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Moth In My HouseI live in a house with a moth,
But at least it will die before me.
Yellow winged, keeps wandering off,
I think it might be friends with a bee.
Are you a mouse or a mammoth,
Or an octopus, deep in the sea?
I thought I'd ask you that question,
As I stretch my feelers insectly.
The moth first lived in the bathroom,
Now it flits on the lamp in the hall,
Has no buzz like a bluebottle,
And it remains incredibly small.
One day I'll open the window,
And I'll sense that my moth friend has gone,
To hover over an ant hill,
While I settle for tea and a scone.
Enki
I sang on Cedar Mountain,
I rejoiced beneath the sky,
Ran in glee, on the grassy peak,
Like an eagle, soon to fly.
I called the name of Enki,
From old Sumerian stone,
Saw the bright necklace of Ishtar,
Who shines in the sky alone.
Enki built submarine,
Made from bended substance strange,
Black bars and ordinary wood,
Submerged from sight, out of range.
Wise god Enki in his boat,
Built without windows or doors,
Sailed far, deep beneath the ocean,
Till he came to other shores.
There his own people landed,
Children to whom he was king,
Of the first civilizations,
To new lands he them did bring.
He taught them to build spacecraft,
Pyramids of golden stone,
Then, his helmet on, he lifted,
Mounted to the stars, alone.
From his ziggurat platform,
Inside his black starship bright,
Tall in his eagle winged helmet,
Free in his soul, born for flight.
The ziggurat of Enki,
In the city centre square,
His people built in his honour,
Like in Eridu and Ur.
Sumerian stone tablet,
Told tales of Enki the wise,
Spoken by a poet prophet,
Master of what floats and flies.
I rose up from Cedar Mountain,
Inside my own spaceship wheel,
Went wandering, like Gilgamesh,
With the sky beneath my heel.
The ocean king, Oannes,
From his pearly palace floor,
Once brought wisdom unto Sumer,
Legged up and spoke on the shore.
He gave them his instructions,
He taught them all he knew.
From his holy laws and pattern,
A civilization grew.
S.E.T.I. Man
I work for S.E.T.I.,
Been doing it for about six years.
The government pay me,
I twiddle knobs, while supping beers.
My wife and my children,
Think my job's some kind of joke.
I say, it's got us a nice house,
It's better than being broke.
I'm a S.E.T.I. man,
S.E.T.I, S.E.T.I. man.
We send out signals,
But we got none coming back.
They say if I don't make contact
With any benign aliens,
I would get the sack.
A friend of mine told me,
He would call to let me know,
If he ever had a close encounter
With a U.F.O.
I'm a S.E.T.I. man,
S.E.T.I., S.E.T.I. man.
The Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence
May sound rather odd.
My auntie Mary said,
Give me a call, if you should ever
Contact God.
As for me, I hope ever
To meet an E.T.
If I did, I suppose he'd be
The kind of person
I'd invite home for tea.
Yes, I'm a S.E.T.I. man,
S.E.T.I, S.E.T.I. man.
We built star scanners,
Space radio stations tuned in key.
Planet map planners
Sketch in our great observatory.
I get stimulated by the message we wait for,
From planet wheel panoramas,
Star folk on the cosmic shore.
I'm a S.E.T.I. man,
S.E.T.I., S.E.T.I. man.
VolundVolund rested from smith work,
His hot forge behind him,
He stood in the doorway,
Looked up at the high pines of Wolfdale,
His eyes, sore with flame, smudged by smoke,
Brightened with wonder.
Three swans he saw,
Swoop down from the sky,
To settle on water,
On a far, tree hidden lake.
In a sudden, they came,
Flew out of the thunder.
Later, three women
Came walking towards him.
Two had dark hair, one had golden.
He knew they were not mortals,
But Valkyries, handmaidens of Odin.
"First I saw three swans
Fly down to the forest.
Now three white clothed women
Come to me. What means this?"
He asked them.
"That was us. Not Odin alone
Can change his form,"
Said Hervor, whose hair was golden,
Like sunshine on cornfields.
Volund's two brothers,
Slagfidur and Eagil,
Came down from a hunt
For jewels in the mountains,
Saw him speak with three women.
"What is it I see?"
Said Slagfidur to Egil.
"A vision of Valhalla.
No mortal women does our brother entertain."
"They are Valkyries, handmaidens of Odin,
Come down to Earth to court human men,"
Egil told his brother.
To him all was clear,
The air without smoke to smother.
"Do not take her for your wife.
She will leave you heartbroken,"
Volund was warned by Gunnhilda,
His mother, long a widow.
Where he saw sunshine,
She saw only shadow.
But he looked upon Hervor,
Her bright hair that was golden,
And listened not to his mother
With her rune stones and elk horns.
For nine winters,
Volund lived with Hervor, his lover,
As did Egil with Olrun,
And Slagfidur with Swanwhite.
Nine winters went by,
Warmer than wood fire.
Then for the chase,
The wild ride in the sky,
The courts of Valhalla,
The three women pined.
One early spring morn,
Volund woke without Hervor beside him,
Her hair bright on the pillow, like corn.
Outside, in Wolfdale,
He watched three swans fly from the forest.
But he still had his smith work.
