Short Poems - Final Draft

Some Short Poems - Final Drafts

Whether anyone will publish these again ( only some of them have been published), I doubt. However, I can't do any more with them, and I am even quite proud of them.

To Kerry

What you are, I love                                                                                                 – and miss when you’re not here.                                              

That which you are not                                                                                                costs me almost nothing 

to ignore, since what                                                                                                 you are is more than enough set                                                                           

against the little that I am.                                        Loma Bola, 17/9/92

An Apology to Kerry

I am a muffin-man, mindless
in my empty-headed nonsense,
crater-brained with nothingness.
Like a long-lost word I struggle
to find my place in the sentence.
Un-scrabbled on the letter-stand,
I stand. Full of Qs!
The start of something good perhaps,
but meaningless without your U.                                   Merlo (San Luis) 29/03/99  

Kerry

When I first took your hand,

and stroked those buttoned knuckles

you were smoother,

and you hand was younger, 

and I loved you.

Now, when I take your hand,

and stroke those buttoned knuckles,

you are rougher,

and your hand is older,

and I love you still.                                Loma Bola 24^th June 1994

                                                             Published in “Poetry Nottingham” Vol. 48 No 3 1994

                             

                                                                                                   

   AFTER THE ACCIDENT

The carts, that carry off the dead,

travel away from where I sit.
The dead and dying, lying there, 

travel on the trolley-fuss,
waiting to arise and tell the Lord

their alibis or comforting lies.

I head towards salvation,and a cup of tea,

 -  like all the walking, squawking wounded.

Merlo 5th February 2013          

 THE BISHOP’S COMING

Thunder northwards growls below thick clouds,

voicing its cues to lightening flicks.

Such pyrotechnics to God belong,

or so the village thinks, standing on

God’s steps before God’s door. Well, 

I could say ‘collectively’, but you see

the bar in front has plenty more

to watch the bishop’s second coming.

I cruise the car curiously to see

my neighbours stiffly dressed and scrubbed.                   

The bishop, as yet, has not appeared, 

but he is Latin too and may not come for several hours.

I need rice.                                                                                         

But what hopes have I on this hot night.                                     

 God calls and the square is full.

Thunder growls again, some glasses clink,and I,                                                                                            riceless, shall flee the thunder and the rain.

The bishop when he comes may have my rice.

Let him confirm the nun’s new flock;

do not complain about the coming storm

on coming bishop’s night.

Theatre is what God’s holy bishops are all about.

Loma Bola, January 1995                                                  Published in ‘Orbis’ Nº 99, November 1995                   

Up and On and Out

Marching up the hill to home can only do me good,

she says - so long have I been sitting down.

Despite the steady upward stride, 

enclosed by winter’s smells and tones,

I feel a stranger on this hill, 

as though, inside and looking out, 

I see a place I do not know.

The trembling in my flabby legs shows my body’s needs,

she says– so much driving have I done.

The beauty of this twilight hour 

does affect my blinded soul,        

soft in colours and in hues,                                                                                          like one of Turner’s something scapes                                                                 

of a place I’ve never known,                                                                           

and of a land I’ve never seen.

Plodding down, come passing feet, 

so much faster than my own.                         

On the way to where? I ask.              

Where and why I cannot know! 

A gentle breeze blows dry my face,

slapping sweat with smells of earth.          

I have been confined, I’d say,

in a place I’ve never found                        

- a prisoner in my twilight life. 

 

Loma Bola, 11/6/98  

          

(More coming)