Brown Skin

29/11/2013

Brown Skin

I lost my memory. It’s no big deal.
I can recall the sandpit where I built
Tall towers, castles and the hills between,
But now I find it difficult to tell
Who of the carers helped me when I cried.
When I had lost my bearings, lost myself?
I know that she was tall, that she was built
On ample Polynesian lines, brown skinned.
I thanked her at the time. I cannot now.

Washerwoman

2/12/2013

The German poet Chamisso

Who lived two hundred years ago,
Philosophized about a woman
Who scrubbed and washed his dirty shirts.

He wrote that she had silver hair.

(Of course he meant the hair was white)
He said she had three healthy kids,
But widowed brought them up alone.

And yet she always smiled and proved

That faith in God and love of duty
Suffice to keep you on your feet
When you are over seventy.
 
I do present this poetry
To you who does my shirts and socks.
Your hair not silver, and you use
Machines unknown to Chamisso.
 
And you are nowhere near seventy!

Joyous Cry

I do not like the endless repetition  

 In what you write, in what you versify.

It’s death and death and death in every strophe.

Do you intend to teach the few that read

Your poems and your fable stories

That this is all we can look forward to?

I beg you, do desist, and like all poets

Employ the license that permits you saying:

Life, happiness, and beauty never, never vanish.

.

I would not claim that death is beautiful,
But it is constant, inescapable,
And thus precedes your life, your happiness and beauty.
You have seen beauty fade, your happiness
Submerged in sorrow, death supreme.
Regardless of your lifetime’s victories
Death conquers all, lays bare the greenest fields.
Be you a fly or homo sapiens,
You end prostrate and speculate no more.

So, would you say that we can not agree?

I fear that’s so, unless you reconsider

The sudden death of joy, of happiness …

I will, indeed   I more than happily

Recall the times…. the few.. when we had ceased

To speculate or ponder life’s gyrations,

When all our hunger, our thirst was quenched

In darkness lit by gentle touch and murmurs

And ending in a shattering cry of joy.

Zero

10/12/2013

I may yet turn a centenarian.
There is distinction, fortune, maybe fame
For any numeral however small
To have a humble zero in its tail.
Yet zero stands for nought. It proves
That an array of noughts arranged
Behind a figure – never mind its size –
Bestows respect, deserved or undeserved.

Solitary

5/12/2013

 

Breakfast solitary

 

I told a lady as I passed
Her table set for tasty breakfast.
But she was alone:  “You eat  
In solitary splendour!” - “I  what? “-
So then I had to say it all
Again, but to this day I wonder
Which word she had not heard before.

Fame

3/12/2013

Fame

 

“Who will read what I have written?”
Asked the poet with foreboding
“I’ve constructed in an hour
Sixteen lines of perfect wording,
Perfect scan and perfect rhythm
To delight the young and old,
And I’ll wager in the future
My collected works get sold
For a fortune”. – “That may be so,”
Said the lady serving tea,
“In the meantime do remember
They are only read by me!”

Death Next Door

Death lives next door. I know it for a fact.

He calls in ev’ry couple o’months or so
And sidles up to one or other here,
Peacefully sleeping in a chair, or staring
With vacant eyes at things that can’t be seen,
But they can hear the friendly welcome speech:

 

“So how are you, my friend?” And for the ladies:
“Most gracious lady, do let me assist you!”
And be it man or woman lifeless, listless,
They shudder slightly, maybe blink just once,
And then the head will roll, the head will drop,
And nerves and muscles claim eternal rest.

Never Solved

19/12/2013

Never solved
 

To think that I shall die

In what is called,

In what is justly called

The lap of luxury.

 

Three sumptuous meals a day –

A tasty breakfast,

And lunch and dinner served

Beyond reproach.

And for eight peaceful hours

I sleep, I dream

Of problems of my childhood

I never solved.

 

I do repeat I dream

Of unsolved problems,

That used to worry me

And do not now.

 

The reason that I’m granted

This absolution

Must be that I am now

Grown up – I think.

