A WINTER LANDSCAPE

There is a terrible silence

among the white snowfields,

under the deep blue sky

where the disk of the sun

in cold yellow hangs.

Colours driven to their extremes,

sterile and pure,

the soundless landscape

clean like a hospital

and as devoid of hope as a hospice.

We are all patients

here, in this painting

done with an intelligent hand

and without deep feeling,

lacking compassion to the stranded figures.

28.02.2018

THE FUTURE, ERASED

In the purest white and the deepest blue,

in the golden sunlight

of the winter day

we speak of the dead

and the village dying,

how there is no future

but the long road of the past

to travel on

among beloved faces,

hoping that the moment

shall pass unnoticed

and we will walk among

the shades not remembering

from where we came

and what was our fate.

28.02.2018

READING THE CLASSICS

The dead translated poems written

by the dead about the dead; this

is culture, and we, sipping from

its silver cup, are soon dead. So

raise the cup wrought by dead hands

to your lips and drink the wine

gathered and made by the dead.

What you drink is knowledge, art

and civilization, and life and

death in life - and soon

your lips and your mind

will be cold and

dust and earth.

26.02.2018

Evening sky

in pastel colours,

but the February

air cold

as the human heart.

25.02.2018

THE WEIGHT OF LITERARY HISTORY

Chesterton

looks like

he would

have eaten

Chatterton.

24.02.2018

THE MODERN JUDAS, OR THE LATE POET LAUREATE

Robert Southey sold his principles

and himself and his work debased,

but at least he made himself a betrayer

not for wealth or power

but to get bread for children

he sold his posthumous fame.

21.02.2018

TO LANGSTON HUGHES(1902-1967)

What happens to dreams deferred,

you wondered -

they are buried with the dreamer

and only rarely does

the seed of those dreams

blossom in other minds,

but when they do,

all the world is changed.

21.02.2018

THE 17-YEAR-OLD BOY FROM BESIEGED GAZA STRIP ON THE LITTER

Yours is not the face of a one who found haven.

One eye has been left open

in death; when you lay there, bleeding

on the soil of the border dividing

your land, what was last thing seen

by it? The night-sky above, stars hidden

in explosions? Or the grass carrying

your blood on its leaves, your life taken

by the pitiless enemy, whose humanity is forgotten?

Did they listen to your screams, those dealing

death and then with arrogance mercy denying?

Or did they silence their conscience, hid

it in the sounds of night broken
apart?  There is no answer from the

frozen lips.

21.02.2018-06.02.2022

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

We write

'Take care of yourself'

although we know

(or perhaps because we know)

that in the end

no one does.

18.02.2018

TO ROBERT BURNS

They wrote you greetings

after you were safely dead,

growing more remote in time,

those who never would

have deigned to treat you

as an equal, now in poems

and essays sought to attach

their lesser name to your greater one.

See, Robert long-gone,

wise in words and less

in matters of the heart

and conduct, what I did

here; flaying the privileged

tying their name to yours

I did like them - but oh

bard of Scotland, I am

not your equal, but

just a maggot crawling

on your bones!

18.02.2018

INSPIRATION

River Lethe, unseen,

flows through

every empty paper

and screen; it's

swift current

sweeps all thoughts

into oblivion's arms.

16.02.2018

CLAIRE

My kind of porn:

Cute woman

showing her

hoard of books

from Fitzgerald

to Joyce.

16.02.2018

Nobody in the night

with us,

nobody among the dark

around, the snow

below

but us

- and the dead

we carry.

16.02.2018

Again, I make the same mistake:

The moon among the branches

is just a streetlight.

15.02.2018

Let the past stand

on its own

broken legs.

13.02.2018

SOME IMAGIST POETS

Nature was to them

like some well-tended English garden

under a Mediterranean Sun. Orderly,

mild, harmless -

even Pan, the wild

and unpredictable, an English

rake with a heart of silver.

All under control, like

their Edwardian feelings;

storms in a tea-cup

that rarely shattered.

12.02.2018

A TITAN ON OLYMPUS I WOULD BE

If there would be

a god or goddess

I wouldn't want

it or theirs

mercy or forgiveness

or anything of the sort

I would like

just to

take my hands

around it

or their necks

to test

their immortality
and mine

11.02.2018

COSMOGONY

just like

there is

nothing

beyond us

we

are

nothing

emptiness

nestled

in void

a bubble

of space-time

coming

going

gone

11.02.2018

A HAMMER AND NAILS

Always carry a hammer

and nails

in case you meet

Jesus on the road.

11.02.2018

A BELFAST BOY

Religion for old maids, widows

and soon-to-be-widows,

nods from approving churchmen

of middling rank. A pillar

of learning and Christian faith.

Preaching to children

in guise of fantasy;

more escape from reality.

The same message on Mars

as in Venus or Narnia or England:

This is not all that there is,

this wasted life of the old,

the dreams of the young

going down the gutter

of broken-backed Albion,

this is not all that there is.

But alas, it was.

Inside the holy books,

a void more empty

than the space between

the wandering stars. Beyond

the mortal coil,

no reward,

only punishment

of utter annihilation. The

meek inherit not the Heaven,

but share the destruction

of those who lived
ruthless and true lives

and those who

pretended they lived,

like Clive.

11.02.2018

FAITH

All the generations, gone,

rushing towards god(s) -

not one god rushing

towards them; gods

and believers united

not in salvation,

not in mystical union

in godhead,

but in oblivion:

Blasted from existence.

