RETURN

Tags

Britain, British, Consciousness, death, Eat Coker, Ending, Heaven, Humanity, identity, Life, Liverpool, meaning, Metaphor, metapoetic, philosophical, poem, poetry, Reader, river, River Mersey, River Tame, spiritual, THE BEATLES, time, TS Eliot, Universe, Water, William Wordsworth, wordplay, writing

RETURN

a command came
from the brown god

which left me
under no illusions

and there I was writing
deep into the night
through sleep
through dream
following that river
my river

as we made
our course
to the sea.

****
Oh, the disregarded
divinity
of this labour
words are
cheap
are below
us
I hear you say

in the voice
your words commandeer for you

****

river of life
what songs
do you
have for me?

what songs from
my childhood
for I was born
beside a tiny river
a trickle of
a tributary
that
on its way
to the ocean went
Strawberry Field, became
full Sergeant Pepper

not that
those that bore me
much cared, knew at all

and last night I dreamt myself
crossing this river in your victorious city
finding my
way

finding my way
and now everything
that I write
you must view
through this prism

must write what I wrote
through this prism

river of life

celestial city
surreal little lanes and streets
of which your
four troubadours sing

****
deep
into the night

how deep
your inquire
and
what the depth
of this river?

really, such questions, interrogations
that I should be forced to
made to answer

for I know not of depth
beyond absolute abyss, the rest
relatively speaking
I only know flow
this
a poem of rivers

river of
my birth
river of my dream, my death,
rivers to which
I will always return

as the poet in the ninth prelude
speaking of
waters doubling back
finding ways
back to memory

I will just shrug and
smile

be your village idiot
not spiritual professor

(for what did we learn
not under
revision
in eternal state of advisement?)

as the night
gathers shape

and the fire of the spirit boils
the water of the soul

and the air
lifts up rain
caressing that surface

and the earth will wait
as the earth is wont

the earth has me booked
and placed
will find space
for my body

and the poem
being done

what left for its fate
but to fold into
ship shape

return
to the brown god (damyatta da)
give
back to
that source
set adrift on those flowing
never ending waters

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Tags

Academic, Angel, Humanity, philosophical, poem, poetry, spiritual, writing

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
(for James Pearce)

the angel made the point
in PowerPoint
the rest of the
class
looked mesmerized

but a demon came upon me
to add to the one already there
and so I
heckled, took exception
from the back
of the auditorium
where I always sat
secretly eating and drinking
(very
much not allowed)
unleashing brutal counter-
argument after counter-argument
taking the divine message
to task with
deconstructive analysis

until they rounded on me
every cherub in the room
and for my
lack of manners, protocol, deference etc
swore there and then
I would never graduate from
this celestial academy

and further, as last devastating punishment for this
turned me into an existentialist

MISERY

Tags

absurdism, Heaven, poem, poetry, spiritual

MISERY

the Heaven you
made is
beautiful
but beyond
absurd

fantastic staircases
leading nowhere
everything under
reconstruction
and thus
so much removal

perhaps
the problem
would lie in thinking of
Heaven as place
at all
or involving any
kind of consciousness
of being as
we currently experience it

but who
am I
and what do
I known

just a boy
with a smattering
of poetry a bit
of philosophy

who should shave died
decades ago
at the bottom
of a pool
but said a prayer,
survived and
is here to make
your presumptuous life
something
of a misery
an absolute misery

GOLDEN

Tags

Carnival, Difference, Heaven, Hell, Humanity, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, protest

GOLDEN

A protest
is not a pilgrimage

it is not
a perfect carnival

it is not devoid
of chance to display,
100% certified free
of human hypocrisy

but sometimes
aesthetics
and class
must fall
by the wayside

sometimes
since the direction is up
towards the sky
elevation of
humanity
this
little, this little,
however scarcely shared
amongst the general
is enough

it is not within my purview
to make a comparison
between those
two
near-identical queues
between Hell
and Heaven

count for count, each
just as
balanced between
stately and
motley

so good in this instance, so right
and relevant
that we do not to judge

which crowd, which individual
and indeed which poetry
finds its way to that
great iron, military-
manned gate

and which to
that tiny style
less
impressive on
eye of soul

but open
and golden.