He grew cold as his anvil,
Hard as his hammer,
Cared not that snow fell in winter,
The sun beamed in summer.
Thought only of Hervor,
His fair one, his lover,
From whom he was parted,
Who now rode in the sky
With her Valkyrie sisters,
Over the battles of men,
On land and on sea,
Doing their duty for Odin.
His two brothers went off,
Sought gold in the mountains,
Long hidden treasure,
Knowing whatever they found
Would bring them no pleasure.
While he dreamed he lived in Asgard
With Hervor, his lover,
As servant of Odin,
Held in high honour,
As smith of Valhalla.
Final Page
For this evening's mind food,
I dwell upon The Mystery of Edwin Drood,
The novel that Charles Dickens
Left unfinished at his death,
Before he wrote its final page,
He drew upon his final breath.
Even a great novelist must die,
His works never.
What will be my last words, I wonder?
Will I fly into death or simply blunder?
Nearly sixty two,
What then am I to do?
Complete the final page,
Before I leave the stage?
Leave nothing left unfinished,
No unended puzzle left upon to brood,
Like The Mystery of Edwin Drood?
What happened in the end?
We will never know, my friend.
The Rime of the Ancient Astronaut
It was an ancient astronaut,
He stepped lightly from a tree,
To ask an earthly scientist,
Who had lately had his tea,
To help fix his astral engine,
For he had forgot its key.
"Why me? Are you some kind of loon?"
Said the earthly scientist.
"No, but unless I find my key,
I cannot play my tune,"
Replied the ancient astronaut,
His face white, cratered, like the moon.
"Tell me, ancient astronaut,
What's it like, out there, in space?"
Asked the earthly scientist,
Lines of interest on his face.
"Space is very vast and empty.
And no solid shapes are seen,
But there is lots of air out there,
And all of it is clean,"
Answered the ancient astronaut,
Who beamed like a sun lit bean.
"Why do you travel on so far,
In so much void and distant stone,
Seemingly so solitary,
And so obviously alone?"
Asked the earthly scientist,
His skin thin upon the bone.
"I map the cosmic pyramid
From its root unto its cone,"
Answered the ancient astronaut,
In a stern but solar tone.
"Why have you come and landed here?
It now dawns how strange we meet.
You are an ancient astronaut,
Not a stranger on the street.
If I informed the newspapers,
They'd pay money to my bank.
I'd be rich enough to retire,
And I'd have you to thank,"
Said the ancient astronaut,
Who was otherwise quite blank.
"I came to mend my astral wheel,
But I've lost my first light key,"
Said the ancient astronaut,
As politely as could be.
Then in the pattern of his palm,
Saw the imprint of his key.
Laughter relief after alarm,
Flittered in him, like a bee.
"So sorry for disturbing you,
Seems I had it all the time.
I must fly off and go away,
In lemon hues and lime,"
Said the ancient astronaut,
And stepped back behind the tree,
Leaving the earthly scientist,
To wonder what next would be.
She Came From Dark Cove
She came from Dark Cove on the Newfoundland shore,
Where the fisherfolk fight with the sea.
Her grandfather's wife was an Indian squaw,
And her wandering led her to me.
Below the Cairngorms, in old grey stone Braemar,
Where the salmon they leap in the Dee,
We met one summer, in the blue, smoky bar,
In the hotel we worked, to be free.
Free as the falcons on the mountains we saw,
As the deer who ran wild through the glen.
We found a heaven, but turned back at the door,
And it never will open again.
I brought her feathers and deer antlers to draw,
And she told me of lands over sea,
Of pots she had made and of paintings in store
Of winged spirits who lived in a tree.
See her by rivers, winding green willow wands,
Drawing white eagles, wolf cubs and bears.
She came to my cell and she unthonged my bonds,
As she quietly led me upstairs.
She may be a wife with a baby by now,
Five years gone since I last saw her face,
Or in a canoe, slowly wondering how
To sail back to her grandmother's race.
Me I am happy she came my way at all,
I still see her by moon and by star.
May the glad laughter of waters in fall
Echo round you wherever you are.
Silk and Steel
I came by myself
And I'll leave on my own.
My songs are my wealth,
They're the seeds I have sown.
It's the way that I have
To tell how I feel,
And I play them on strings
Of silk and of steel.
Snow now is flaking
From the white winter sky.
The year's leavetaking,
Time's come for goodbye,
At least to the green leaf,
But not to the song.
Plucked chimes in the frost air,
The dark winter long.
Heard Martin Carthy
Sing for all he was worth,
Songs from our history,
From the lands of our birth.
It's the way that he has
To stir us to feel,
And he played them on strings
Of silk and of steel.
The Long Return
All the lines are drawn,
All the stones are raised.
In the tones of dawn,
All the gods are praised.
All that we have known,
All the things we made.
All that we have shown,
We shared in fair trade.
Now we journey home,
On our long return.
All the signs are clear,
All the lights are bright.
Over stars we steer,
Attain lanes for flight.
All our path is pruned,
All our craft prepared.
All our tones are tuned,
Follow our star bird.
Now we journey home,
On our long return.
Farewell to your land,
Farewell to your shore,
Farewell to your sand,
Now forevermore.
Thought it would be good,
Thought it could be fine.
