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.