Life and death poems
Loved this natural root art. Hands in the soil.
Let it rip.
Cemetery One
The cemetery is down the street
Small and incredibly neat
In Austria these are meticulously kept
Washed with tears and then swept
Walking the dog the other day
Passed by our little cemetery
Man with limp from strokes
Tended grave with jabs and pokes
Sighed when he saw me
Smiled and looked melancholy
Flowers he placed with great care
He remembering the smell of her hair?
I smiled and passed on by
As we all have to do eventually
White flowers on a fresh red grave
White flowers fresh on a fresh red grave
On a winter's day
In a land far away
Red flowers dead on an old brown grave
On a winter's day
In a land far away
Then thousands of flowers rotting in a pile
Plucked from their tributes on graves by the mile
Some dead will never more be adorned
Forgotten souls now unmourned
Drifting is a small stick on a slow river
Which meanders and takes both their time
The sun is high and green grass fields stretch in all directions
Sloping up to hills which slope to mountains
Which reach the clouds which rise to the blue
The stick drifts to the riverside
Where it snags on a sandy bank
Rotating like a minute hand until released
With a sudden apparent burst of energy into the molten river
It journeys on and on into a now setting sun
The only noise from a kiss light wind
Which teases the water into faint ripples
That nudge and caress the stick, altering perspective
The last of the sun shows red,
The sky purple and orange and yellow
Far too short a beauty, then darkness
Expected but sudden non the less
The stick moves with the flow apparently unmoved
Washed along in the now moon blue white light
As pretty as the day
The river straightens now
The stick rolling on water substance
Faster and broader is the river
The stick is agitated, rolls, turns
Something is ahead
The riverbanks have given way to a moon defined gorge
The noise tells of an earthy energy
Of mere gravity in action, of a force
The stick is powerless but has a final twist
Is snagged briefly on a piece of floating vegetable debris
Then beckoned by a greater need
It is sprung hard into the flow
Tossed and racing now towards the sound,
The pulling roar, the water cliff
A last vision is the ice warm moon, behind
Then it is swallowed accelerating down and down
A giddy massive pressure
The stick is broken on rocks
Themselves broken smoothed and broken again
Wooden fragments rise, pop and bob, surge and spiral
Gasping and grasping at the frenzied surface
Random forces eventually gain sway
The pieces escape the crushing falls
They limp into the steadier river
Which aims again with renewed purpose
A more refreshed resting river
Last Poem
He was about to die and not for us,
The cling-to living,
To understand how or why.
He was happy with this notion,
Relieved at giving up, the finishing at-last
The ending of his exhaustion
His old pen he weakly took
One more poem he would write to end
His life's poetry book
Goodbye to all who loved me
And to those who did not
I wish you well anyway...
That is as far as he got
He died then gently in peace,
Alone but unafraid, he determine when
A simple self-release
Post Death
It is that time after death
The air dried wreath
I am a daggerless sheath
Too spent to want
Sad about not being sad
Possessor of possessions
Sorting recollections
Contained jail like
Back in the throng
There is no new song
What, why when where, how
I want a new toy
It is that time post death
I am the air dried wreath
A daggerless brittle sheath
Too spent to dredge up need
Possessed by possessions greed
Sorting my recollections
Sifting memories
Shelving regrets
Whale-like beached
Contained in morose jail
Back to the armpit throng
There is no new song
What, why, when, where, how?
I want a new now
And I shall have it.
No one knows
But as we get older
We can throw the clay
Better at the centre
Of the turning wheel
So that the chances
Of a wonderful article
Are increased
The number of throws though
Are running out
I am hurt
My body bleeds internally
My dreams are rekindled
I weep externally to cool
I am hurt
I examine the motives past
My actions spoke quieter than words
My inertias haunt me
I am hurt
My mind is again my own
But is master of nothing
It mocks me
I am hurt
There is no one to tend my words
There is no point in turning over
I have no tomb ready
I begin to freeze
I am hurt
The light begins to dim
I cannot see my eyelids
My mouth dries to dust
I die
Hair Brush
Hair brush
Daughter’s hair still there
Fine
Mixed
With mine
Born out of crimson
Born out of crimson
Thrust out in crimson
That first big breathe
Six molecules from all of us now
And more from the past
Twelve from Jesus
Nine from Hitler
Ten from each pervert
That practised to make imperfect
Eleven parts Winston Churchill
What chance do you have
With this lot in your lungs?
More on Cemetery Angle
Headstones of different sizes rise
In the mist of today's weather surprise
Thin snow flutters and softly lands
On dead veined leaves like old man's hands
Pathways crossed help define the plots
Coffin's old-bones leak to fertilise the lots
A black squirrel perches dainty on a cross
Nut chewing uncaring of someone's loss
A grey pigeon too pecks at a grave's gravel
Head hard up and down like the final gavel
A woman is tending in the mist
In a bright red coat, hair in a twist
She is talking to her dead one tenderly
Oblivious of the squirrel the pigeon or me
Lost my mom
I lost my mom ages ago
She was younger than a child
Never spread her wings
They were glued tight
In the north England
Detritus that was life
But in her mind
She wandered the courts of kings
And danced naked
Spoke poetry to her lovers
Smiled equal to the sun
And tamed the moon beams
My father died
I the only son
With kind help
I dissected his property
Sorted his past
Dumped his clean hoardings
Late in the dark exercise
I found a tatty pile
Scribblings of my long dead mother
That my father in his black turn
Had tender saved
A novelette started there
In thick grey pencil
On pieces of rough paper
On half sheets
On the back of cereal box card
A musty patchwork
A tomb treasure
Her art and heart in my hand
The pile waits
Unsorted as yet
In my wooden cupboard
At my home
I will read the detail soon
Collate and copy
Celebrate my generous genes
When I have the grieving strength
To contact again her love
Through her hand written words
And face the robbery
Which took her so early
So I found her again when my dad died
He had saved her too
For a later day
I hold up the beauty that is a young child
My child, my angel
I hold up my angel to the skies
To let my mother, long dead
See my angel, my child
I look for a sign that she has been seen
I have not seen one yet
Cancer bed revelations
Disturb me
Concerning children, emotion
No ghosts haunt me and take pity
No one sees my child, my angel
My part creation
One day
One day
I shall lay
Like a smooth sheet
Of grey lead
On a white linen sheet
On a smooth bed
I shall ask whether I am dead
Stare hard
Into the black
Of my eyelids
I will reflect
On all my transitions
From here
To there
To where?
Old age
The inevitable victor entropy
Old age
When organs wheeze and grind
Destroyer of the equilibrium of the mind
When sight and sound blur the world
When taking a comfortable crap
Is governed by constant laxative sap
Softening motions to ease the pain of the rectal gap
To pass septic gnarled haemorrhoids without the sensation
Of a perineum-applied chain saw.
When joints swell to give cabbage hands and knees
When shoulders seize
A stiff body and a never stiff dick
When skin folds over folds over folds
When your face slides over your chin
When long dead veins bulge-map your thighs
When cataracts fog your eyes
When caring to look at tits is a long gone exercise
Old age begins when the body ends
In some this can be early in some much later
But it is inevitable, the denominator
Irreversible and immutable
Rich men do not want to believe
Seek remedies to relieve
Cosmetics will never be enough
No good covering up the rough
Poor men have no other possibilities
Philosophise instead Enjoy more bed, alone
Old age the fact the only killer
In a hospital bed, untreated pneumonia, a bloody pilla’
Or quiet at home with dementia