Things were as they should
When the stars were mine.
Now we journey home,
On our long return.
Shores yet still to find,
More yet will we learn.
Meetings kind to kind,
On the long return.
Farwell to this isle
On the ocean bed.
Let us wait awhile,
Think of things we said.
Now we journey home,
On our long return.
Precarious Piano PlayerPrecarious piano player,
Playing her piano on the edge of a cliff,
Her spine straight and stiff.
Wonder how she got there.
She does not seem to care,
With her head near the clouds,
Ocean wind in her hair.
Alarmed enough to laugh,
I saw her in a photograph.
Perhaps the scene was staged,
I thought, as water
Sluiced through the plug hole
In the bath.
The Fair Majesty Of Folk At Peace
I will make you of steel,
Hammer you on stone,
Hang you on the wall,
My sword, to glimmer there, alone,
In the hope I will never hear the horns,
Blasting in far vales,
The beating of the drum,
And I will remain a farming man.
The warrior in the war,
Let him fade in the mist,
With the spear in his hand,
The black gloved, hardened fist.
Let me and my fellow villagers,
Fish in waters in the marsh.
Let winter be our only foe,
Snow and ice enough is harsh,
Without the hard axe and rough shout
Of marauding bands of villainous men,
Who come in long ships, dragon prowed,
Over the cold north seas,
To try to take our lands,
To make my wife a widow,
The maker of my last coat,
The weaver of my shroud.
Now Alfred is our lord,
The wise king of Wessex men,
The fair majesty of folk at peace will reign.
The wild boar with his sharpened horn
Will not hunt through our woods,
Nor will the red serpents of the north
Bring battle to our fields again.
Chimneys and Clouds
I lay on my bed,
Head on my pillow,
Weary, worn, I looked,
Out of my window.
Dark chimneys and clouds
Is all that I saw.
The light and shadow,
I wanted to draw,
In chalk and charcoal.
Made me feel tranquil,
That is all, nothing more.
Roused no emotion,
Just observation,
Dwelt on the present,
The pleasant word combination
Of chimneys and clouds.
Feeling playful, I thought,
What about, the other way round,
Clouds and chimneys?
Same vision, same sound.
Clouds and chimneys,
High above ground.
I rose from my bed,
Paced from my pillow.
Pensively, I gazed,
Out of my window.
Still chimneys and clouds
Is all that I saw.
The light and shadow
Grew solid and sure.
Felt simple and sane,
Not broken, not bored,
By chimneys and clouds,
All else was obscured.
Chimneys and clouds,
Light and shadow,
Chalk and charcoal,
Outside my window.
Chimneys and clouds,
Seen from my childhood.
I had to grow up,
Got lost in the wild wood.
At last, I came clear,
Stood calm and serene.
Chimneys and clouds,
Concrete and clean.
My Father Was A Sailor(For my father, Eric Dodd, born 5th, August, 1923,
died, 28th, January, 2009.)
My father was a sailor in the war,
Was twenty two at its end.
From the deck of his corvette, saw the ships,
The convoys he helped defend.
The Great Pyramid of Egypt, he saw,
Vast seas for whales to wander,
The stone guardian angel with her lamp,
Anchored in New York harbour.
In time of peace, to England, he returned,
Worked as a plumber by trade.
Water ways of pipes he fixed, cleansed and cleared,
Of a house a home he made.
My mother said she met him at a dance,
Smiled to think of days gone by.
He was good to her, and that matters most.
Far and faint, the seabirds cry.
He left us here, to voyage out, alone,
Skilled to steer his ship to shore.
My mother waits to greet her sailor home,
Summer stars outside her door.
Baskets brim with apples on a table,
A brown pot steams with fresh tea.
On a plate a cake of nuts and cherries,
On walls, portraits of the sea.
And in a berry bush chirps a robin,
By a hedge a ladder leans.
A shed shelters tools to tend a garden.
Truth tells itself what it means.
All is clear, in golds and greens.
Arrivals In The Light
Here I am staying,
Praying all night.
Here I am praying
For arrivals in the light.
For now we need helping
To get it right.
For now we need saving,
Turning to the light.
When I am fading,
I still hold the light.
In pools I am wading
Through the long goodnight.
Angels are not stories,
Not when you are clear.
Golden are their glories,
Walking without fear.
Some of us are leaving,
Some of us will stay.
Some of is are grieving,
Some of us will pray.
Here I am staying,
Praying all night.
Here I am praying
For arrivals in the light.
Only Waves
When I'm submerging,
I know I'll rise again,
I'll see the skies again,
I'll go on.
I'm like a dolphin,
Blue fins in ocean deep,
Who wins but cannot keep,
Only waves.
Only waves,
Tugging away at my heart.
Only waves,
We are yearning at sea from the start.
I'll keep on searching
For my own coral cave,
Beneath the breaking wave,
Silent shore.
Cast on the tempest,
Hurled on a whirling crest,
Cascading with no rest,
I'll endure.
The Lay of Lord Florg Fletchley Belch(Being a poem composed by a frog, translated into human.)
First, here is an example of the original poem, written in frog:
Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit, croak, gulp, ribbit, belch,
Gulp, ribbit, ribbit, ribbit, burp, belch,
Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit, crawk, crawk, gumph, ribbit,
Umph, crawk, glug, morg, florg, crawk,
Ribbit, ribbit, ribbit.