Torn Clothing

27/09/2013

TORN CLOTHING

On a string of memories
Like washing on a hoist,
Wet, worn, and torn,
Hang pictures, sounds, and gusts of air
Of where I was, and what I did,
And where I should have been,
And what I should or not have done.
There is no soap, no needle and no thread
To clean, to mend the clothing on the hoist.

PLETHORA OF TASKS

5/09/2013

       

PLETHORA OF TASKS

The many women that I knew and left,

The plethora of tasks left incomplete,

The flood of duties that would drown me,

Together with all moral obligations,

And edicts, censures, and parental sermons

That have survived this ninety year old maelstrom,

Should I recant?

I should have cherished every woman in my sight,

And turned my back on tasks be they complete or not.

I should have swum across this gulf of duties,

And loved my parents though dethroned, made human.

Fear of authority and lack of trust in self –

Am I at ease with people in command?

Do I believe myself?

I Live in a Room

I live in a room and I sleep alone

In a bed that is just three feet wide.

I know I am old and I venture with care

From my room to the world outside.

I remember quite clearly I used to sprint

From meeting to meeting and chat

With the boss of group A and with manager B

And the girl who wrote down what was said.

At that time I attempted to know it all

And occasionally gained the respect

Of the boss of group A and manager B,

And the girl who wrote down what was said.

Yet now I no longer am leader supreme,

And the girl who would write down my uttering

Would still write it down, but in modified form

So it’d seem that I spoke without stuttering.

10 February 2009

Gravity

25/08/2013

                            Gravity

There are two dints in my near hairless skull

Reminding me that gravity is not

My friend.

Indeed it’s gravity that fixes mountains

And causes rivers to proceed downstream,

Not up.

But when I crouched in order to retrieve

A piece of paper from the spotless floor

I fell.

Thus gravity will pull without concern

For right or wrong or any consequence

That hurts.

Waiting Room

19/08/2013

WAITING ROOM


Excuse me knocking on your door;I know it’s not my turn.
But frankly I am sick to death
Of waiting all forlorn
In this gigantic waiting room. 
The exit is controlled
By what you did and how you lived
By what you thought and dreamt.
I filled in all the paperwork
About my life to date.
And when the paper curled in shame
About my evil deeds,
I kept on writing nonetheless
Believing stubbornly
That sins confessed and truly rued
Will shrink and slink away.

Walking Slowly

13 August 2013

WALKING SLOWLY

He walked a lot slower than ever;

And nobody walked by his side.

He smiled and he walked even slower

And he thought about death.

He’d encounter

His mistress, his wife and his daughter,

His passion, his home, and his pride.

Tears

18 July 2013

The wind lashed at the trees. The rain

Cascaded down the trunk, and sprays

Like tears of sorrow dropped upon

The ground beneath the leaves above…

No, no!

The bark and branches, leaves,

Do not have feelings of regret,

No soul, no realm of fantasy.

I will not change my vulnerable state

For earlier links in our chain of life.

By Request

24 June 2013

By request.

I do believe the life of any woman

In this the twenty-first of centuries

Revolves around the morals and the ethics

Prevailing now.

Morality has left the stage as leading lady,

A sacrifice to strict emancipation.

Ethics will always claim their pride of place

And do engender

The never ending talk and disputation

About what’s right, what’s wrong, or in between.

But women’s first concern will always be:

What is my weight?

What do I wear today?

Ninety one

24 June 2013

Ninety-one.

While poets, painters and philosophers

Have tried to lift the veil from what it hides,

I stay as stupid as a stupid child.

Becomingly it is with childish wonder

That I reflect on ninety years of life

And find the drawers of my memory

Increasingly quite difficult to open.

Although sometimes unasked and unexpected

They spring to life and from their folds and files

Thrust up a picture or a torn up essay

To smile at it, to frown, or to repent,

Art Class

Ralph and his Work

John and his Work

Pop

This morning at the breakfast table

I watched a woman watch impatiently

The toaster.

She peered into the plated apertures

Where she had placed two slices

Of favourite bread.

She stood on one foot, then the other;

She rubbed her hands and frowned

And looked again.

And finally it popped and lo! Behold!

