BIRTHDAY POEM

Tags

Birth, death, poem, poetry, Rebirth, renewal, Scorpio

BIRTHDAY POEM

the Sun glaring
through a hole
in the bedroom curtains

it’s early morning
so naturally, everything looking
to the East

I need words though
am desperate for words

to describe what I am seeing for you
or to create a mantra

same-old, same-old
will just not
cut it today
on your birthday

I flail around in my tired old way
driven to write, to find
perfect thing
to say
for the sake of friendship, legendary friendship

fall back on the
old mythologies paradoxically of rebirth and
renewal
today in this sign of Scorpio
sign of death and
yes, resurrection

but
renewal will do
yes renewal and fresh, re-born energy
would be such a blessing

for you
on your birthday
this special November day

TOMB

Tags

Birth, death, Life, poem, Poet, poetry, Reader, transformation

TOMB

poem
is tomb

poem
is womb

he’s gone
who wrote this
felt
born
to write this

and by gone
you know I mean
really
dead and buried

yet
as I said earlier
poem is
also a
womb
(repeating
myself here
in case
you didn’t hear me
in case
some problem
with my voice
my strange mixture
of Northern British
and South African
accent
and as
a consequence
the words
failed to register)

as womb
there is life
to be found in
the dust and the death
of all that
is here written

stuff to
being into
the light
(strange is it not
that you
here to
birth it?)

DAWN IS MY RISING

Tags

Birth, poem, poetry, rising sign

DAWN IS
MY RISING

the dawn is
my lover

my midwife
my Muse

the light arriving
like it did
the moment
I was born

when
I woke

rose
to meet
the Sun
on the horizon

as now I
rise
to
meet you

WORDS SOLELY

Tags

Birth, Consciousness, Language, poem, poetry

WORDS SOLELY

my eyes open
to take in the world
but not a word
uttered by my mouth
for as yet I know none

a first time
for everything — perhaps
I come unbeknownst
to sundry and all
dripping names, festooned
with labels

perhaps every syllable I battle through
every consonant I contrive
destined to be my
own
distinctive slant on

my best, public speech

now everything is mastered
all within my reach
(speaking, of course, of
words solely)

NOT EASY

Tags

Birth, de xual symbolism, Life, philosophical, poem, poetry

not easy
to break
out an
egg

suddenly you’re alive
and Oh My God
better run
for it

supposed to be sacred
but once out the shell
there they are
criminalizing life

hard
(it gets better) furthermore

learning
to fly

here I fly
off the page!

there
fly into your arms

even inside
fear too much comfort zone
will
become addicted
under-supplied

trying to
wriggle back do what was
before whole-hog gone cold turkey

the logic of pleasure
having long
extinguished itself

to read, to write

its totality
my sole and last
remaining task

THIS PLACE

Tags

poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry

THIS PLACE

don’t ask
any questions

rather be
not born

forget what
they told you
in that place
before, wherever
you were

this place has
forgotten how
to be
human

has no love
for any child

BY ANY OTHER NAME

I was seed that ran
fast to meet

beautiful extinction

seed from
what I know not
I became

burrowed out
of a hole, given
a name

now
to live up to

BLISS

Percy Shelley
is waiting
on an
alien shore

for his robot wife
and robot baby

she returned to Earth
to do research
for her robot novel

when they
are all together once more
as it was always
meant to be

it will
be bliss.

PUSH COME TO SHOVE

I cannot remember
the poem
we shared

when we
were the same poem
and the words (such
as I heard)
were all
words of
expectation

but then
the window opened, or
was that a bomb-bay door?

I cannot retrace those steps
if there is a little
boy standing in
a field with
so many questions
seemingly lost
I cannot
find him

and yet though the
envelope has changed
it is the same envelope

and I can
feel something of the
strength of that
initial burst

for, you see, when
push comes
to shove
it is
indeed still carrying me.

THE GREEK AND THE GERMAN PHILOSOPHER

The Greek and the German philosopher
are traveling to Africa
climbing back
down the tree of
our genetic history
to the place of our
human origins,
continent of beginnings
where
words took
their first shape

under those swirling brilliant stars
to which all breath must
ultimately return.