And here is the human translation, for your scribal scrutiny and writty critty:
Winter kip over,
Sniff lily, lick clover,
I splutter and squelch,
And this is the lay
Of Lord Florg Fletchley Belch,
That being me.
Now lightly and springy,
Still yet no buzz
From bright stingy bee.
I am big frog and old,
Far older and bigger
Than amphibian relation,
For your explanation, the toad.
In back garden pond I dwell,
Not reedy river, swamp splodge or well.
Leap on the pad of fair lily,
Sniff fronds, slimy and frilly,
Smell on the grass, new mown,
Belch over petals,
Slime over seeds, fresh sown.
Cat, owl and magpie
Annually try
To gobble me whole,
On grassy grass,
Under the bird twittery sky,
But for them, with hold back and caution,
I am too fast,
And slippery, too.
With a leap and a croak,
I am back in my pond,
Submerge my head with good soak.
Danger is past.
Ah, I remember the tiddler time,
When I was a wee tadpole,
To be big frog, my only goal.
Now I croak and belch that I am,
Muchly to my amphibious mirth,
My belly weight and girth.
Happy am I as toothy beaver,
New builder of twiggy dam.
Many a frog is a poet,
Not even a newt may know it.
There was Willy Shakeleaf
And Jonny Millconic,
Who wrote epic frog verse,
Super and sonic.
Far more worthy are frog folk
Of sonnet, lyric or ode
Than wriggly grass snake,
Slow snail or toad.
We can witty critty,
Get down to the nitty,
Slurp sure in our muddy abode.
From serious squirm,
From one higher than worm,
Light relief,
From an old croaky frog on a leaf.
The Misinterpretation of Pope Gregory the GreatI sat in an old inn corner,
Reclusively content so to do,
So sad, I felt like a mourner,
The last one to stand in the queue,
And I blame Pope Gregory the Great,
I have a bone to pick with you.
It was you who began the confusion,
And you lived a long time ago.
The mistake you made caused much trouble,
Your own misinterpretation,
For Mary Magdalene,
And her reputation,
It is something you cannot undo.
For some reason you decided
That she and the woman named a sinner,
Who in The Bible is given no name,
Are somehow, according to you,
To be taken as one and the same.
And so artists, poets and writers,
From the Middle Ages and on,
Have depicted Mary Magdalene
As your very own fiction,
Of her as the redeemed sinner,
A saved, fallen figure to write of,
To paint, carve and muse upon.
If you'd read The Bible correctly,
You would know when she is first mentioned,
She is with Joanna and Susanna,
And several other women,
Who became followers of Jesus,
Who saved her from being tormented
By seven devils, her affliction,
Which sounds like she was mentally ill,
But you settled on your own fiction,
And some are believing it still.
The Bible says she was the first witness,
When Jesus appeared from the tomb,
And she stood at the foot of his cross,
When the whole world was shadowed in gloom.
But the woman who was a sinner,
Who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears,
And dried them with strands of her hair,
In The Bible is given no name.
Now she's confused with Mary Magdalene,
And I hear that you are to blame.
A most moving scene in The Bible.
That woman not named deserves fame.
Now a recent Pope admitted,
Mary Magdalene may deserve an apology,
For maybe she was not the woman
Who was called a sinner,
But it all seemed half hearted to me,
And it is too late now,
Even if others agree.
You see, we have all these paintings,
Sculptures, poems and erudite books
That stain Mary Magdalene's name,
From which she will never be free.
And I would like to remind you
That she was a true, living woman,
Even if she did live long ago,
And she deserves a profound apology,
To free her from your misinterpretation,
To save her from your soiled history.
Now I sink back in my shadowy corner,
Glad to have unburdened my mind,
To my relief, less like a mourner,
The lamp of my life shines more kind.
Of Mary Magdalene, I am glad to have spoken.
She was, in my humble opinion,
A fair flower of womankind.
After the pain that she went through,
She deserves to be understood.
As for you, Pope Gregory the Great,
I still have a bone to pick with you.
You should not have made your own fiction
Out of something so holy and true.
A child would not make your mistake.
If only you had read with innocence,too.
And now I end my complaint,
Knowing what you did no one can undo.
Someone with no name in The Bible,
Anonymous she should remain,
I say to you, Pope Gregory the Great,
As I listen, outside, to the rain.
In my mind, Mary Magdalene
Will stay a white rose without stain.
Motor BoatsMotor boats searching for something,
At least, those on board them are,
That low chunting, humming sounds like,
But really, there is only silence,
On a dark night with no moon or star.
Morning comes with light and birdsong.
One will come without me,
I will have no ears to attend.
Those motor boats will continue searching,
What for, no message will send.
Wood pigeons hoo on trees and rooftops,
Sill here I am to hear.
One day they will wake worlds without me,
Towards silence I unstoppably steer.
Death, to be plain, will end my life's tale,
And no one will know what was told,
In my mind and my soul on my voyage out,
Towards what I endeavoured to hold.
Just one drop in the ocean,
Just one bird in the sky,
No need to alter the motion,
Nothing will stop when I die.
