FAMILIAR FACES, BUT NOT PEOPLE, FROM THE PAST

I'm not sure if I recognize the woman

from the middle-aged pair passing me

on the overgrown forest road;

she seems terribly familiar,

but surely the person I am thinking of

wouldn't be carrying a little dog

on her ams?  Never a dog person -

cats, perhaps... Must be just someone

looking almost exactly alike,

and the gray-haired, gray-bearded man

with her, his face a variation

of many I've known yet worn now

by someone I've never seen - that

I'm sure - further tells that on familiar,

abandoned, roads you shall meet

faces, but not people, from the past.

14.06.2021-31.05.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

AFTER THE RAIN

1

In the May woods

blows an autumn breeze.

2

Through the woods

of blooming May

blows an autumn breeze.

3

Walking old dogs

through dim May woods

the years recede

and their gait,

with my thoughts,

has something of the

spring in them.

31.05.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE

Foremost

we should,

we must,

save

everyone.

22.-30.05.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

THE WIND STRIPS LEAFS FROM THE TREE OF LIFE

And all

that was

left

was

nothing

at all.

30.05.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE

Foremost, we

should,

must save

everyone.

22.-23.05.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

OTHERS

Others are the prisoners

of our ample mistakes,

we just of our consciences

which build feeble cells, with bars

crumbling at touch, and doors

left unlocked. We can

just exit, but the prisons

we built are unbreakable,

hewn from tragedies.

02.-21.05.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

FROM THIS LIFE WE GAIN

From this life

we gain pain,

a river

flowing flooded,

with small pebbles

of joy

being carried

by its

rushing waters.

21.05.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

MADE THE ERROR OF READING A BLOG POST ABOUT M. R. JAMES AND SAKI

When someone

writes an entire blog

about "white identity", calling

themselves 'gentile',

you know what you are dealing with,

no matter the vocal claims of

pointing antisemitism in others.

The latter is an act,

the more they write about it,

these occidental observers,

revealing their itch

by keeping scratching it.

16.05.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

THE SILENT ONES ARE THE LOUD ONES NOW

All who have been silent about

Chechnya, Cyprus, Iraq, Kashmir, Palestine,

Tibet, Western Sahara and West Papua

are standing on the barricades

for Ukraine, ecstatic;

feverishly they tell us that what is

happening in Ukraine is something

out of the ordinary, a titanic battle

between Good and Evil,

and all must support Ukraine.

I just wish they wouldn't support Ukraine,

and would still be silent,

these reborn warriors

who have gone through their lives

seeing no evil until now.

15.05.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S ROYALTY VIA F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

They were careless people,

these royals; they

smashed up entire kingdoms

and people, and then,

in death or in victory,

retreated into swollen myths

and pages of plays,

which kept their

legend going on.

15.05.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

AFTER REGICIDES

Why did Hamlet prince

have to make trouble?

Old was king Claudius, childless -

the throne was prince's, in time.

So what if Claudius killed Hamlet king

to gain his throne and wife?

That is, after all, what

kings do. They covet things,

they kill people; the old ghost-king

took half of Norway. And

if he now wandered at night,

a restless shade? That is

for the priests to handle,

to placate a troubled soul,

let it go and rest in

Heaven or Hell; not for

princes who have thrones waiting.

So much trouble, so much death,

and now a foreign king ruling

over us, because Hamlet prince

couldn't let assassin time

to avenge, with its own

fatal poison, one man.

14.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse

THESE CLEVER PRINCES

Why can't these clever princes

stay in their universities,

without making trouble?

So what if uncle-stepfathers

had killed their fathers and

now slept with their mothers?

That is, after all, what

kings do. They covet things,

they kill people; the old ghost-king

in his prime took half of Norway. 

King Claudius was old, childless,

just warming the throne

for young Hamlet prince;

youth should have let age handle

the Norwegians, regicide or not,

have its brief crowned years

beside a withering body in bed.

Hamlet prince, he only had to wait.

So what if Hamlet king

as a restless ghost wandered

the walls at night? That

is a thing for the priests to handle,

to placate a troubled soul,

release it to go and rest or suffer

 in Heaven or Hell; not for

princes who have thrones waiting,

daughters of Polonius to play with,

titles to hand in exchange of bastards.

So much trouble, so much death,

and a foreign, haughty king

ruling over us, because the prince

in madness listened to a ghost.

14.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse

(SOME OF) THE BRITISH GREAT WAR POETS

An odd bunch,

these pampered British

private school boys

turned, less or more, into men,

writing poems in the Great War

as a gentleman should.

Latter-day Sir Philip Sidneys,

the whole lot of them,

what else would've

they been good for?

War the best thing that

ever happened to them.

 

Be stoic and manly,

quote from the classics;

yet still write about tears,

and 'It's for nothing' fears

on your way to your grave

or a shell-shock.

Ironic, how empires 

in decay beget

better poets of war

than the rising powers,

when collective fears

mate with personal ones.

16.06.2021-13.05.2022-23.05.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

THE LONG TWILIGHT

So small the Moon

in the thin ocean of air

above the brown fields

bathing in the cold

evening light,

spreading from here

to decades gone

to fragmented memories.

