Scraping The Barrel (A Villanelle)
I love the villanelle form in poetry. It's usually used for deadly serious poems, the most famous villanelle being Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight. However, I recently came across a wrly funny example by Wendy Cope Villanelle for Hugo Williams, mildly chastising him for bastardising the form. I decided to write my own in the same tone.
I'm sure all your friends will agre...
Wednesday 8th January 2014 3:15 pm
Hung Out To Dry
Hung Out To Dry
If God the father sent Christ to die
For the sins of you and I,
Wear a crown of thorns, bleed and cry
Oh dad you've hung me out to dry,
Forsaken me, nailed me high (heave and sigh) -
Then I don't understand the truth,
Of this cosmic act of child abuse.
Where one cannot do otherwise, blame
Cannot be assigned. Judas & the Jews
Constrained, fitted up, put in the frame,
...
Saturday 28th December 2013 6:10 pm
The Absolute Need
Owls hoot in the oaks
the jasmine is heady,
I look from the window
and watch them together
scoop the moon from
the shimmering surface
drunk & unsteady,
I almost believe
we'll be happy forever
I'm 54 and I'm ready.
I almost believe
we are marked,
we are blessed,
so I'm keeping the vigil
to h...
Tuesday 3rd September 2013 12:05 pm
For A Second I Forgot #2
Sometimes I feel a poem doesn't quite hit the mark. I work it and re-work it and often just let it go - put it out there. In it's original form this was a poem that started off as two separate poems which I then merged. I had at least 20 stanzas to choose from and experimented with changing them around and cutting up couplets. This revision of For A Second I Forgot, I think gets to the core of th...
Sunday 4th August 2013 5:10 pm
Apolide ~ (For Gregg)
On Carmel beach he saunters
where turquoise meets the border,
His arms outstretched
His upturned palms
Seek signals of a different order,
Eyes the milky horizon line
For signs of calmer water.
His sullen self numb
to the laughter of companions,
neither one thing, the other or either,
Frei nor Frum, Jew nor 'Goy,'
Monday 15th July 2013 5:57 pm
Camp
By the dull electric lamp
arose a vision so intense,
undimmed by squalor, stench and damp
in that Polish prison camp.
Emblems of their offence,
pink triangle and yellow star,
tattoo just below the sleeve
a hunger for tomorrow,
for reprieve. A hope that
what began in sorrow
would not end in grief.
A fa...
Saturday 22nd June 2013 4:58 pm
The Poem Fails
The poem fails
It cannot render traction
Or the queer zero,
Rehearse location
Or mine gravity.
Panic & lapse
Immune to weak forces
Arise on threads of absence
In mechanical waves,
Muted by observation
& uncertain rules
In the chamber of bias.
An adumbration transpires.
Wanton longing. Dimension
Flattened & tamped.
Monday 20th May 2013 3:51 pm
Peter Goes West
I do not presume to judge you
Now that you are gone,
The leaf would've fallen anyway
The bird would've flown,
Taking talisman, tarot deck
And Ayn Rand tome,
On a journey to far West
Your spiritual home.
Land of parking lots and desert malls,
Skateboards on the board walks,
Beggars in the bleachers
watching volleyba...
Friday 17th May 2013 5:56 pm
Clock Watchers In The Woods
It's my first memory of social embarrassment. I loudly proclaimed my older cousin Barry “sexy” and brought the pickled onion crunching crowd to a glowering halt. His shirt collar was open and brought over jacket lapels, his hair was slick with Brylcreem. It passed for style in those dismal days and I'd confused style with sexy. I have no idea where heard the word before but clearly it was a f...
Sunday 5th May 2013 6:47 pm
Save Ulster From Sodomy
Save Ulster From Sodomy
Papists rule out rubbers
lobby Paisley, Cardinals campaign,
petition Orange Men,
united by a great and noble aim,
Odd bedfellows marry hastily.
Saving Ulster from sodomy again.
Forty-two to fifty
They threw out equality,
ranting, foaming, raving, canting,
Stormont storms. Sodomy
My protestant Gran informed me,
...Sunday 5th May 2013 4:37 pm
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