For billions of years I was not here,
The dinosaurs lived and they died.
For billions more I will not be here,
From that truth the mind cannot hide.
Talons of Truth
Truth held me in its talons,
And flew me faraway,
Over rumour and rubble,
To where nothing goes astray.
It showed me many pictures,
Back to childhood play,
Left me inside a bare room
Where few would want to stay.
A woman in the doorway
Said: "This is too close to pain."
Knew I would not forget her,
But never see her again.
Truth showed me its white pages,
On them were written bold,
The thought lost wisdom I sought
In letters clear and gold
The words begged me remember
What long ago was told,
Yet fresher than the dawn dew,
Loud as the thunder rolled.
The woman in the waste land,
Walked beyond my call.
I knew I could not reach her,
Her steps I could not stall.
Truth freed me from its talons
In the many mirrored hall.
Each reflection means deception
With no clue to stop the fall,
And games take the place of truth
With rules, options and a ball.
My name means Mary Magdalene :o
Highway( To be sung to the tune of My Way, preferably the version by Frank Sinatra. Published by Lame Parody Productions. )
And now, the mouse is dumb,
And I have sold my last canary.
My pet shop, what will now come,
Now I can't sum anymore money?
Old owl in his cage,
From his rough throat, hoots the final cry,
And I, I am more than this,
But I must hit the highway.
And now, I am a tramp,
No longer a pet shop owner.
Call me a hobo, call me a scamp,
A rascal, fool, a loser, loner,
A clown on the stage,
Who broke down, to gain your attention,
But know, know when you say this,
I am on a new highway.
For what is a crab,
What is he not,
If not a parrot,
What has he got,
Some kind of snail
Or pelican?
I will not fail
To try to end the ban
On freedom to hike
On my own highway.
And so, my tale is told,
There is no gold inside my box,
No brave newt, no hamster bold,
No keys to turn, to open stiff locks.
Red fox in the bush
Has barked his bark to call the end,
And I, I must flee them all,
Who chase me down my highway.
Giraffe has a long neck,
But what the heck, he likes to stretch,
To eat a leaf, to keep a check,
Most snootily, he calls me a wretch.
The lobster he weeps,
And sleeps till the sun has risen,
While I, I cut my toe nail,
Before I hit my highway.
April FoolWelb is not a word
Nor is norb or zunktum,
But still, I can write them down,
And you, dear reader, must read them.
Few are my brain cells left,
And I do all I can to feed them.
Watch a word and it may flash,
And dash away from its true meaning.
Punctuation can whip its lash,
And pause and stop, like a tall italic leaning.
Maybe welb is not a word,
But given thought, maybe it ought to be.
What could it mean, a bloated bee,
A grasshopper with a knobbly knee,
A dragonfly found far at sea?
Who can say where a word will lead you,
As long as you are there to read it,
In its soil it will seed you.
An April fool can jest in May
Or even June, for little reason.
If the joke back fires, who can say,
For every small treason, there is a season.
Light ShipsOn the far sea horizon,
A mirage of light ships,
A trick of my eye,
For only I can see them.
No human mariners
Can be on board
Such luminous craft,
Such unearthly vessels.
High on a mast, beams a lamp,
Winks, sends a crystal signal.
Five colours I count,
Sapphire, red, green, violet, blue.
Advanced aeroplanes,
Silent, otherworldly helicopters,
For a few moments,
In a wider expanse,
Circle above them,
Vanish with sea gull cries.
Suddenly, the sand feels hard
Beneath my feet,
My body numb, empty,
My eyes clean, certain.
Vision of light ships
Swept away by natural cloud,
Distraction of waves,
Seaweed tangle on the shore.
The Life and Burial of Lizzie Siddal( You flew too near the sun and you were scorched.
from The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley. )
Your face I knew, long before your name.
You were a bird that flew,
No pen or brush could cage or tame.
Your beauty noble, wild,
Like that of a deer,
Who runs through the woods,
To pause, alert, by a river,
To stoop, to drink water,
Ready to flee from the hunter,
Declare yourself free of the enchanter,
Always one leap away from his net and his game.
Your face I saw, once, on a canvas,
And then, there it was, again.
I saw sorrow in your beauty,
Tears, strain, as if you had endeavoured
Not to surrender to love's pain.
Thought your face was idealized,
As in an angel statue or Mary icon,
From an artist's cleansed and clear mind,
His vision of fair womankind.
Now I know, that face, painted on canvas,
Drawn on paper, was your face,
That of a real woman,
Not an ideal or a vision.
My eye can see why he loved you,
Wanted you as his muse, his lover,
For there is poetry in your face, your name,
Lizzie Siddal, wild bird that none could tame.
You were the daughter of a cutler,
That is, a knife maker or dealer,
And you were a milliner,
Worked in Mrs Tozer's hat shop,
Just off the Old Kent Road,
In murky, foggy London,
When Victoria sat upon the throne
Of Britain and the Empire,
Before the wheels began to tire,
Clog and melt in rusty fire.
The market place and streets you knew,
In company and alone.
It was Walter Deverell,
A friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
The Pre-Raphaelite poet, painter,
Who told him he had found you,
Working in your hat shop,
Described you as a stunner,
Said that you were tall,
Your neck stately,
Your brow, your face,
Like the carving of a Pheidean goddess,
Your hair long, a dazzling reddish copper gold
With a shimmer, as it fell from your shoulders down.
