THE POETRY SOCIETY: MEMBERSHIP DENIED.
There were two great performances by Tony Hancock I always enjoyed. One is
signified by this image - 'The Poetry Society' and the other is 'The Publicity Photographs' where he is 'snapped' by celebrity photographer, Hillary St.Clair, played by Kenneth Williams, who claims 'I paint with light!'. When it comes to poetry, I try, but inevitably end up in Hancockian mode.
I have to do it, but I know it's crap.
What does one do when you’re far from being considered a valid poet, yet you write in spite of what the literati think? Leave these lines in a dusty drawer for your descendants to discover one sad morning when you’re gone? Frankly, to paraphrase Rhett Butler, I don’t give a damn. Read these if you’re interested, or go straight to FaceBook. But vanity is a strong mistress, and she decrees I cast my bread upon her waters.
LOOSE BRICKS
Death is that jealous burglar
Who steals into your home,
his cloak of darkness
a shroud he wears with style.
His searching fingers rifle through
he precious trinkets of mortality
from which he plucks that jewel,
a solitary life.
Once ransacked, he leaves us stunned,
standing in dismay among
the wreckage of contentment.
What did this interloper seek?
That greatest gem, a loved one,a soul whose beating heart
was in harmony with ours.
His calling card, black-edged, is grief,
his bonus our fond memories,
his seismic aftershock
a threat to our foundations.
Sanctified by nature,
absolved by our biologyhe thief shakes houses,
alters time and loosens bricks,
his bewildering intrusion
a memento of mortality.
DROPPING
Leaves fall like pages
from the consumed calendar
Green gone, chlorophyll conquered
Life’s jade pigment,
the trapped energy of the sun,
surrendered, subjugated
by the dropping season.
Experience and knowledge
rustle in dry heaps
caressing aged, aching ankles
in unedifying eddies
Swirling in the currents
of October,
to nudge us to November,
as yet unsure of Yule;
The almanac’s agenda
Opaque, the question left
unanswered;
does the rustling, russet path pass
through snowdrifts into snowdrops?
ACCEPT
Accept the facts;
This is the way it is,
Pre-ordained, not written,
Simply true.
Accept the ache
Absorb the hurt
Soak up the real
The valid grief
The unavoidable
Accept the happiness,
The patted back
The days of sun
The nights of snow
Accept the wind and rain
Accept the years
In forward motion
The laughter
And the pain.
ELSEWHERE
On days like these,
Repetitive, mundane
We’d like to be elsewhere.
Beyond that building
Past the treeline,
Over clouds and into blue,
Soaring, looking down.
Our walls close in,
The dim light of winterWeighing heavy on the soul
Perhaps elsewhere
Will lift the gloom
A destination
Through an airport lounge,Bright gangways from a ferry
foreignness with sun
elsewhere with heady cigarettes
elsewhere where wine flows free
anywhere but here.
Elsewhere.
OVER THE EDGE
Here’s the scale of things
Here’s the contrast, the balance.
Miniscule, that’s me,
standing in the gale of spite
hoping this lone voice
just might get heard.
Yet their statutes still churn out,
and all the shouts of protest,
all resentment, so angrily expressed
unheard, repressed.
Upon our waning energy
They relyUntil we pour another drink
To get us by that wall of wrath
The umbrage, the offence
They love to see
Life slip like sand through fingers
Until the sense of indignation
with their brigand, bandit nation
fires our pledge to carry on
over the edge, roaring, pushing,
until the bastards have all gone.