Category Archives: Poetry

Not For Ladies

Poetry, ,

Pregnancy is not for ladies
Check your self-esteem at the door
It’s not so obvious at the start
When your breasts turn into
Self-inflating grapefruit
Tempting the touch
But so tender
That you want to scream
If anyone even looks at them the wrong way.

But as time passes
So does your dignity
While you trip, tumble and roll
Your cumbersome way
Through the next few months
Snatching sleep where you can
Though it is never enough
To keep the baby-growing mechanism inside you
Purring and contented.

As you move zeppelin-like
To the last stages
All your bodily functions explode
Sometimes literally
Till you become
A sniffling, spitting, belching, farting machine
With no control
No dignity
And seemingly no end in sight
(though it can’t be long now).

And then there’s the birth
They never say how much it hurts
When they’re selling the miracle myth
It’s no miracle,
Just hour upon hour of bloody hard work
To produce the result of a few moments’
(or months if you’re lucky) pleasure.
Moaning, groaning, screaming, sometimes swearing
While a medical football team
Peers up your fanny with a torch.

No, pregnancy is definitely not for ladies.
It’s not sugar and spice and everything nice,
Keep your legs crossed, and play nicely, dear
It’s raw, brutal, painful, almost animal
In its intensity
Though maybe
Just maybe
The baby
Is worth it.

(Originally published on RITRO)

Tonight looked as the Miramar did

Poetry

Tonight looked as the Miramar did

Reading through the rages which twilight hid

Twinge of white and red bound together easy for sight

In that steam night of Miramar’s light.

Arabesques and arches resounding Caesar’s ring

In lands unimaginable by both Moor and King.

Wherefore is wood and wherefore the ardour

In this land of men rapt by endless plastic labour?

When the grasses sang a yellow-violet display

the swamp’s faeries rose from the ether to play

Whilst I discoursed long with holy prophet and stain’d ba’al

Till a new golden heat wrought out blue atlantic day.

The rolling of dew from a palm’s face embracing the sky

Watching a peacock’s violent beak clipped

And bleeding, cocking till it shall die.

The miramar’s sights bound red and in feathers iridescent.

East Coast Sunrise

Poetry, ,

The sea-fragrant air insinuates itself into your mind,
Wrapping itself around your waking dreams like a warm blanket,
Then gently touches your eyelids, your mouth, your body;
A lover’s caress, to bring you out of sleep.
Outside, foam-flecked waves rear snowy heads
The descend, emptying their essence onto the warm, waiting sand.
Undisturbed by the bustle of wind-blown clouds
The sun begins its daily trek across the sky.
You open sleepy eyes to a vibrant, verdant landscape bathed in beauty:
The chalky crests of nearby hills search out the heavens
While the springy mat of green grape-leaves invites your feet.
A taste of Eden.

Rain

Poetry, ,

English rain
Is not like Caribbean rain
Each pointed drop
Drills through the remnants of the warmth
You wrapped inside you
When you left home.
Just enough for discomfort
But without the honesty
To drench you.
Caribbean rain
Does not pretend
It wets you through and through
Leaving you soaked and annoyed
Yet knowing the sun’s not far behind
While in England
More grey days
With bullet rain
Wait to follow
The one that’s
Pissing down
Pissing about
Pissing you
Off.

(Originally published on RITRO)

Judge, not Judge-?

Poetry, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ladies and gentleman. a prosecutor shuddered,
Fingering his rep tie and silk-wool vest,.
The girl murdered her mother. Her mother!
The least you can do is put her to death.

Evidence shows a single shot to the head
Killed the victim instantly. Pow!!
The accused and her sibling may not have been fed,
But that is not at issue. Remember that, now..

The victim was cruel, you heard witnesses say.
She whipped the two bloody. She shut them away.
Locked up and escaped to a bar a couple days..
Leaving them with little to do but pray.

