JUVENILIA
I first started writing poetry at the age of 12 and some of these poems date back to that era. I feel privileged to have these few poems as a record, inasmuch as these poems form a sort of diary of my early teenage years.
December
Cool, oh so cool,
lively and sun
how soft the pool
of light laid on
the housetops far
yet seeming near,
telescoped. Ah
yes, the air, clear,
cool, and pale blue
the sky, and in
silhouette new
lopped trees win
praise for wrought steel.
No filigree,
no twigs to steal
the space left free
for cool clear air.
Christmas Card
Christmas is mistletoe, a suckling guest,
the infant Jesus at Mary’s breast.
Christmas is holly spikes and berries red,
the spots and the thorns on the brow that bled.
Christmas is a yulelog on shoulders borne
as Christ to his Calvary staggers home.
Flotsam
No foam-biting outcrops,
No wave-gouged seaway.
Shallow beach with its tops
Of ice-cream cartons, lay
Deserted with the rest
Of the refuse, litter,
Thrown out, jilted wave guest.
His smile it was bitter.
Slow the wave breaks its back,
Foul water fills the moat.
The sea gave, the sea takes back.
Shells in the walls afloat.
Go castle of sand.
Go castle of air.
The sea lent you a friend
And claimed her unaware.
The weed lay limp as he.
Slowly the sea creeps on.
The weed is lifted, set free,
Enhanced, enriched, reborn.
The sea swallows the sand,
Swallows the footsteps sure.
Long strides, shorter ones, and
The sea follows their lure.
Sides of the steps falling,
Leaving bare desertion
Of muddy sea trailing
Them to separation.
But for hesitation
His hopes would not be gone.
Steps to separation,
Slowly the sea creeps on.
Last Stand of the Otomies
Otomies of that long accursed race,
Aztecs, upon whose lofty teocallis
Red stones of sacrifice stand stark and still,
Sombre sentinels of the vanquished dead.
You are the only branch of Aztec’s tree
Whose necks lie not beneath the Spanish yoke.
You live free men while others died in vain
To save your sons and you from Cortes’ wrath.
Shall we then betray the trust placed in us
By those brave men who for their nation died?
Are your children doomed subject slaves to be?
Will you send your leaders to the torture bed?
Submit – your tribe will die a shameful death.
Rather then fight, for freedom, honour, fame.
Think long, think hard you sons of Otomie,
Think and reply. We fight! We fight! They say.
The teocallis is high, fill with grain,
Let water lie within, for it is deep.
Muster the warriors of strength and skill.
Huitzel our god shall guide our steps in war.
Alas, all clans of Otomie swear not
Allegiance to a falling star. Alas,
In battles past ten thousand soldiers brave
Came to our call in time of bitter strife.
A mere two thousand men still faithful stand,
But yet men fight hard who fight for freedom,
Freedom for themselves, their wives and children.
We will by courage great yet win the day.
A certain gorge, treacherous, deep and dank,
Lies near this home of ours, and in the past
Our fathers rolled great stones upon the foe.
Shall our fathers beat us in this game of war?
To arms! To arms! The sentry cries to all.
The Spanish array approaches from the south.
Their spirited chargers all prance among
The Tclascan allies of Spain, traitors all.
Hasten to the gorge, ascend yonder slopes,
Half to the mouth with arrows for to fight
And lead the Spanish to the place where up
Above our brethren wait with boulders large.
One falls, a horse is crushed beneath its weight,
Another and yet another twain fall
Relentlessly in their pursuit of death!
But here falls a man! What happens above?
The Spaniards fight on the slopes of the pass,
But how found they the secret way to the heights?
There is a traitor in our ranks, a traitor
Of Otomie! Alas, we are betrayed!
To the town, to the town, sack and destroy,
Till adobe bricks lie row on row to halt
The Spaniards in their quest of Aztec blood,
Which shall tint these bricks red ere day is done.
Build the defences high, your quivers fill.
Indian arrows shall pierce the Spanish mail.
Be brave my comrades, the palaces of
Huitzel, the Sun God shall receive our souls.
The Spaniards are through, they fire the town.
Their cannon roar louder than Xascota,
Yonder thunder mountain of Otomie
Which fails us in our greatest need. Fight on!
