#poem #poetry #amwriting Safe Space

Safe Space

The Jewish question hangs between us
I note the flinch in the eyes.
But do not understand why.

Perhaps it is the imagined assumption
that she might rise as smoke: too.

And so we back-peddle, for the brake.
And, talk of semi-colons
and grammatical Latinate imposition.

As if the bundled faggots of law
might extricate, an ill judged word.

How careful all speech must be
when thoughts are crimes, not invitation.

#poem #poetry #amwriting #leadstoleeds Civil Marriage

Civil Marriage

In magnified translation,
of the Henry Moore: the library
swoons on an ottoman.

A cornflower confection of lace and buttons
corset down to the swoop of skirt;
which in a moment of private abandon
has revealed her dreadfully thin ankle
and a clumsily squareness of shoe.

Across the road,
her fob-watched husband,
reads aloud the household accounts:
in stentorian Doric tone.
Dutifully frock-coated,
in a pinstripe of grime,
he stands square, and proud:
almost handsome, just sublime.

She rests upon her elbow,
to hear
(ignoring the wedding party
posing for pictures)
if she has money for novels
this year.
And, if among her coffee cups
the defaced copy of Goethe,
will receive repair.

#poem #poetry #amwriting #sketchbook notes 27 feb

within enfolded cliches of stars and sky
cloudless rain gathers. Our eyes adjust
in focus again, to see nothing of the sun.
Trees blaze dark fire, fanned in whisps
whispered low.

....

the weather has not come
it is changed
a white greyness of mind
still hungover from a surfeit of whiskey
and wine
only in the tone does shape form
in subtle jags
of barely cloud and barley
barely what?
The sky makes no promise
if there is no God.

....

words say rather less that reputation

...

it's me, the lady who was sneezing
on your answer phone

...

click click click
the masked bandit shoots at the bus stop
can you spare fifty pence
accosts the chancer
the curving carved boar lane
runs away
hemmed by gemmed building on the right
reflected by the glass and steel of the middle
confection
ceiling echo and repeat
bright lit rush repeats
spiraling upwards and away
the escalated lines rise toward
to the domed tessellation of the roof
a station of commerce
without destination
red brick
grey stone
biege concrete adobe

....

besides the fob watched square set grandeur
of the town hall, stands his civic wife
dressed in french style
botoxed bustled by the henry moore

the rather slim queen anne
ornate of decolage, looks away
from the chink and rattle
of the cafe.

Gordon is gone

Burns, Scott and Dante look down
Goethe has been defaced

Welcome to the harem
the mosiac of everything
where still the moon and stars
stays blackened by the ghosts of gas lamps

....

the women liked a woman with a gut
victory on the war memorial
is interestingly posed
between releasing the dove
and sizing it up for lunch

while the corseted George
rather half-heartedly pokes at the dragon
while bleeding green
on the patriotic message

....

note - conversation about gordon, and gallery closed for roof repairs
queen anne pope poem, british art exhibition bring house down
EU money and feminist art thingy

#poem #poetry #amwriting On Carrying Your Child

On Carrying Your Child

One day you will be too big to lift
or kiss
or look on with the love of a parent
who loves you for what you were
and are not now
tucked into my shoulder
and reached around my neck
with hands as trusting
as my faith of what you will become.

#poem #poetry #amwriting What You Won't Read in the #Guardian

What You Won't Read In the Guardian

Tonight at noon, I was struggling with a metaphor:
an imaginary girl was sitting in an imaginary coffee shop
reading an imaginary copy of Henry James:
in order to make a metaphor for something I imagined
might be of more interest than it was to me.
I wanted to create the illusion that her eyes; her grey eyes:
were like a seal breaking the surface of the water.
That would be allowable I believe.
Dull.
But, allowable.
A suitable subject for a poem; about nothing;
that would offend no one, and maybe evoke some kinship
before slipping back beneath the waves: like a seal.

That was today at noon.
But now not so much.

Who was the girl? What was she wearing?
Why was she in that cafe 'where nets hung like shrouds'
and the outside world 'mere shadows on the latticed glass'?
I don't know.

Of course she was middle class, in a flowered dress
and leggings.
Why else would she be reading Henry James?
Or in a tea shop? Come to that.

For one must be bourgeois to write poetry.
And one must forget all the movements of art
and deal only in the constructs of the in-humane:
the terse, the deus ex-machina of the leftist,
the eternal fragrant future, and the toothless poor in bus stations;
who while they occasionally amuse: for poetic pathos:
exist only to eternally confirm, and deny.

Rather like those girls in Rotherham; sorry; slags:
who have waited years for justice to be denied
by the overshadowing of their abuse by the timely production
of yet more dirt on Saville, and the other celebs.
Strange.
I mean far be it for a simple poet
to point out the years in which we were told not to speak
or it would fuel the 'right wing',
And how useful that Savile can prove white men do it too,
whenever a turn in the shameful affair comes to light.
No doubt when the police start getting sacked,
and it comes to light that officers of the council were up to no good,
a new report will come out
to show Savile was doing the same.

And the name Rotherham, need not be mentioned

again.

#poem #poetry #amwriting Super Predator

Super Predator
(for Rickey Ray Rector)

The pecan pie waits for later,
half headed joke or strangled hope
who remembers now?

Never mind, never mind.

There's a special place in hell
for those ingrates and the awkward,
who wonder,
and will not avert from
the trail of women slandered.

Never mind, never mind.

But, look to the fragrant future,
what difference does it make
and help the fragrant leader
to find your vein.

#poem #poetry #amwriting Impression III

Impression III

as snakes eat snakes
and we fear death
and still -
the internet persists.
then buy us by the yard
and inch
and measure each and every flinch
and still
you'll not perceive
or glimpse the face we show
and the face we have

#poem #poetry #amwriting #sketchbook mother

There are things you don't want to know;
like did your mother orgasm at your conception.
It's bad enough to think she orgasmed at all.
Not out of unkindness:
or in a fatalist manner;
that somehow
her reaction to your father's thrusting
influenced the shape of your nose.
Rather, your mother is inviolable: to you at least;
how else could her love be unconditional.
Or not.
Not all mother's are the same.
How else to explain
How else to explain.