casualmoths

Altered Imagists #1

2012-02-07T12:27:00.000Z

Winter like a naked anorexic.

Everyday a pathetic fallacy.

In the sodium glow of the snow,

the fox clocks me

and with a flick of his hips

he's slipped away.

iii

Like a rich man showering treasure,

snow soon turns in to a bitter miser.

The Js

2012-01-24T19:39:00.000Z

“what thou lovest well will remain…” Ezra Pound - Cantos

At night when sleep doesn’t come

I think of my boys upstairs,

What will life be like for us?

My boys, My boys, of the little I know

I know this…I feel more

For your faces in the morning;

For your slipper of warmth;

For your glide in the evening;

For your calf-like grazing;

For your nuzzle;

For your soft nudge;

For your companion kindness;

For your necessity and pride;

For your air filling chatter;

For your inconsequential news;

For the head scratching

Fact of it all…

I feel more than any metaphor

I have put on the page.

III

In my head I think of my best self, wise -

Dispensing necessary adages age provides,

An old chum with his hand firmly on the tiller

Steering clear of life’s uncharted perils.

But my true self knows the duffer,

The bluff plodder whose luck comes

Only through graft and surprise.

Too ready to grab the brakes

At the first thought of a corner.

Life can only be measured by its memory

Yes, we live but we always feel we die too soon.

Our lives mean through their meaning to others.

I’m not old, I know but youth has fled me.

These beauties on the tube do not look for me

But through me, my age an invisibility,

Their very youth an amulet against the grizzled

And what they think they will never become.

I wish my boys these girls (or boys)

That pedal into life on the very rivet –

Unfazed by failure and fear merely words.

Happiness coming from living and living,

Fuelled by the ineffable fact of being alive.

My life has been something else again

I know so little about Love and Death and God,

I live by the sea where any revelation

Is only ever temporary to be covered

By the next tide that hides all once again.

Oh My boys…Oh, My boys…

All other stuff is meaningless, except

Death coming out of the mist in disguise,

In its soft hearse to surprise and appal us.

Let me be joyfull for you and with you,

But I cannot promise that any of this will be true.

A Poet Is Born Not Mad(e)

2011-12-01T15:13:00.000Z

I AM echoing in the indifferent air,
Clare rose from his maddened fog
and must have wept to see the mirror.

How long would it be before he was
To be toss'd into nothingness once more,
The cloud smothering him in his shroud?

What is worse, The tragedy of insanity:
Hos life's slow swirl into the maelstrom-
The bare knuclked fight into oblivion;

Or wretchedly waking to watch the vast
Ship of his hopes woefully wrecked
Against the rocks of his past?

Terling

2011-11-29T09:54:00.000Z

In shaved light
The great leafed autumn
With its Klimt shimmers
And Palmer palimpsests
Is waiting to sleep.

Yet there is still surprise
Before the ground grows iron
And bereft
But for bare stalks:

We can hear in its breath;
In this sweet rot
The secret is out,
There is delight in this death.

The Razor's Edge

2008-11-14T08:56:00.000Z

If I could I would pause you now
With your liquid laugh echoing
In the bathroom while you watch me
Shaving in the morning mirror.
Your face mimics mine as I stretch
My skin to smooth the passing
Of the razor's each sharp sweep.
Like Jonathon Joe in the verse
Our mouths are like huge Os;
So soon we are giggling. I'm swallowing
Foam and I'm glad drowning in love.

So let's stop and grasp what we share -
Small moments - let's not ask for more,
For how long before it's your hair there
And there's a lock upon the bathroom door?

Remembrance Service 1984

2008-11-13T09:04:00.002Z

What a name for a boy-
Montague Rainbow-
To hear that young November.

A roll-call of the school dead
Dully read to us
As we shuffled and yawned.

But now at forty and more
He stays in my head,
No grand arch offering hope

Instead an oil slicked puddle -
A mess to tread through -
A name with no meaning left.

Archaeology and the Early History of Essex

2008-04-23T08:21:00.002Z

He passes you a box, which includes:
A black arrowhead
Some knapped flints
(microliths, he explains).
Worked bright, as new now
As they were before they were buried.
And these are beautiful,
But obviously.

Then he passes you an ugly stone,
Heavy until you turn it
And it fits like your newborn's head,
This handaxe, like your infant's skull,
Fills your hand and no more.
As it should.

There is a dent for your thumb,
You and the Bronze Age meet,
You are holding History.
You think about your son's hands,
How curled and small they are now.
One day they too will fit this axe.

Your Empty Bed

2008-04-22T11:28:00.002Z

Your empty bed.
I hadn't seen you up
and dressed
Since J's baptism,
you sat in your chair
all shining and electric.
A witness to a church
You had led me to
some thirty years ago.

Eight years on now.
And you have got up
But never to press
This ash burnt pillow.
Carried out by strangers,
Your last legs long gone.

The chair sits dust covered
Battery dead.

I open your post
And cover your quilt
In piles of bills, demands
And junk mail. Your life
In paper hiding suspect
Stains on sheets I do not
Dare to scrutinise.

