We're still dancing

Venus and The Sailor, 1925, by Salvador Dali

We’re still dancing

We’ve danced all night and skipped rope together

You spinning double tied to the railings coated in ice and then my hand

We’ve washed the dishes dried the dishes turned the dishes over

You standing  to swing against the sky in the cold autumn night: some naughty children on the run

And still you love me amongst the baby carriages and the flapping nappies and you’ve forgiven the passion-killer undies conceding defeat in the face of comfort

Ones we shared when the bundle of shared existence was too tight to separate for clean clothes or appearances

The shaken heads with wisdom telling it would never last

Never last once the lust had burned itself out

Still waiting

Still dancing all night 

Thanks to Tess at Magpie Tales for the image and inspiration.  Please read more here at http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

Breakfast Mag

Breakfast, 1921, Fernand Leger

Breakfast Mag

Well, my darling, I always suspected you were an empty-headed cloud-brain

My mistake

Apologies, because I quite admire M. Leger.  Thanks to Tess for the inspiration.  More meals can be found here.

x

One Amongst Many

One Amongst Many

I am not a light-filled diva

my hair does not flash golden arrows

my limbs are not smooth and straight,

my skin not iridescent nor aglow.

Of course, in my head

I am the centre of the picture

my perceptions, feelings and thoughts

surround me like a halo.

The others – you – the many

are all around

and to you each, the centre

of the picture, is here.

Do you feel yourself as utterly other

separate from the dark mass of limbs and torsos?

Do you feel your own power pulsing from your pores

and gold dust glittering in your mane?

Each of us is the star of our private firmament

touched by grace and fired with drama:

our greatest gift and cruellest curse.

Thanks to Tess for the inspiration from The Mag.  You can read the rest of the crowd here

x

434 I may seem mad (Poems of Exile)

a grave at the Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, courtesy of Tess at The Mag

434      I may seem mad

I may seem mad to you, but I say this for myself:

I would not be seen as mad; but why am I seen thus?

You say, Because you are always loved, because you are always in love.

And I say, If this is madness, may the gods keep me mad forever!

Translated in my own fashion, from the Latin of Seneca or pseudo-Seneca, and encouraged by Tess at The Mag.  Many more inscriptions can be found here.

x

Teapot Tuesday

Red Spot II, Wallisy Kandinsky

The Celestial Tea Party

All the young gods were there –

bring a plate the invitation read

So we did:  figs and olives,

and those little honey cakes Artemis loves

finely curled fish cucumbers and dianthus crystal sweets

What we didn’t dream of was Dionysius and his ‘tea’

And after the party, we’ve been picking  crockery from the sky

for years

installation at the V & A

In response to Tess at The Mag.  Many others can be found dining here.

x

Emperors and Kings

Emperors and Kings

We remember His Exultedness Ozymandias  standing in the desert, surveying His Empire

we wrote essays about him at school

Emperors and Thieves

We remember the sight of another Exulted One, in bronze, being towed earthwards

(and later the trap-door plunge after much discussion)

Emperors and Tyrants

We’ve studied the works and plans of the Genius of Economics: His Marxness

and watched with sadness or satisfaction as the communist experiments failed under

the weight of human nature

Emperors and Stars

In marble or bronze, paint or celluloid we like to keep our Emperors on pedestals,

high up on a wall:

Above, untouchable, beyond the grip of gravity or sin

image: Lee Friedlander

Thanks to Tess at The Mag for the prompt.  More mags are here

x

No 'elp Now



image: Lee Friedlander, 1966

No ‘elp now

The hour has come, the clock has struck

Officials are gathered with clipboard and stop-watches

Photographers are near to record the event

For posterity, should posterity care.

He’s bleeding already, the noose has a shadow

The axeman’s hood and the firing squad’s hole:

All present, correct, in accordance with law

The grin is anomalous, soon to be shorn.

These grim lines are in response to a prompt from Tess at Magpie Tales.  An antidote to too much saccharine, perhaps.  More sweetness can be found here.

x

The Self-propelling

Outwards the land resembles nothing so much as dried gravy:

the trees stunted, the rocks sparse,  the coast smoothed over by the trowel of time

And the sea, which echoes the land’s voice, undulates like greasy rubber under a sullen sky

image by Mostafa Habibi

The Self-propelling

Our boat lumbered in, took passengers and creased its way off again

I’ve watched the oars lift and plunge, scoop the oozing sea into bucketsful of argument,

catch political crabs, imagined diplomacies, crossing floors and times

I’ve seen no ferryman drive those blades, no solid being rooted in flesh

only the empty thwarts creak as if under load,

the grunt of wood and sigh of shackle and spin

We waited in silence for light and dark to pass

we waited in eager ignorance, believing always in the craft

self-propelling to our shores.