There was the gift of golden brown repast …

(which would have popped regardless of

Her watch.

And I imagined bringing up one’s children

With minimum supervision,

Until they pop.)

3 June 2013

Joyous Cry

I do not like the endless repetition

                   In what you write, in what you versify.

It’s death and death and death in every strophe.

Do you intend to teach the few that read

Your poems and your fable stories

That this is all we can look forward to?

I beg you, do desist, and like all poets

Employ the license that permits you saying:

Life, happiness, and beauty never, never

vanish.

I would not claim that death is beautiful,

But it is constant, inescapable,

And thus precedes your life, your happiness and beauty.

You have seen beauty fade, your happiness

Submerged in sorrow, death supreme.

Regardless of your lifetime’s victories

Death conquers all, lays bare the greenest fields.

Be you a fly or homo sapiens,

You end prostrate and speculate no more.

So, would you say that we can not agree?

I fear that’s so, unless you reconsider

The sudden death of joy, of happiness …

I will, indeed   I more than happily

Recall the times…. the few..when we had ceased

To speculate or ponder life’s gyrations,

When all our hunger, our thirst was quenched

In darkness lit by gentle touch and murmurs

And ending in a shattering cry of joy.

Smile

Smile

27 May 2013

I know why I’m so much at ease

With all that live in this establishment.

We do agree without discussion

That our stay can only terminate

With death.

I never heard it talked about.

It is accepted, never even mentioned,

But it is locked in our brain

That our aspirations, our hopes

Face death;

I do accept this ultimatum.

I try to smile whenever it arises

In idle thinking, contemplation.

I truly hope that when I breathe my last

I’ll smile.

Her Death

26 May 2013

I've kissed the cold lips of my wife

When she had died.

I thought then that I knew

The immobility, the stillness

That means: I’m dead.

That was the first mistake I made

Confronting lips and hands

That would not, could not say:

I love you.. Because it’s I

Had died, not you.

Uncertain

19 May 2013

Uncertain of my grasp

I reach, I touch.

With shaky steps

I move

To where I plan,

Where I've decided that I’ll find

My breakfast and my friends

Avoiding death

For yet another day.

Bach

Dear Jenny,

 

I am listening to Bach (on the computer) and I have  never enjoyed Bach more. That is because one hour ago I tried to get this program and I couldn't. So I thought maybe, maybe a connection was disrupted (unintentionally of course) when we disconnected the Laser Printer.

 

It took me about 3/4 hour to fiddle, to search, to plug and to unplug ...

but suddenly I found a male and a female socket unconnected (if you know what I  mean), connected them, restarted Bach, and he blared forth as if he had known all the time what the trouble was.

 

Bach is still playing and the UPC and I are friends again.

 

Love

John

Phone

11 May 2013

Phone

I have become as suits a man

Approaching his centennial year

A servant to my mobile phone

Securely attached to me.

It dangles loosely from my belt

Or in my pocket sends vibrations

Alerting me that someone would

Engage me in a conversation.

Let me not denigrate its use.

It makes you speak – you’re not alone.

For these two reasons I propose

That I be buried with my phone. 

Easter Eggs

The Easter bunny sat and sighed
And scratched its silken head:
“Here are some fifty residents
For whom I've made these eggs.
I know I ran a minute-mile
Before the humans (sob!),
But this is not enough to feed
This chocolate hungry mob.”
But on a magic cloud appeared
A dozen pretty girls.
They were the cream of Rosstown staff
That heard the bunny’s call.
And clever as becomes their sex
They prettied up each breakfast set
With shimmering golden chocky eggs.
Thank you.

Naked Truth

4 April 2013

The country you will visit

For pleasure, education, and experience

This country is the same

I fled

For want of same.

Pleasure was found in hate,

And education was constrained

And witnesses, albeit still alive

Refused

To tell the tale.

It is the grimmest tale

Of which faint echoes sound

In archives, books, and court proceedings,

Proclaiming

The naked truth,

But also I heard voices

Condemning the horrid past.

And promise resurrection and reform

Towards

The love of neighbours.