So after he had seen you,
He asked permission of your parents,
To have you for his paintings pose,
For he knew he had found in you
A fair and rare, wild rose.
Of all the faces he saw passing by in London,
Yours was the one he chose.
What draws us together, tears us apart,
But that is the leap that lover's dare.
There's always the danger, right from the start,
But the heart knows, it is best to care.
First, John Everet Millais
Lay you in a bath of cold water,
To paint you as Ophelia,
Drowned with flowers in a river,
After Hamlet had scolded her,
Told her to get to a nunnery,
After his discovery
That his mother and her lover
Were the murderers of his father,
And she had lost her mind.
Like you, she had found life to be unkind.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Painted you as Beatrice,
But only after you had died.
Despite those other women,
Who became his muses, Like Annie Miller, Fanny Cornforth,
Ruth Herbert and Jane Burden,
You were the one he mourned as his dead wife,
Over your grave, he cried.
You gave birth to his child,
But you sat and rocked an empty cradle,
For your child was born dead,
And among the tears you shed,
You were tormented
By the face of Annie Miller,
Who William Holman Hunt
Had taken as his muse,
Said he saved her from the gutter,
Now she posed while he painted her,
As his model, his lover,
As the Lady of Shallot,
He painted her,
As she sailed in her barge,
Down the river, to Camelot,
From the verses of Tennyson,
His Victorian vision
Of the Arthur king,
Haunting as the lays
The Medieval minstrels sing.
And your husband painted her as Helen of Troy,
So you felt neglected, abandoned,
A blanked out muse, forgotten toy.
He came home from teaching art one evening,
To find you lying dead upon the floor.
An accidental overdose of laudanum
Was the verdict when you died.
At your burial at Highgate,
He buried you with a notebook of his verses,
Which in the madness of his grief,
He later had exhumed,
So that others might still read them,
And not leave them with you,
Underground, entombed.
Do not be sorry, you left behind your life,
Your stained and broken love story,
Your face on canvas and on paper,
Such as the drawing your husband did of you,
He called, Lizzie Lets Down Her Hair.
You are still here, you are there,
And everywhere.
Do not cry over what happened to you.
Remember, even if lovers do not part,
In the end, one must die first,
Then, the other, after.
But you were young once,
Your hair was long and copper red,
You fed on market bread,
On apple, cherry, strawberry,
From a basket, you were bred.
John Ruskin said you were a genius,
After studying your drawings, paintings, poems,
And he should know, for he wrote Modern Painters
And The Seven Lamps of Architecture.
You wandered round the market,
With fruit and bread inside your basket,
And smiled to hear the friendly calls,
The loud lunged, carefree laughter.
( Here is Lizzie Siddal as Ophelia, painted by John Everet Millais, mentioned in my poem, from the front cover of the book, Lizzie Siddal by Lucinda Hawksley:
Chadwick the Courageous CarpNow hear me as I hymn and harp
Of Chadwick the courageous carp.
By my newspaper I am told,
He is two foot long, ten years old.
A chagoi koi carp, his full name,
So from Japan, his kind first came.
In an aquatic centre lived he,
In Hampshire, happy as a bee,
Then came the floods, after the rain,
Caused by global warming, some explain,
And he was swept from his still lake,
With whatever else the floods would take.
His friend Steve the sturgeon by his side,
He was taken on a tumbling ride.
Over roads, industrial estates,
He was hurried with twigs and crates,
Till driven in the River Test,
Longing for the lake he loved best.
Now seven miles away it lay,
A dog walker saw him at play.
So from the river he was saved,
His gills and fins he gladly waved.
His keeper came and took him home,
Now no more will he need to roam.
Igor the IgnorableIgor the Ignorable was a lost, forgotten king,
He is never mentioned in the annals,
Of him the minstrels do not sing.
He did live, once, however, and ruled his kingdom well,
But no one knew quite where it was.
I do, but do not ask, for I will never tell.
Ankles and Ants
Sir Edward Burne-Jones
Was, no doubt, like you,
Impressed by his own name,
Pleased that by his art
He had attained his fair modicum of fame.
Before his easel, in his studio,
He lounged back, reclined,
To view his latest, unfinished canvas,
After he had long and suitably dined.
The door opened, and his young son, Philip,
Quite casually, stepped in,
To present to him a piece of paper,
Without expression, no frown or grin,
Which had a rough drawing on it,
Bare as a fish without a fin.
"And what is this?" Sir Edward asked,
Raising his right eyebrow.
He could see what it was,
But he wanted his young son
To tell him, anyhow.
"It's a quick sketch of my ankles and ants,"
His young son replied.
"As you can see, I wrote ankles and ants
At the bottom of my sketch, to give it a name."
His father looked at him, quite wild,
When usually Victorian and tame.
"I am pleased that your drawing
Is coming on by leaps and bounds,
But do you understand,
What you have said and written sounds?
Surely you mean your uncles and aunts?"
He mildly fumed, as if the proverbial spider
Was crawling up his pants.
"Thought that is what I just said,"
His son replied, as if he were a kite, untied.