It is our choice and our creed:  Be ready to embark

The others have gone across the shingle,

leaving tainted air where they passed.

I stood and watched them go.

Time passes

I am buried now, age laps me, the sky lowers

the dinghy returns for one last trip

Ferryman ships the dripping oars

now he waits for me, restless.

My limbs respond to the call,

I am walking, skipping through shallows, stepping aboard.

The keel grinds on sand, heavy with my imagined weight

Ferryman poles off the shore

then flicks the oars into their locks:

with a cry – I hear his voice! – he pulls away.

The sea becomes the air: we fly.

We, who once  

Thanks to Tess at Magpie Tales for the prompt.  Other journeys may be found here

x

Teapot Tuesday

Is it possible to have too many teapots?

old teapots never die, they slip away to the V & A

A Teapot is a Palace

A teapot is a palace where djinns and angels dwell

where wings of chamelia sinensis charm

the feathers out of ladies’ hats:

in sunny parlours the polished silver

beeswaxed wood and worn upholstery

(antimacassared for the Vicar)

gather round to pay respects at 3 o’clock

on Tuesdays

Smoke-filled dens of mahjongg tiles

where jade men with heavy bets watch

steam rising over eggshell cups

while fortunes and lives are lost and won

on gaming Tuesdays

Tuan tuan squat on their heels

before turning west to pray

taking their muddy  teh tarikh –

tea pulled through time like the

laterite Selangor roads to

Tuesday afternoon

Corduroy hills have aching backs

bend, pluck, toss and heave

bend again in endless row

No angels these who taste the crop

each Tuesday with their pay

But still, a teapot is a palace

corduroy hills in the Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

Also linked to Magpie Tales Mag 94, where there are plenty more tea drinkers.
x

So Far

Image by Christine Donnier-Valentin
via Magpie Tales

So Far

I know where the cushions are buried,

stolen after one of those nights,

deep in between and underneath and hidden –

the wall is also my tombstone.

It was me: snuck them off to enlarge a posterior view

brocade red and plump:

now lying denuded, a mere frame of her former comfort.

Exposed to the wind and the rain and the scorn of passersby

hard up against the wall

(convict built, brick by hand-formed brick

frog-marked and irregular).

A kind of beauty

unseen and shunned

like my naked lap.

Thanks to Tess for hosting Magpie Tales and providing the prompt.  Many more in the showroom.

240 Cupid Raging at the Heavens (Poems of Exile)

      Cupid  Raging at the Heavens 

What? Struck by my own arrows?

What sort of trick to play on the son of a goddess?

I never asked to be immortal.

I was safe in my tower, snickering – well maybe sniggering –

at the agony of my targets

Those afflicted by my darts, the vehemence of their moans!

Now I am wounded

My mind knows not these sighs

This fire – I never spared Man nor Woman – now the madness overcomes me

A divine wave, such as when the earth trembles,

sweeps me breathless and staggering

There is no bridge for this raging sea, no firm axis to stand on

The sky is alive with plagues and mists,

storms and tempests roar at Neptune’s behest

Jupiter laughs across the earth – it was Pluto who conspired against me

They all did, all the gods

Now they watch me suffer this chaos of dreams

The punishment of the world’s love

Bella, come to bed

Only your diamond heart’s kingdom can release me

I am vanquished, staggering under this burden

Only your savage love can heal my wounds and

Draw the arrow from my side

You deny me?  This treachery – too much.

I die of love.

Image courtesy of Magpie Tales where more love awaits ...

That sort of day ...

no dress, no date, no bloody restaurant

I should have listened to Mother!





for Magie Tales.  Others in the flock are here.

Prix Hébuterne

image from Commonwealth War Graves

Prix Hébuterne

He won the Prix in 1917

Hébuterne, Belgique

A virgin mound after the mud

Silence after the cannonade

Ploughing a new field

for more magpie tales visit here

Shrine to Genius



image from: http://threehundredpages.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/overcoming-writers-block-2/  via Magpie Tales

Shrine to Genius

Here is his desk, nothing touched

Note the crumpled sheet, still creased by his own fingers

(I see a seashell, cast on a beach)

This is the chair where he sat, where he composed his opus

Note his cushion, marked with wear

Keep behind the rope!

