Some Of My Poems

This first poem is an oddity even in my own life. To make sense of it, maybe you should read what I wrote in No More Pencils under the title ‘Wail’. I have had the article in draft since January 2013, and it was fifteen years before that that the events happened. The poem is still enigmatic because it relates to events that happened to me after the ‘wail’ – but I think it touches on things that are common to people and are understandable by all.

Sometime

Somewhere, sometime in life you have to be a fool for love
and bend for survival
or break standing up
or under the weight

Sometimes you have to – (have to?) bend forward
and touch your forehead on the cool stone
or the warm rock
or the face of God

Sometimes when you are bending
you will cry
not a big heaving sob of a cry
but a small, small cry
that will not disturb you
and you will feel the weight
slip from you
the weight of everything you carried

But you will keep the you of you
Maybe your eyes will be a little bit wider
more open it will seem
and the light will be brighter and lighter

Later, when you have not forgotten all this
but it will be at the back of your mind
not at the forefront
you will be at a memorial place
and you will split and wail
and you will stare at yourself while you wail
knowing that you are not crying
you are wailing, like a split rock
like a tree split apart

Red Macaw

Red macaw with pretty feathers
and eyes of blue or eyes of grey
and nose of clay and feet of feet.

How simple is the life of trees
and flying high and seeing these
mere mortals on the ground below
logging forests as they go.

A Higher Calling

When he started to recount
The tale of what he’d done
His disarming little laugh
That to me seemed bold and brash
Shook his shoulders and his belly
As he gave his laugh some welly
And apologised to all

For what he’d done was very naughty
But we were to give him credit
For the way he’d passed the ball
To some poor bugger without sense
To see to see it coming, if at all.

But he was motivated by
A calling higher than the sky
So we should forgive his little error
Should we not, and not ask why.

Bureaucracy

(Inspired by W. H. Davies’ poem ‘Leisure’)

What is this life if full of care
We are not allowed to stand and stare.