"My word. Blunderbuss and croaky crows.
Ants, my dear boy, are insects,
As well you should know.
Spring comes and over the floor, they flow,
And on the window sill, they go,
While ankles are part of the structure
Of one's feet,
To make, as it were, the legs complete.
God forbid that I have birthed a boy
Who cannot spell or pronounce
His words, correctly,
Even if, when you grow up, you show signs
That you can draw quite well.
Ankles and ants, uncles and aunts
May sound the same,
But they relate to different things, altogether,"
Explained Sir Edward, like an owl
Who had lost a feather.
His young son shrugged his shoulders, shook his head,
Left his father in his studio,
His footsteps to his mother led.
She was fussing with the flowers,
As she often did.
He showed to her his sketch.
She looked at it as if it were
A rag he had found down a grid.
He was relieved to find
She knew who his ankles and ants were.
When he told her his father seemed confused,
And did not seem to know,
She told him that all creative persons
Can sometimes be quite slow.
He shrugged his shoulders, once again,
Stumped up the stairs, to his room,
Lay his sketch upon his pillow,
And wove wild dreams upon his loom.
After Six DaysAfter six days of hard creation craft,
I thought I'd have a rest, hopefully, a kip,
So I sat back in my deck chair
On my first garden grass,
And from a tall glass of nectar juice,
I took along and well earned sip.
Satisfied that all the stars and planets
Were established and turning in a wheel,
I have to admit, I was surprised
That everything was real.
Now, sometimes, I wonder,
If I should have taken longer,
To get it right,
Especially when I think of Earth,
That troublesome planet
That makes me have to hold my temper tight.
Quite a lot of them that live there
Think I do not exist,
Solitary standing forth, thinking themselves
So free and clever, to be an atheist.
I do not mind, really, I understand.
Who would want to serve a king
Who is absent from his land?
The amount of religions down there
Has got me quite confused,
But then, I am an ancient being,
Who finds it hard to keep up to date.
Yet I am old enough to wait for a train,
And not mind if it comes late.
Before I KnowBefore I know that there is an elephant in the room,
It has to stand on my toe,
I am that slow.
Before I climb on a camel's back,
I must be assured my bone's won't crack,
And there will be no water lack.
Before I ride a rocket round the globe,
I must be assured it will not disturb my ear lobe.
Before I ride in Africa on a bus,
I must be told it will not be horned
By a hippopotamus.
If it was, what can I do,
Find the safety of a cage inside a zoo?
All the things you have to do
Before you can do the things you want to do
Are left unregistered, forgotten,
And in the end the log in the woods left in the rain
Remains wet and rotten.
Before the CrossDaughters of Jerusalem,
Do not mourn or weep again,
Jesus said as he bore the cross,
A victory that seemed a loss.
No, do not weep, do not cry,
They do this when the tree is green,
What will they do when the tree is dry?
Barefoot children in the lane,
Shelter from the pelting rain,
And when the rose breaks through the ice,
You will sing in paradise.
No, do not weep, do not cry,
They do this when the tree is green,
What will they do when the tree is dry?
Silent soldiers on the hill,
Waiting for the sign to kill,
One day your captives will be free,
Sailing on a sunlit sea.
No, do not weep, do not cry,
They do this when the tree is green,
What will they do when the tree is dry?
Windmill and RainbowWindmill and rainbow,
Noon light and shadow,
Canal and meadow,
Busy stoneworker,
Mirror on water,
Brush stroked by Turner,
Another world lensed
I cannot enter,
Only gaze on, from outside,
Stood still in my corner,
Wishing I could walk in.
Step over the border,
Explore what lies beyond frames,
Where there are colours and shapes
Too new to have names.
Somewhere, find an inn,
For bread, beer and bed.
Quietly, upstairs, sleep in a loft.
Morning, at the window,
Smile on more than windmill and rainbow,
Journey on, further and deeper,
Onlooker no longer.
Ascent of the Prophet to HeavenJade mountain, white crested in winter,
Stars, black and red, stabbed the sky,
Punctured the void, like diamonds on a playing card.
Not for his body or his pride,
He wound up the mountainside,
To prove, maybe, he had a spirit.
Heard the tick of clockless time.
His feet bled, grew hard.
Looked up, saw the summit waited,
Bare, broken, made vague by mist.
Dice game of gamblers
Behind him, left in a wayside inn,
Further down, the mutter of shepherd men.
Persian painting path he pursued
From when he was eleven,
Glinted gold, silver, red
On a page of verse,
Ascent of the prophet to heaven.
Light, he rode from the summit,
As if on a horse,
Then, winged, he flew, like a bird.
Cheerful ones met him,
Asked if it was worth the effort.
He smiled, nodded,
Said he wanted to turn,
Tell those left behind:
It's all true.
They shook their heads, told him,
There's nothing you can do.
When we came up here, they said,
We felt the same as you.
He understood, knew, for a moment,
Everything.
Then, higher up, he followed them.
Verdict of Moth on Sloth
O, Moth, chrysalis and imago of sloth,
Fastened drowsy down on yellow lamp shade
With no feeler flexed to wing off,
Approved of Flea, sleepy on grass blade,
And Snail on his slow silver trail,
Not so stingy, buzzy Wasp, busy Bee,
Proud to be idly dormant insect he.