The teocallis is large, steep its walls.
They shall to our people sanctuary give.
Old women, children, all those infirm, shall
Stay without and trust to Spanish mercy.
Sacrifice to Huitzel, oh you people!
For we are doomed and naught but miracles
Will keep us longer from our final home.
More than mere stones lie red upon this floor.
The clash of weapons is loud in our ears.
The rapiers glint in the morning sun,
While the painted Tclascan serfs bend their bows
And wicked shafts go winging on their way.
We are few, the Spaniards are many.
Soon our race shall leave this land of mortals,
Or shall we? But yet we chose. Not for us
A life of serfdom, Tclascan traitor’s life.
Ugh! I am hit, my heart is pierced, I die,
And with me dies my tribe, for I the chief
I am the tribe and with our dying
Dies the tale of Aztec glory, finished.
Jilted
Love is beautiful and my love was kind
and showed me all the good that it could find,
and faults forgiven disguised, blissful blind
believed her every word in utter trust.
Saw, and persuaded myself not to see
her conclusion-developed calumny.
The smother of a growing agony
were her words, her kisses, her morphia.
Firemetal glows pure, pure white-hot he dotes.
The first slight cooling and the sour scum floats.
Suspicion smears her, her near presence coats
each breath in jaded jealous discomfort.
Careful cut ribs and flesh laid back about
my guileless heart, but not to be ripped out,
trampled on, spat upon, with scorning pout
screwed back, blue bruised battered
but not broken.
She stabs me in the back, strength sap savour
of wasted love weakens me, will waver
to the first come rival flings her favour
in all world see cruel obviousness.
Death, dust, crumble, a free love dies in spate,
lightning fused into abstract bitter hate,
from the one mad passion to its passioned mate
in plummet plunge, screams bit back on my lips.
Fresh jealous hate is a revelation
and a hopeless clarity of vision,
a flashborn moulder die destruction
of joy, of all my values, all my world.
Then reappraisal of this foolsway life,
the readjustment, arming for the strife
by laughing at her and me, and ready rife
bitterness crushed that I might live again.
Calvary
The woodway crept through juniper and moss
and the pale yellow shells of chanterelle,
choicest of fungi, peeping round pine roots.
Seedful goldscale cones and dead needle dross
littered the lichen, and soft gathering
deep, deadened the grit crunch fall of our boots.
Every bend of the mountain hugging path
showed a shrine on a tree by the wayside,
tannin stained prints of the crucifixion.
The sun was waylaid by the needle froth
which kept cool moist the cloistered shade as we
padded past, up onward with Christ’s passion.
Trees lay felled among the wolfsmilk flowers
and the red bark sappy lay peeled in straps
from the pitch scent pinewood, the white heartwood.
His thought was nailed to bark by rust, and flowers
stem crushed are sticky on his hands and feet,
and his coarse robe from his white heart is rent.
Keeping Score
I entertained the same old friend last night,
the thought I give fresh birth to every night,
that the day before is gone forever,
but that I am young as yet, and the span
of mortal man is three score years and ten.
But already eighteen times a year’s count
of dead days and stillborn nights gone forever
plus some for leap years, have I felt like this,
that I am quite young as yet, and the span
of mortal man is two score years and ten.
Now I am no longer young and the span
Of mortal man may be what it can.
I’m keeping score no more.
The Jungfrau
Have you caressed a virgin’s breasts?
Have you climbed the Jungfrau pink in snow,
With the Schneehorn and the Silberhorn,
And the cleft of Truemmelbach below?
Then your mountain has its summit,
Ambition has broken the pale,
And do you find you’re looking downwards
To death in Lauterbrunnendale?
Brainstorm
What is this mind, this mental cyst,
this malign insistent tumour
that I find will never cease
its tumultuous roar,
the cataract of consciousness?
Yet never quite drowns out the rumour
that somewhere quiet there is peace
of mind, a welcome open door
to caverns of forgetfulness.
In cold steel links of sense I’m clad,
chained to myself who would be free –
either infatuate, dead or mad
would ease this logic pain in me.
Why must I tread this mill and grind,
and turn and turn these creaking wheels?
If mental sinews snapped, I’d find
Elysia in asylum fields.
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