Don’t breathe on the artefacts 

The typewriter ribbons have been saved, cross-referenced and indexed

The room is cork-lined for preservation

There is the stain where he threw coffee

(I see clouds and mushrooms on the walls)

Artistic, you know

Divinely gifted man

The machine is unique, adapted for his needs

The keys, the bell silenced, the action geometric to his order

(Down here, I see battlements)

It is not the original desk, he burned that one

This one was built later, from the same timbers –

You can order a replica in the shop

Postcards and posters are for sale

The Master’s Voice on CD

Books?  No we don’t stock them.

 Ah, such a great man.

Thanks to Tess for the prompt.  For more Magpies, please visit here.

x

In the Passenger's Seat



Lee Friedlander, from America by Car

In the Passenger’s Seat
 

Praise to the man in the driving seat – with dials and flashing lights,

Command and Control
You have all the levers at hand: brakes, gears, accelerator

All Hail to the man with the buttons!

 

Pity the one in the passenger’s seat

I see a world you are too occupied to notice:  angles and lives,

the city-kaleidoscope

possibilities

You are filled with calculations velocity, drift and momentum

Hail to the man with algorithms!

Did you see the double-pattern in the windscreen?

The shadow that walks like a pigeon?

The ruffles in the rain puddle?

Do you hear the counterpoint of the indictor singing to the wiper’s beat?



Thanks to Willow at Magpie Tales for the prompt.  More Magpies can be found here.

x

Tales from Exile -- Peking Duck

image courtesy of Magpie Tales

Tales from Exile – Peking Duck


You want 12 duck lady? You not so fat? How you eat 12?

You want frozen? Bad for ducks, not so good cold.

You want to fly with them? Lady these ducks are dead. Not flying again, eating.

No! You take duck to Africa? No duck in Africa?

Special dinner party on island?

You crazy lady.



Africa does that.

(A true story)


more flying ducks at Magpie Tales   Thanks to Tess for the prompt.

x

King Kim



image: Michael Sowa, from The Little King
via Tess at Magpie Tales

King Kim

You can tell by his lean-back and hands clasped and sceptre hidden, if not by his slight nose-in-the-air and frown, that HM Kim is not a happy father, disappointment written all over his kingly visage, and breakfast ruined.

His disappointment has grown huge, the source is overwhelming, the evidence so gargantuan, his coffee is cold, bitter and venomous. 

He casts a rueful glance heavenward, to his generous monarch-dad, the one with the liberal ideas that encouraged freedom of the press and the relaxation of the old royal codes. 

(No one prostrates themselves at his door; the bows are perfunctory, mere nods before turning away.  No one backs out of his presence; some forget to stand when he enters.)

It is not frustrated pomp that makes HM’s coffee grow cold, nor wounded pride exactly. 

Coffee will cool on many a breakfast table as his subjects read The Daily Grind: 

sources close to the palace reveal the Royal Chess tournament has ended.  ‘I beat him, I check-mated him, in three moves!’ a triumphant Princess Priscilla is reported as saying.’

Thanks to Tess from Willow Manor for the prompt. You can read more Magpies here.
x

The Sandcastle Competition

A bizarre and beautiful image from Tess at Magpie Tales.  More Magpies roosting here. 

The Sandcastle Competition

Every year, they rise as temporary sculptures:

castles built on sand

Scenes from movies, fairy tales, famous faces,

and the seven wonders of the world.

Every year, the earnest and dedicated,

denying the inevitable – as we all must –

and with magic soup to hold the sand

Create to last a thousand years:

a man’s lifetime, a wing-flap’s span.

The waves hunch in, the crowds dissolve

the sand – in all its genius – remains.

x

Wardrobe Misdemeanour

A new Magpie Tale.  Thanks to Tess for the borrowed illustration and the prompt.  More serious magpies can be found here.

Wardrobe Misdemeanour

Now you are teasing me, punishing me – killing me

– all I asked for was a drink

O heavens pour then, skies rage, drown us!

Raven fly, leave me

Take messages

Sing!

Tell them never to forget the sky’s revenge

And feed my dragon

Sell my tampons

Divorce my husband and set my people free!

Or then again, keep silent

Can you swim?

x