Rambling

What shall we talk about – what’s up

(we’ve got a little bit of time)

and who will speak and who will follow whom

(what’s new upon this kitchen table top)

and shall we circle round and round

(with eyes and ears and touch and tongue)

giving little pats-on-the-head

(and will we choose to work, eat, dance or sing or sleep)?

Who shall we please and who not please

(tomorrow and tomorrow’s ace

encounters, meetings, semaphore)

or hate or care or love, respect,

or look across the surfaces

and feel for sudden truth - and trust?

Every year

it’s clear

that Xmas day is my mate

John’s birthday

and any old glitter on the table,

scissors and sellotape,

will be in play.

As two festivals collide

he often gets the thought

that, ultimately,  everything unites

although, as he looks out through

swiveling snow,

we know that (deep down) too

it bugs him – because

he keeps squinting to the East,

waiting for the next Jesus

coming - the second one

who will turn the table, soften

his inevitable burden.

Life’s backdrop

One day we set off

on a little trip,

oh Lord, to hike up

a middle eastern hilltop

in a madcap

attempt to find (on top)

a theatre of blocks

and yet no cairns of rocks

were there to guide or map

our way on up;

no arrows, dots

of paint - but on we stepped

(not at a trot)

without a single drop

of water in a cup

(to sip or sup)

and we didn’t stop

until we reached the top

where we three chaps

gave up

and stopped,

regrouped,

then clocked

we’re in the soup

and on that spot

we dropped

our cross.

Andrew will

dance through time like Peter Pan

and keep us dancing still;

freer than a sober man

or a girl who drank her fill.

Dancing’s like a spirit

that sober men endure

but drunken folk enjoy it

before they lie and snore.

Kick your feet and wave your hands,

feel the music’s wave;

drunk or sober, help us dance

like Elvis from the grave.

To my sons

I fear I did not give

enough attention, time,

and, when I look death in the face,

will my dreamed-of God forgive

a working father’s crime

not far beyond our last embrace?

For Emily Dickinson

I will not tally letters up

- or dots, apostrophes,

or add the words typed on a sheet

of prancing poetry.

Instead, I want to simply take

a feeling of the whole

enwrapped in music, rhythms – breaks -

and resonate a soul.

Fear and Melancholy

Through a perspex sheeting I can see

a massive ocean pushing out her strokes;

knowing, for a time, I won’t be caught

and pulled into her cold eternity.

With all the power sea invokes,

whitened by salt, let’s not fight!

Flight! This is no place for single human power

and not because I’m older, slow in years,

unerringly losing dignity.

No! Because, unending, hour by hour,

those waves push into solid stone with tears;

unlevelled water has no fear or pity.

Poet, move on! Feeling I will stand inevitably

one day and turn back towards the flow;

against those tumblers’ sure retreat, advance,

and so re-enter sweet eternity,

traveling fast but also, even, slow.

That day the waiting sea will take my sense.