13.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse

LISTENING TO A LATE RECORDING OF CHET BAKER(1929-88)

Even if life may have

 become a nightmare

for you, remember -

you were once

others' dream and hope

for the future,

and something of that

will linger, even now.

13.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse

THE HUMAN ANIMAL

All that lust of flesh,

and those moments 

of grunting and sighing

and babbling in heat

which they beget,

end up in ash, dust

and stained earth

to mark the passing

of us and our offspring,

and the passions

which we called life.

That is the essence

of that feeling

which we call love -

mere oil to keep turning

the genetic engines

from mating to mating,

from spawning to spawning,

with empty shells

left decaying

in the bosom

of the earth.

18.04.-13.05.2021

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

IN THE SILENCE OF THE AFTERNOON

The clouds in the blue deep

hide and reveal the Sun,

and cold and warmth

flow within me

with each milk-white eclipse

and joyous revelation.

13.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse

SHOULD HAVE WARNED YOU

To PRC  

You don't know the blind

lust burning inside me

for you, even now...

I wonder if it would

have changed something,

even saved you, if I would

have shown it in time,

or allowed it to take over,

instead of being frozen

between lust and sense

and thus losing all.

10.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse

IT'S THE MEN

Few men understand women,

and most of those do only

when it's too late,

when they have walked through

life's minefield missing only a few,

and leaving others as the casualties,

the women and the children,

and women are too afraid

of men to tell them that

because men are angry beings.

10.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse

AFTER THEY ARE GONE, YOU ARE LEFT WITH NOTHING

And your entire being

will be permeated by regret,

colouring all experiences

with your lifetime

of disappointment

and loss, wrought

by your own actions.

10.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse

WHAT YOU ARE

You are

a stream of thoughts

contained

in a genetic flow

given flesh,

for a few brief trips

around the sun.

10.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse

METAMORPHOSIS

 All those transformations into animals

and plants in Greek myths...

 - don't they show how

the line between humans

and rest of the living world

was not set, unbending,

but shifting, negotiatable,

and humans, crossing over

or not, just part of the whole?

09.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse

AUTUMN IN SPRINGTIME

Gray, white clouds thick over

the shivering landscape,

yet birds are singing

in this autumn land

of barren branches,

and then, a miracle:

A shaft of light

through the ribcage

of the undead fall.

09.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse

THERE IS A REASON PEOPLE USED TO DO IT IN COMPLETE DARKNESS

Porn

is making into desirable

something which,

when done

by the the audience,

is between embarrassing

and ridiculous

to any but

the most depraved

Peeping Tom.

For

a median human

animal in heat

is not a sexy sight

naturally,

and this it

wants to forget,

projecting the drama

and passion

of an artificial

copulation

into its own

experience.

18.04.-05.05.2022

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

THE VICTORIOUS SUN

What sweet hope drips through the cracks

of this mildew-growing late, cold day,

and resurrects a flow of golden memories

falling through the arthritic fingers

of today? Impressionistic sunshine

filtering through barren boughs

weaves a tapestry of mirages,

and the unwilling, morose, mind blooms

like algae in Baltic Sea in summer.

04.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse

THE DAY DAWNS

These cold, gray mornings

headstones emerging

from the night:

Rebirth of despair.

01.-04.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse

THE FIRST GREAT AMERICAN EXISTENTIALIST

Bought Horace McCoy's(1897-1955)

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?(1935)

and paid 30 cents for it;

the low price of human misery,

now and  back then when

they were dancing months

on end for a thousand bucks,

to entertain the same audience

which once gave thumbs down

to bleeding gladiators.

04.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse 

SO THAT YOU WON'T REGRET WHEN YOUR END HAS BEEN DECLARED

Society tells us to hold as most important

those things that matter us the least

when we have been told we're dying;

remember, you are dying

a slow death, now.

03.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse 

IN THE DIM DAWN OF THIS DAY

Five in the morning;

half an hour before sunrise,

a spring dawn with birdsong,

and snow on the ground

outside the darkness

of this room in silence.

It should be a cold day,

long after the end.

02.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse 

MIRAGES OF HOPE

It matters not, this life;

yet it would make

all the difference

before the end if it would.

We all need our crutches

of illusion

so we can limp

to the awaiting silence.

01.-02.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse 

YOU KNOW THE DAY WILL COME

When you wake up

at dawn,

lacking sunshine and

gray as it might be,

remember:

This could be the day

which shall have no

dusk for you.

So, your mortality affirmed,

inhale deep

the staid air,

look long at the dim

colours of the landscape,

stretch your limbs,

and enjoy

existence.

02.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse 

THE HUMAN FOLLY

The human mind

is capable of accepting

the mortality of others,

but to oneself

it assigns immortality,

as it sees itself

one with the cosmos,

intertwined with all

that is permanent

to transient beings.

02.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse 

NO ENCOUNTER IN SAMARRA

There is no Fate,

no Destiny,

no encounter in Samarra

foretold,

just blind chance

endlessly throwing dice.

01.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse 

BETTER BE DRUNK WHEN DOING IT

 Nothing cures lust

quite like the imperfections

of the human body,

when first revealed

to the lover's gaze.

That's why

it's best to consummate

your blind love

while intoxicated

with more than mere lust.

01.05.2022

#Poem #Poetry #Poems #Verse