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.

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Teapot Tuesday

Sticky Fingers

We glued my miniature furniture back together

Sticky fingers remain

Why miniature when no one will squeeze into such a tiny seat?

Sticky fingers

Why glue?

Sticky fingers

Thus we are held in miniature, secured with bondage of a chemical intractable nature

Sticky fingers

The miniatures restored, seats for miniature animals taking miniature tea

Sticky fingers

Only a lover of long would submit to

Sticky fingers

for such as these

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Sunday Trees

 

Sunlit Flats

Walk with me along the smooth pavement of the footway

where the sun makes zebra-patterns with the tree shadows

and I will show you the light glittering on upper-storey windows of silent flats –

voices are never raised

Here the white paint always gleams:

dustless Saturday afternoons wait

while the natives (dressed by Harvey Nicks) drape on sofa and mantelpiece

and the cutlery comes in sets of twelve

A string quartet or baroque guitar hushes the hallway

free of cooking smells or greasy flyers for take-away.

The sun shines on upper flats

like winter glaciers in the Alps –

Do you see from the pavement it looks pristine?

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We are a ship travelling across a desert sea

We are a ship travelling across a desert sea

We are a ship travelling across a desert sea:

passengers disembark at ports in time

some tours join in a crowd of couples and families

some lone transports slip alongside and move with us for a wave or two

then slip away turning across the current

We have our own captain's table for the chosen ones –

the receiving line

the fancy dress

the set piece dance

We have ‘A’ to ‘H’ decks

the inner and windowless rooms

the balconies and mansion rows

In the hold lurks secret cargo:

stories and discarded characters

There are whole cabins – corridors even –

devoted to good intentions and undelivered charity

From an upper deck I watch the smart couples promenade

take the air or smoke

change partners mid-stride

and wonder at their mysteries

We have our life boat drill and fire training

The dusty sea swirls about us

the ship heaves against a wave

the wind

an approaching storm

There are no icebergs in the desert

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Teapot Tuesday

Tea for One

 Tea for two may be divine

            ... but sometimes
Tea for one is simply sublime

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The Sun, Veiled

The sun, veiled in dust,

 hangs tethered to the sea

Even such a barrage balloon

cannot stop the day unfurling.

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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

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Macabre Serenade

They are slaughtering the cats at number four

I’ve heard strange cries and sinister sounds

They are slaughtering the cats at number four

Or has the violin fallen from the maestro’s hand?

They are slaughtering the cats at number four

The maestro’s strings are gut no more

But they are slaughtering cats at number four

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Too Early

Too Early

Quiet, quiet, quiet

I could hear frogs on the golf course this morning

as I tramped home from the bus stop,

your kiss still singing on my lips.

The stars were drifting away,

the moon snoozing on the other side of the globe,

and the sun, still abed,

was turning the East turquoise and gold: byzantine sunrise.

It was too early for the doves to be echoing their two-tone call,

the peacocks were peaceful –

even the mynah birds were not arguing the price of a worm.

Thin mist floated in hollows, pixillating the club greens

and the air almost tasted of the sea.

No dog walkers, no school children,

the local cats huddled away for warmth.

Too early for the workers’ cars, too early for the joggers.

Only the last warmth of your hand in mine

and the bubbling of the frogs

to tell me I’m not alone.

Note:  I wrote this poem before the great slaughter was revealed, so it hardly reflects the current situation, here in er, Paradise.  (See Living in Exile for an explanation)

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Sunday Trees

prunus serrula

Up on the Wall

 In an ancient garden, heavy with whispering Roman shades

stands a totem to northern sprites, woad-dabbed irregulars and

the heart-beat of a tree.

Here the mist hisses through leaves,

Sol  raises his tired face against

the windflowing down from the Glens

and salutes the old warriors.

prunus serrula, Tibetan Cherry
photo taken at Chesters Walled Garden
nr Hexham, Northumberland

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Clouds

Sir Daryl Lindsay, 'Landscape Myrniong', NGV The Joseph Brown Collection
photograph by Isabel

Clouds

I saw a cloud on the drive north

a moustache hovering over an empty hill

a classically curved bow

implying a pair of lips pursed

to kiss the land

xPainti

Speak god

sculpture: Jason deCaires Taylor

Speak god

That night the storm tore at the coast,

pulling down rock cliffs and shifting hillsides

the mighty Longinus estate slipped into the sea,

many cattle were lost, slaves too

and the landscape changed as if an earthquake had ridden through

Below, the sea’s bed churned with mud, cluttered debris from above,

and new currents swept the old harbours away, navigation even for fish, lost

Three slaves from the ship survived the wreck 'til day break,

their execution – an appeasement to deaf gods – was slow and agonising;

their screams would wake the idle gods

 while clouds ran from a scurrying sky, appalled

The rest – sailors who fell with the bronze,

their bones like pearls about the lost god – took the easy sacrifice

The god of alabaster eyes, dressed in barnacles now, is silent

Inspired by a bronze statue of Poseidon or Zeus, found by a vacationing diver, and by the photo prompt offered by Tess at The Mag.  More results of her inspiration can be found swimming here.

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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

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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.

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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

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Sunday Trees

eucalyptus, Melbourne Victoria

I could fly to eternity in your arms

Your dress slipping to reveal your smooth skin:

pink dappled and parchment pale

You, who hold your arms aloft, waltzing for decades with

parrot and possum.

Empress of the Nyads and of Dryads the Queen:

Your grace a standard we mortals aspire to,

Should we have the sense to look up.

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We Went to the Ball ...

We went to the ball...

We preened and coiffed, after shopping and dithering

Which dress, which shoes, what jewels ...

The hair, the face, the nails, the teeth

The stockings, the clutch, the wrap

The glitter

Then

Can I stand in this dress, these shoes, this weight of expectation and scrutiny?

Can I walk, sit or dance?

Will I look a fool, over- or under- dressed, colour, weight and drape of bust?

While the sensible peacocks don black tie and cummerbund

Select a watch, cufflinks, brush hair and shoes:

Pronounce themselves ready and waiting.

We went to the ball, pumpkin coach and mice footmen

At midnight we rolled home, pumpkin and mouse.

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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.
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