These poems have been written over many years and there is no special order.
Civilization
Of Kisses
In the Trees
Lines on Silence
Mahatma Ghandi’s Smile
In the Wings
Old Thoughts
Civilization
Reading Kenneth Clark
on the scribes of Iona
and the glories of Charlemagne,
I am for a moment caught
by the smell of the old book.
I press my nose to its page
and immediately I am again
in my musty Hermit’s den
amid the tight-shelved books,
the rolled carpets and Chinese pots.
the paintings, the trunks from England,
the tools, and the skull
of a mule from Greece.
Wherever my eye rests
are things that I love.
My history too is here
pressed amid the wisdom of ages.
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OF KISSES
Of kisses none are sweeter than
those that match the breaking wave,
flow up the shore and back again
to join the surging sea.
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IN THE TREES
Yesterday I saw a face.
Hiding in the chestnut trees,
At a place where leaf and sky
Tango to the quickening breeze.
Chestnut trees enjoy such games.
Dancing leaves, so indiscrete,
Know a nod, a kiss, a glance
Make a lover’s day complete.
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LINES ON SILENCE
No words from the wanderer.
Perhaps harmonics,
Tibetan charged
Now peel beyond my ken,
rising note on note
to a shimmer of
transmuted gold.
Maybe you have found your poise,
inverted to the eyes of men,
heels high, in the holy sky,
contented suspended…
but…
head in the dark earth
which you love so well
and whence blue poppies grow.
May you gather the thread,
the green and the red,
to weave a garment of delight
mindful of Mira,
awake in the night.
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MAHATMA GANDHI’S SMILE
Now many men have wondered
How in India’s torrid clime,
The sage Mahatma Gandhi
Maintained his smile sublime.
Now I think I’ve found the secret
Of that famous smile
The one he used for diplomats
And those he would beguile.
T’was not of Shiva’s dance he thought,
Nor of the Ramayana,
Not of the British Raj, or how
to keep his sutra calmer.
The answer’s very simple,
Almost beyond belief
Just wear a towel round your waist
And nothing on beneath.
******************************************
IN THE WINGS
The play is John Whiting’s The Devils
In every production there comes a time,
when the SM says, “They’re letting them in.”
and the lights in the wings go out.
Now, the humble workshop,
the bed, the chair, the torture box…
and the secret place where the nuns
keep their tables and candles,
all, all are transformed,
and our world in the wings
is a moon-lit woodland,
with paths and dark corners…
mysterious.
With the darkness comes
something akin to silence.
Speech becomes whispers,
and even laughter is hushed,
for the actors are attuned,
and deftly more aware,
of music now playing,
of murmur of audience,
of time passing.
“Five minute call.”
The ASM turns,
presses finger to lips,
and vanishes.
The woodland is busy with shapes.
Actors with purpose, glide to their places,
touching their hair, checking the props,
awaiting the start of the sad steely music.
There’s
a man of the scalpel, and
his henchman with notebook;
tough country lads
who take care of their mum;
women in head-scarves;
a couple with baby;
the hoi polloi and
the toffs of Loudun.
There’s
a woman who walks
with a smile of contentment,
and a girl who would dance
though her father forbid her.
And a priest ….
A priest who delights
in the world of the senses,
in perfume,
in ladies,
in the smell of wild flowers
and who soon will suffer…
yea, unto grace and ash.
*
One last check, and the SM gives the nod.
Message received, the lights start to dim.
It is happening now. No going back.
The auditorium grows dark.
On stage, while the steely
music of midnight
hints at the future,
the corpse of a young man
is hoisted up high.
In the wings,
the actors too,
wait suspended in a great stillness.
All save one, and she will make
her presence felt when the time is ripe.
A pause.
A moment of silence. Then,
as the sewer-man moves
to his work in the conduit,
comes the sudden and joyous
peeling of bells –
a cheerful sound
on a bright golden morning.
The service is over.
The veil is lifted,
the actors, released.
With chatter and laughter,
like bold sky divers
obeying the cue,
they step out from the wings
and into the light.
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OLD THOUGHTS
each day is new.
a merry round.
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