I love my kids, the victim has been said to say..
Got things to do, don’t I!. Can’t say I spare the rod..
So I leave the odd mark on their hide . .hey!
I am human, not fornicatin’ God..

For the defense’s part, they took the risk
Of calling the accused to the stand. So blue,
She was mute, then sounded oddly brisk,
She sighed toward the end, I am human, too.

I knew it was a crime when I killed Mother.
I know I deserve the Chair.
But no one — no one — hurts my little brother..
She broke his arm! She pulled out his hair!

I tried to get someone to help. I did.
It was her or him, I swear.
Don’t try to hide when she blows her lid,
so I get out her gun and wave it in the air.

Mother caught me by the wrist and twisted,
and that is when I fired, and only then…
Brother a brother, right? Big sister, big sister?.
Can’t help but think I would do it again.

The jury tried and tried to decide.
Nearly all were parents themselves.
But all had been children at one time.
Empathy for the child simply overwhelmed.

Media pretended to be scandalized.
Commandments were waved in protest.
If only you could have seen her eyes —
that jury member said it best. . .except

I knew it was a crime when I killed Mother.
I know I deserve the Chair.
But no one — no one — hurts my little brother.
She broke his arm! She pulled out his hair!

Poetic Slavery of Language

Poetry

poetic slavery of language

in a marble tide dreamlike

stones for rubies fossils for blood

the eye’s kiss is a sky

the innermost cypress bends

out of winds and rain is

a vanished monument

veined and hollow

that is turned into poetic words

under the sails into the depths of

the wind that blows the clouds

waving the young morning light

into submission

i play with language without accepting her own slavery

A Blanket Of White (poetic-prose)

Poetry

Is it naïve to believe that beauty
Might last forever; that sapience
Could reign supreme; that life might
Blossom in gloriously unending colors?
LONGING for that special day to arrive –
IMPASSIONED when at last it does –
RHAPSODIC at times in our pursuits of the intangible …

Beguiled inexorably in times
Continuity; our lives ebb and flow to
Invisible forces around us, while deep
Within us the storm clouds quietly
Descend, and snow arrives on a
Whisper; a Blanket of White
Changing our acuity.
With every breath I pray for
Purity to arrive on the wings
Of love, justice, and honor, and
For Truth to flow as a purging
River through the hordes of
Darkened souls apprehended
By the razor riddled catamenia
Of never ending exploitation …

Such are the enigmatical histories of
Ancient civilizations; appearing briefly
As wildflowers on the scrolls of time.
The Anasazi, the Mayan, the Aztec, the
Zapotec’s, the Mixtec’s, the Rognvalds …
Traversing great oceans, living in the valleys,
Or within deep alcoves on varnished cliffs,
On high mountainous ridges, or in forsaken
Deserts — mystifying and baffling all those
Who inquire — ancient cultures enshrouded in
Underground caverns, along rivers, prospering,
Falling, but always leaving behind unique legacies
Of art, music, and words to ascertain, and grow, and
Learn from. Sadly these cultures, in all their nobleness
And mystery, are now only guidelines for exploitation
To a pandemic of self-centered, pandering, skeptical,
Greedy generations who use them as a means to
Further personal agenda and cause profit.

Notwithstanding our dreams and outlooks;
Or our unending propensity to misread the
Signs along the paths we walk; presuming
We have discernment in the first place, and
That our singularity of spiritual vision elevates
Us beyond the evolving tunnel vision of most
Around us …
All things remain firmly in the
Hands of a loving Creator whose ways are
Not our ways, and whose thoughts are far
Beyond our power to comprehend.
Still; we are all framed by freewill
And personal choices, and, where
We choose to plant our seeds will
Always demarcate the harvest that
Will inevitably ensue.

So . . . life continues to
Ebb and flow to invisible
Forces around us, and deep
Within us the storm clouds
Quietly descend and snow
Arrives on a soft whisper; a
Blanket of white encouraging
Our perceptivities and the
Perceptions of those
Around us.