A last rite I do for you.

In The Night

2008-03-10T12:29:00.001Z

"I lie alone, the clock strikes three
And anyone who wanted to could contact me
At dead of night, till break of day
Endless thoughts and questions keep me awake
Its much too late"
Pet Shop Boys - Jealousy

Everytime I hear my mobile ring
I am brought back to that night...

It was half past two and the world
abed except for those whose job it
is to keep the rest of us afloat.

When I picked Jealousy by PSB, i thought
it would arrest me, be a ring tone
so camp I would smile whenever it called.

And so, from my sleep, I hear it
downstairs, on charge, breaking the night.

Good news snores but the bad is always
awake.I know, even before I press green,
what the voice is waiting to say,
as if I have been waiting for this,
without ever knowing, moment of loss.

I put it to my ear and the phone's
crescendo ends and everything begins
differently.

"I never knew time passed so slow"
Pet Shop Boys - Jealousy

2007-10-09T11:51:00.000Z

The Leafing Game

Cycling up the hill to work
A stray leaf swirls before me
And almost by instinct I reach
To clutch this first faller.

First form, lunchtime, top field
We line up in front of unnamed trees
And wait fro the wind to whistle
Through and start ‘The Leafing Game’

This simple contest would thrill us
As we chased a leaf to catch
Before it hit the ground. We’d hurtle,
Twist and leap in their sweet rot
Until we were the last still holding.

As if it was our World Cup.
As if we were great sportsmen.

And maybe we were. Our great game
The perfect match of boy and nature,
The random and the skilled.
Now leaves are to be raked, cleared
They clog gutters, discolour lawns
Where once they were all our pleasure –

We prized the withered leaf and
Allowed for no more than a breeze
To ease our youthful hearts.

2007-08-21T14:41:00.000Z

Moments In Love – The Art Of Noise

As I walk to the railway station, I slip
The buds into my ear and press ‘Play’.
And there, as the Estuary reveals itself,
I am eighteen and back in your house:
You’re back from visiting University
And you’re a Marco Polo to us,
Unpakaging your riches to rubes.
And there it is:
A twelve inch track into another world.
It gleams and is modern and electric,
Its subject, no more than life to be had,
Out there,
Now.
It looped and looped around the room.
Ten minutes stretching out of the old,
Expanding into Experience and ourselves.
No going back. Never, as the man said,
Such Innocence again. Again.
And we heard that it was good
And this Art mattered and was more,
Much more than merely Noise.

2007-08-13T18:25:00.000Z

Fracture.

The fig is in full fig, last summer
the fruit hung like light bulbs
Bright beacons for the greedy birds.
Summer’s heat was tempered
Within its spreading palms
And beneath its cooling canopy
I sat, leg in plaster, and read;
“Sweet are the uses of adversity.”
A suburban Arden, for me, maybe.

This year it’s taking over
Our paltry postage stamp patch.
I am mobile again and cart a chair
To its green and thought filled shade
And remember Clare crying on finding
His favourite tree cut down.
And like the tuppeny Romantic I am
I think I know how he felt.
But I don’t. But I think I could.

2007-07-17T08:49:00.000Z

This why there is no poetry.

Service, of some description will be resumed shortly

D~

2007-06-22T10:57:00.000Z

“Be silent unless what you
Say is better than silence.”

Easy for you to say Sal,
Looking like a rock star
Who doesn’t have to talk
To the press.
Second album, platinum,
All success assured.
But what of the rest of us
Who cannot paint ourselves
Mute?
Words are our work
Our bulwark against
Meaning less,
Meaning missed.
So haughty, dark Sal,
You hover as if from
Out of the sky.
A clear eye.
Who would not blink
When forced to face you,
Stammer and wish for silence
Beneath your powerful stare?

2007-05-27T13:12:00.000Z

Father and Son.

I keep coming back to Titus,
Beloved son of the man who watched
Everyone die.

Fourth born but first to survive,
He’d seen Rembrandt’s rise
Yet he also saw both wives die
And heard the bailiff’s unwelcome arrival.

A witness to the master observer,
From the workshop’s corner
He’d learnt to measure a man,
How to shore up mortality
With hired furs and white collars.

And then

At twenty-six he’d married Magdalena
The gilded scales finally tipping,
A child on the way. At eight months,
Did the old man close his eyes in praise
Only for them to be prised open by a cough
As the plague claimed Titus.
Dead at twenty-seven.

Had this father looked at him
As if he were a mirror –
The boy who drew dogs so well –
Only to find no silvered glass,
Just an empty frame.
Nothing left to picture.

2007-05-15T19:24:00.000Z

A Present From James

In my pocket, worn bright by daily touch,

I carry a conker. A strong brown nut from

My long legged boy who threw the stick,

Who kept his eye on where his target fell,

Who placed his heel on its spiked shell

And twisted with just the right weight

Before giving this gift to me.