Naïve PainterYugoslavian mountains, lakes, trees,
He painted, copper, russet, vermilion.
Smiled, to himself,
Born to make as much impression
On this world, he reckoned,
As that brown moth that flittered
By that rock or by the stream, that lamb.
Father huffed and coughed
Over his talk of art.
What is that to do with you
Or who I am?
He questioned him.
Mother understood, distantly.
Always was a distant sail on the water.
But what was never in your line, she said,
Is never in your blood.
No money to study in the academy,
Never been to the city, anyway,
Bound to rural life,
Sheep flocks, farm economy.
Over his shoulders, some looked,
Grinned, shook heads at his rounded trees,
Like those done by a school child, they said,
Look like shiny balloons,
Big lollipops bought at the fair.
Naïve painter acknowledged himself to be,
So, free of rules, tradition, tuition,
What if, in his paradise vision,
Beyond those mountain peaks,
He painted what he had seen
Alone in photographs,
Inca step pyramids, Sumerian ziggurats,
Babylonian towers?
Breathed in, smiled again,
Free to do so,
Made turquoise smears into flowers,
Scarlet streaks into trees,
Fields of sweeps of indigo.
Farewell, my lord, King Arthur,
This may be my last farewell.
I go on the quest you gave us,
I go searching for the Sangreal.
This task is great you gave us,
One so worthy of our name.
I've a token of my true love,
For I may never see her again.
Searching for the Sangreal,
Our Lord's Holy Grail.
Searching for the Sangreal,
In my shining mail.
Sir Galahad, you dubbed me,
All at your fair table round.
A dragon's head I gave thee,
That I slew on dark, burning ground.
Searching for the Sangreal,
Our Lord's Holy Grail.
Searching for the Sangreal,
In my shining mail.
I stand before a tower,
It shines ruby, sapphire light,
And I walk across the drawbridge,
And kneel before tall angels bright.
Farewell, my lord, farewell, my lord,
This is my last farewell.
I achieved the quest you gave us,
I have seen the Sangreal.
Song For Gabriel
This is my song for Gabriel,
The Angel of the Word.
I've sung to you so many times,
This time I may be heard.
I sing to you from fellowship,
Past times I sang alone,
But now I can extend my love
To wood and air and stone.
Your golden wings have cradled me,
Your voice has made me kneel.
Your actions turn the universe,
Your wisdom spins the wheel.
This is my song for Abraham,
The shepherd of mankind.
You led your tribe out from Canaan,
And none were left behind.
O, come fulfil your prophecies,
And say the war is won.
Must I wait in vales of visions,
And leave my song undone?
Sailors of the Summer Stars
"I travel far," he said, "I travel far,
I am a sailor of the summer stars.
I bring you treasures in my shining jars,
I am a sailor of the summer stars."
She said, "I saw you, mounting from the sea,
I did not know you had come for me.
Once, outside my window, I saw you, flying in the sky.
Your pearly vessel signalled to my eye.
He said, "Let's go now, to the landing place.
All our ships are leaving, voyaging to space.
O, come, let us travel, let us travel far,
And you'll be a sailor of the summer stars.
We shall leave a message in my shining jars,
Gift from the sailors of the summer stars.
Evacuees
They showed me all these doors,
They gave me all these keys.
They stood me in a line of
Bewildered evacuees.
They showed me all these signs,
They gave me all these chores.
They made me sign a paper,
To sail to other shores.
They kept a silent watch,
And no one knew for sure,
If what was to come was peace
Or something worse than war.
In dreams I was a knight,
Sat armoured on my horse,
Free as the far off falcon.
Wild as the grass and gorse.
Some broke free from the lines,
Could not take anymore.
They ran down broken hillsides,
The sky with thunder tore.
They told me all these lies
They had written down as laws.
They fooled me into thinking,
I lived at the end of wars.
They bolted all the doors,
They took away our keys.
We knew we'd be forever
Bewildered evacuees.
1914-2014
1914, an English country lane,
A tender shining, after early morning rain.
A cartload of village men,
Soon to be marching to the thudding of a drum,
Digging ditches in the wasteland of the Somme,
And they were young.
2014, a bright bronze bugle call.
Echoes of clarions disturb the churchyard wall,
In honour of village men,
Whose names and dates are carved on the monument stone,
For black thunder cannons made them die alone,
When they were young.
Long ago, it was, but I remember still,
My grandfather, sat back in his chair,
Sunday morning sunlight on the windowsill,
The silver chain of his pocket watch,
Bright against his dark waistcoat,
His white hair well washed and combed,
Quiet, remote, a serene smile yet creased his mouth.
I was just a schoolboy, I did not understand,
What it meant that he helped to save our land.
I only thought it good
That he looked like a grandfather should.
"He's been working in the gardens,"
My grandmother would say,
Meaning the local park,
Where I flew my kite,
Pretended I rode a horse,
And did all I could to play.
"He was at the Somme,
The great battle in the First World War,"
My father told me.
Only now I understand.
In his uniform, with his rifle,
He fought to defend our shore.
Now I know he listened
For cheerful laughter at the door,
Voices of friends lost forever in the war,
When they were young.