poetry by numbers

Poetry by Numbers I got an email naming the best poets from poetry site ...As expected they were love stories, About loneliness and the mixed bags of The poet’s monotonous candyfloss of anguish. All poems looked worked- shopped, the same Phrases sometimes returned And they were all meticulous in show not tell Which is a mind-numbing mantra. For some, especially The academically inclined, making poetry Into a cross word puzzle I think all 100 poets had the same teacher who, As many poetry teachers do, lives in New Mexico

tanko

Tanka I had so many dreams They laughed the ones who had lost theirs Told me I was a fool But in their laughter I sensed their tears. Tanka There am two of me One goes to hospital a lot The other drives a bike Thinks he is going to live forever The sick knows better

big breakers

Big Breakers. Frothing, the colour of spring leaf, a mountain top of ocean intent on drowning you it is not like crossing a road and just have the time to jump clear of a car. No, you are totally helpless and your salvation is down to luck not maritime ability. The beast has gone mad something we said down in the mess-hall when playing card? Not to forget the good moment when the sea is flattening out flecked by light blue. Our promises of not drink and smoke and to be kind to our mothers vanes. There is something mesmerizing about it, will the ship be able to shudder and get up from the tons of water? Are we ghosts from a past that never was? I Kingston we drank rum & coke and never spoke about our inner thoughts, we had survived and lived in the moment. But what can you expect of a simple seaman when landlubbers can’t even remember last year’s war.

mountains

Mountains and Generals What scared me most as a child were tall mountains dark silent sometimes white topped and often wearing a crown of a murderous miasma of gloom. Once my ship docked in a constricted fjord, a smelting plant, a few houses and a restaurant surrounded by Somme like nakedness. I tried to close the curtains but they wouldn’t let me insisted on keeping what they called summer evening light as long as possible. I had reindeer steak down in the cellar served with moss and boiled potatoes and brown gravy – in Norway you get thick dark gravy with everything- Going back onboard I felt the mountains naked, life hating presence like crazy generals ordering men to attack over open terrain killing a million young men in the process. Fortified with aquavit I just made it back onboard, the sea was flat and calm. And I heard General Haig’s raised, voice “let us do this once more this time it may just work “Should I ever come across his statue, I’m sure there is one in a town, the great man sitting on a horse looking heroic, I will without delay piss on his statue. and get free from my fear of tall mountains.

a pair of brown shoes

A Pair of Brown Shoes I once slapped my brother across the face, it hurt me more than him, the palm of my right hand is still red. You see, we lived in a small flat- I had bought a pair of shoes, they were un-walked in and shiny; was going to put them on that Saturday evening to impress my friends; but my brother beat me to it. I was so furious I cried; “it is only a pair of shoes,” my mother bleated in the background. This was fifty years ago I now know the difference of what is important and what is nothing to bother about, but sod it all... he shouldn’t have taken my fucking shoes

mortality

Mortality There is death and there is big deaths Mr Bloom. An industrialist died and there were shockwaves in Europe, he had a white moustache and we are Told he was flamboyant and there will be a sea of flowers, The president will kiss his wife’s hand and there will be tears....some of them real. Meanwhile at a place where children day on daily basis one of them died before he got to suckle his mothers meagre breast. No there will be no president there no kisses to the mother for her lamentable loss, only silence. Some humans are more valuable than others but in the end Both have in common they will never speak again.

childhood

Childhood. I read, in a newspaper, with following black white & photo of children used as slave labourers many years ago, I was one of them, but I didn’t share the misery described. I was sat with my little suitcase on a bus that trundled through a flat landscape, told to sit there until a man called my name. It was a small farm and the farmer’s wife gave me a thick slice of bread with strawberry jam on. Then I was shown my room a tiny loft span with a straw mattress and it was bitterly cold. I started work at six next morning, with a glass of milk and a slice of bread, my job was to muck out the cows shed shuffle the residue down a hole in the wall, the manure was later used fertilise the land. School was every other day and a bit bothersome till I hit one of my torments with a brick over his head and poise of fear was restored. I quickly got the hang on the farm work, got on well with the farmer and was spared the dirtiest work. Years I spent on the farm, but then my mother came home from sanatorium I wanted to be near her; apparently it was not legal to just leave like that but I left anyway. One day many years later, feeling nostalgic I went back to the farm, it wasn’t there anymore, had been turned into a housing estate. Poverty, struggle, need and were all forgotten incidental as life itself, but I owe it to them, after me there will be no one left to tell the story