"Look, dad," proud, he said "It's a good 'un"

Yes, son, a good one, the best. Proudly,

I lift my head at my desk, remembering,

As I stop before the reassertion of work

To see the neighbour's chestnuts sway.

Their conic blossoms like candles

On the most ornate of birthday cakes.

A promise of more fruit for next year

For children to covet and collect.

Other pockets to fill.

2007-04-19T13:04:00.000Z

An extract from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

XIX.

The gracious green stranger tilted his head and lifted his hair

for all to see his neck laid bare white in the light of the hall.

Left foot forward, Gawain gripped the axe, gathered it high

and down like lightening he slashed that naked neck,

slicing asunder the bones with his blade, the fair flesh of his nape

sheared in two as if the steel that rang on the floor of the hall

had sliced through the finest fat and not that striking Knight.

That heavenly head fell fast to the earth as the fellow’s feet

flicked and kicked at it as it rolled around the room.

The blood burst from the body blackening all that was green,

yet he never faltered, nor fell forward, not for one beat

but this stout Knight moved surely on his sturdy legs and

roughly he reached out among the crowded Camelot ranks,

seizing his wonderful head and raising it for all to stare at.

He stepped to his steed and brought the bridle to his hands,

slipped into his stirrups and stood astride his beast whilst

his missing head was held by the hair, then settled into his

saddle until he was steady as if he had had no mishap, despite

his having no head.

He swung his body about

that bled and ugly trunk

and many felt the dread

by the time he’d had his say.

2007-04-15T14:52:00.000Z

Vencois.

I

I sit in the cooling air,

A last glass before bed

In this land of lemons,

Rock and steepling valleys.

The birds call across

Each to each while cars

Zip and disappear in the

dark. Rolling around

the hills - no straight lines,

No easy stroll home.

The night swallows another

As I switch off the last light.

II

How many more years

Will you be pleased

To see a goose?

When do you stop

Being my boys?

III

A couple on the beach.

Their children play with pebbles

While they rekindle damp tinder.

What fire can be made

With flint in such kisses?

IV

And in this bowl of peace

I find myself unfold

Into this golden moment

I stop and let it hold.

2007-03-28T12:07:00.000Z

"...I am in blood
Stepp'd so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as to go o'er" (Macbeth III iv)

I remember them

Stefan and Sonny

Swinging at the back

Bitten nails, Inked fingers

Scabbed knuckles.

Year Nine, English,

Wednesday, Shakespeare

Equals shit.

But this was the bit

That hits;

The bit that fit.

They'd all said fuckit

Gone for the proverbial

Sheep as well as the lamb,

Had blood on their hands.

At fourteen found thinking tedious

And kept on wading.

They'd stepped knee deep

School a pool with

No seeming shore.

For that day the words worked -

A mad King and them.

They left the room dripping,

Returning.

2007-03-22T09:50:00.000Z

All praise

The foolhardy cherry

Whose blossoms snow

As March turns the

Lamb into a lion.

All praise

The silly magnolia

Made giddy

By false spring;

Their candles guide

Us away from winter.

All praise

The snowdrop,

The crocus and

The daffodil

Those heady harbingers

Of hope against blight.

For at that moment

The barren is finally

Broken.

For that:

All praise!

2007-03-12T19:29:00.000Z

I have this dream
and I'm always going home.

Back to the loveliest tree
in all of Hitchin.

It's January and lit like
a golden X-ray

at the peak of Windmill
Hill as it was at 17

and drunk I stopped for
the first time and realised

Beauty wasn't a girl
that I didn't know.

It was the world.

2007-03-07T09:27:00.000Z

Self Portrait 1669.

No grand hat or flowing sleeves,

Just a black slash below the neck.

The skin is now slack

And the fat lacquered

Cheek is pitted and cracked.

I'm no longer the flaxen lad

But a familiar to the rack,

The scratch of the sackcloth

And the hacking taste of ash.

This is my final attack -

Death is not a vacuum,

More like a latch on a wrecked

Door into a packed room

And actually no paint is a match.

It's time I faced facts.

2007-02-26T13:34:00.000Z

After Mauritshuis.

Everyday it must be like this:

Remember, before you forget.

Of course, Rembrandt knew this.

The brush has words for those motes.

For the spine cracks,

The binding dries

and the pages go missing.

The candle gutters

and the rose cankers.

Age deflates -

A slow puncture.

The dust unsettles

But the paint remains thick.

2007-02-20T08:55:00.000Z

Signs Taken for Wonders.

If I stop long enough…
I open a door
And suddenly it’s summer.

The trees lift their leaves
And the sun is
Kindly light.

I can see the hills of home
Gently swelling like a
Teenager’s breast,

The fields are parched
And marked for
Stubble razing.

Everything is aligned,
The horizon crisp
As a photograph.

Over the houses tonight
A round faced moon
In a clear winter sky.

A diamond frost
Like stubble on
An old man’s face -

All this nature
It means something,
Beyond weather.

Monday 19th February

2007-02-19T19:55:00.000Z

London as Indian embroidery

Sequins, swirls, mandalas of light