ANGEL

Tags

corona virus, covid-19, death, Humanity, identity, meaning, Metaphor, philosophical, poem, poem poetry political moral, Poet, poetry, power, Reader, satire, spiritual, thermonuclear, Truth, wordplay, writing

ANGEL

the angel
of death
(is there
any other?)
aligns
himself
via the stars

attaches via minuscule
spines
to do his
really insidious cell
manipulation
potent damage

and this
for our
Sins
the big seven deadlies
(like me
to list them)

or just, yunno, as
part of
evolution
or for no
damned reason

just on a whim
a fleeting whim that
got consolidated
into a
strategy

and why should we
take issue, have a
spiritual or
metaphysical problem

it’s our science
we see
reflected in that mirror
in the fingers
stretching out from
that dark sleeve

to press
the button
press the goddamned button

that
droplet landing in
place of
convenience
fatally speaking

Oh, give the angel
a break — what
do you expect from me
wish me to say? I am
when
all is said and done
a fucking poet
of sorts
pretensions of
being a writer

how am I going to allow you
to redact this knowledge, this wisdom
freely censor this

we are all
in the same boat, same pot,
Heaven, Nature’s
death messengers revelling
in every life moment
as absolute
freedom of expression

IN YOUR ELEMENT

Tags

air, earth, elements, Fire, God, philosophical, poem, poetry, spiritual, Water

IN YOUR ELEMENT

these scars
on my arm
are where
my skin burned
when you
touched me
lifted me
up out of
the ocean
and we
walked
for that moment
hand-in-hand

this is the water
I can still taste
you
bade me drink
until
flowing through my body
water and I
were
as one
sometimes I sense it
is there
a drop that
will never leave
has remained

it’s molecular structure bonded
in a place of perfect light

and this
the air

vehicle for the word
across which
your voice carries

through which, all
being well
I am meant to ascend

but for now
where I juggle things

this poem
this breath

every
aspect of myself
all that
must be weighed, judged
called to
balance
come to rest

and lastly, by no means finally
this earth that enfolds
ground from which the
child in me outgrew
where my
feet feel time’s sand, fertile loam,
kick up
some dust
(and who
knows what
gold
hidden
in such dust?)

this the
floor to

who knows
what ceiling

this the dark door
where you yourself were
made human, died
and were entombed

IN THE FIRST PLACE

Tags

Adam, animals, Aristotle, Cat, Cats, Garden of Eden, Language, linguistic, names, philosophical, philosophy, Plato, poem, poetry, The Fall

IN THE FIRST PLACE

Damn Adam for naming
the animals

why on Earth did he
feel compelled to turn
to Latin for labelling species and genus?

and why did he not
tell us their secret names

the ones they use when talking to each other
because the names we give them,
sometimes they
ignore them entirely
take for example
my cat Tinky
finer cat philosopher and
gueriila fighter you
would be hard pressed
to find

and I was hard-pressed to find her once
hunting for her high and low
calling her name (tears and
panic just
around the corner)
already about to hit the lampposts with
reward notices

and then she arrives, nonplussed,
wondering why the fuss
giving me that look cats give
regretting the stupidity of
their chosen owners

regretting their fallibility, their
lack of grace, smarts and cool

which, Tinky asks with
eyes keen as Aristotle’s, conviction
sure as Plato’s:
“were these not

the things you
had and lost
when you

forgot our names

when we had the connection
and you knew
what was what

in the first place?”

DON’T

Tags

Heaven, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, satire

DON’T

don’t pitch up to Heaven
sporting your best Nazi dress uniform

or try to bling your
way through the pearly door
hoping to grease a few palms
with congregation
collection money

that big bag of stash
that you are touting
(comparing yourself to
Sisyphus, as if this is
your eternal burden)
there
to do justice
in worldly acquisition
to the glory and
grace of God
in elevating by
proxy
the style of
divine image

not that
there appears to
be
space here for
the elite stratum of
consumption aficionados

nor time to share
fun anecdotes of wealth
and
right-wing blood certainty

whilst the dinner
is enjoyed

the welcoming meal

the gold plates
and cutlery

sharpening of knives
for carving

all that
was hoped

all that was dreamed

RAY BANS

Tags

Heaven, irony, poem, poetry, spiritual, witty

RAY BANS

eyes are windows
to the soul

but u got
cute Ray Bans
so your
soul must
be funky

stride
the boulevards
and the
Malls of
Heaven
in nothing less

than saintly
stylishness

IN STORE

Tags

Commercialization, Heaven, materialism, poem, poetry, satire

IN STORE

Heaven
going to have
to import goodies
from below

to cater for
your
hedonism

redefining the
eternity of pleasure
you demand
will be in store.