thumbprints on the velvet, please.
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: sometimrs the test of a poem is does it speak to you even in the wrong season
I, the Titan Prometheus
grandson of great earth and sky**
though baptised forethought
would never have foreseen
how senseless – pointless
to the point of tragic – it had been –
to borrow from Olympians a treasure
not meant for lesser creatures.
.
Once, I cozened Zeus himself –
won him the bones for sacrificial rites
leaving to mortals all that nourished –
but it is not for that, that I am punished
[and shall be throughout eternity]
damned to hear the gods in unison
mock their prisoner on his rock
tortured as men torture other men –
such ends humanity found
for the sacred holy means
I pirated for them.
No, men will never give a hill of beans
for love – for love, for love that men confuse
with appetite, love that men defile
as they ravage the mothers of the children
of other men – humanity is tragically obscene
and now I see the justice in it
as the gods compare them
to wild boars… unfavorably.
It is for these two-leggèd beasts
I pay and pay
.
Could an oracle have forewarned?
Would I have listened?
To love is to risk – and not once
but twice I proved my love:
First food, then fire…
yes, more than flame, I gave him power
of Light, mastery of man-made day
safety and warmth by night.
.
The gods are cruel, you say?
In their indulgence they have allowed
me this: to speak my piece
to speak to the heart of those
for whom I broke Olympian law
Now. Today. As I see sunset
and think: the sky behind the pines
is pink and yet the pines themselves
are dark as any ink and my red flesh cries out
to man, the defiler: I gave, I gave
I gave you the blacksmith – half
the essential of his craft to make tools –
yet none has seen fit to find a way
to shear assunder the ancient chains
that bind me to this windswept promentory.
All that remains, then, is to endure.
The birds will come again by day
to pluck my liver and hear me scream in pain
but no man will ever come –
If they saw Jesus on the mount
they would not move – though
all the roman legions be called away
or drunk – not one would untie his ropes.
The story of the cross is meant to teach
what is meant by callous, and its sign
serves mostly to remind that this is
what men will do – without shame –
to other men…to their own kind..
One in ten million loves – risks all – and
is compensated by this: the Judas kiss.
.
The gods are angry
and men are ungrateful
shallow, mean and hateful
which makes my suffering
for their sakes all the sadder
but it is ever thus. The lover pays.
The gods are right to show
their disdain, for only a fool
would believe that men might grieve
for Prometheus – Jesus, betrayed,
on his hill and Clymene’s daring son
splayed upon his secret calvary…
.
One word remains for me to speak before the dawn
I have heard it said that Jesus is risen
from the dead. If this be so, then where
is his sacrifice? If He reign somewhere in glory
then there is no Christian story
my own alone, worthy of pity –
a sacrifice in more than name…
.
but my speech must end now,
is finished, for though the dawn sky
is still quite dark I see the birds
sharpening their beaks on bark
the better to refresh the wounds
of poor Prometheus
and peck away
peck away…
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: **Gaia and Uranus…
and if you don’t like this, I give up 😎
Religion is an opiate
that dulls the wits & bars the quest
for genuine serenity
where holy wars are laid to rest
.
Labour now to heal the rifts;
Know others and yourself.
Heart and brain, these BOTH are gifts:
leave not either on the shelf
.
Beliefs must surely satisfy
both our heart and mind
or we will fail, if we should try
becoming HUMANKIND
.
§
.
Noted in the margins: it is said we love detective stories becasue we like solving puzzls. I think it is just as much because of an innate sense of JUSTICE. We crave it!
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