11.02.2018

ORSON SCOTT CARD

A caricature

is not always

funny;

especially

if the person

is a caricature

of the best

qualities of

himself

left out,

shedding them

living too long.

09.02.2018

Eating chocolate at night, half past three

having put the books aside. Brönte (I

remember watching a bit of a movie version of this one),

Handke (curious nostalgia for the early 80s

and the shadow of war, the bridge

in Mostar, the caravan serai somewhere in

southern Bosnia) and Ian Watson

(the mix of what has come true

and what had become quickly strange

after 1977; unmanned drones in aerial combat,

but one side being 'Vietkhmer' and

the other U S of A). I

intended that chocolate to last for days;

but the Mesoamerican treat

lasted half a day; oh well,

the books will last much longer. The

books will last a life time

on the edge of adult-type diabetes.

09.02.2018

MORNING

I put the coffee on

visited the toilet

took the two dogs (one missing) out

carried three bags of garbage to containers

walked

watched the black and brown and white world

tried to make sense of it

tried to make sense of living

tried to live

came back

gave food to the dogs

drank coffee

08.02.2018

THIRTEEN MONTHS AGO

Ten past six in the morning. Thirteen months

ago you two would be getting up,

watching together out of the bedroom window;

you would ask from Heta

'What do you see out there?'

and see would be all furry happiness...

You now are both dead; my

guilt is evident, you

could have lived, getting up

just now. You would say 'Put the coffee on'

and then you would sit on the edge

of the bed, watching out of the window

and you would ask from Heta

'What do you see out there?'

It didn't matter to her what was out there,

it mattered who was beside her,

was beside her.

08.02.2018

IN THE MANNER OF SAINTS

My lust for you

has been that of a Church Father in the desert,

letting the visions tempt him

knowing he has already won

and girded his loins

with faith.

O my Salome, I

can only offer you my head,

not my heart; my

temptation not my arms.

07.02.2018

GONE

When I came from the bathroom,

I had three poems in my mind,

ready to be given a

more lasting form.

When I had written

down the first two,

the third had expired;

my mind a tabula rasa

swept clean.

07.02.2018

RELIGION FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

I

If god wouldn't have

wanted us to masturbate,

she wouldn't have

given us hands.

II

If god would have

wanted us to be chaste,

she would have

made us impotent and frigid.

III

In another era,

we would have been

libertines, o god;

now we are just bored.

07.02.2018

WINTER

Specks of white

falling

in black.

07.02.2018

ALL HAIL ELON MUSK

So, we have an electric car on orbit

and an empty spacesuit on the driver's seat,

and fifty thousand people died yesterday

because they didn't have clean water or toilets,

and fifty thousand people died today

because they didn't have clean water or toilets,

and fifty thousand people will die tomorrow

because they didn't have clean water or toilets

but we have an electric car on orbit

and an empty spacesuit on the driver's seat

so let's all hail Elon Musk

and his electric car on orbit

with an empty spacesuit on the driver's seat,

so let's all hail Elon Musk!

07.02.2018

FROM THE DAO DE JING

The vagina is the Gate of Heaven,

the womb is the Heaven

from which the woman

weaves new life.

06.02.2018

EURYDICE TO ORPHEUS

Why are you taking me

away, away from the darkness

I had just grown accustomed,

towards the light I lost,

and will lose again

if you take me back

from these warrens

of forgetfulness?

I have become

a shadow,

why should I again

be flesh and blood

and sorrow and pain,

fear and terror

guiding me

towards a future

where I shall be

a shadow

defleshed?

My memories

are faint,

fading glow-worms in the night.

Let them fade,

let me stay.

One day

you will be

here,

your flesh

and your blood

gone,

your memories

fading glow-worms in the night.

Then we will meet

again as equals,

then we will share

the cold,

the dark,

the whispers

of what we had

side by side

in eternity

peace.

06.02.2018

TONIGHT

Tips of

ice needles

piercing

the years,

stars.

06.02.2018

IN REMORSE

The dead may never

forgive; just

as the living

may never raise

them from

the dead, from

the soil and ash

and bone

to flesh and

flowing blood

and thought

restore, in

remorse.

05.02.2018

KOUROS AND KORE

A smile on their slips

the ideal dead in stone

stand, as

remote from the living

as those whose

graves they once

adorned in mystery

of death and eternity.

05.02.2018

TO HETA V

Snow falls through the morning,

snow falls through the afternoon,

snow falls through the evening,

snow falls through the night.

Oh, how I yearn to see

your paw prints on the fresh snow!

Oh, how I yearn to see

a path cut by you through the snowbank!

Oh how it tears my mind

not to see your paw prints

on the cold, cold snow...

Oh how it tears my mind

to see the snow untouched

on top of your grave...

04.02.2018

Your graves, ever deeper

under the cold cover

of white snow, so

casually thrown

over your sleep,

they haunt my days

these frozen abodes

for what I loved,

loved and lost.

01.02.2018

THE ZEN GARDEN OF MY MIND

Mind empty,

the snowscape outside

has more depth and variety

than the virtual reality

created by my brain.

Not something

to lament, but to accept

gratefully; deep thoughts

are not for moments

when existence itself

is a cloth worn thin;

when you are

little less

than the ghost

in the machine

of your mind.

02.02.2018