LORDS OF THE COSMOS

LORDS OF THE COSMOS (Monday 28th Feb 2011) - A poem about poetry... [418 words ]

Author’s Notes : This was one of the first pieces I wrote. In it I set myself the task of thinking about poetry in a general way and to lay down some ideas that I would need to return to from time to time.

What was it he said when he first spied her?

With what words did he declare, announce, woo and charm?  

And on what fruit and on what epic did he feast her?

With what wine dine and juice and caress imaginations chariots?

And on what benign ode did she sip, sup and quaffe with wonderment? 

For tis certain that with iambic pentameter and rhythmic meter he cooed, plyed and rose her.

Rhyme, Reason and Rhythm all queuing eager to greet and meet her & together conspire

Drumming out their whining, murmuring beat insistent bent on toning & tanning

Sometimes better sometimes missing the spot, perchance to stab on purpose & quicken the heart

With arrows from abandon’s quiver all soft, knitted as in the purling and quilted fine

Words they say are all we mere mortals own to take your heart away to horizons expanding

And like rumplestiliskin weave we pray the name of loves own on tablets that are not stone.

As coned islands exult, celebrate and emerge from mere consciousness

They sing to form as one roundelay in synch with the buzz of the jamboric madrigal

Line on line they the maidens say give us a cantata, go one gis a Ballard, a song you know

And with chanson a plenty and encomiums sonorously murmuring a frilly few

With nets of femion they tingle and turn castanets a swinging and swirling in

In the ballet and humming in the rhumba, even as foolish young boys grimace, snigger, and gurn

Who'er then is master of earthly twin triple tongue is lord of the cosmos too

Poetry you say, With roots, trunk, branches, leaves, bud, flower, fruit and seed a ripening

In the garden pastoral bucolic with leaves a lingulate and rhombic

With vine stalk that snake and root deep in subterranean passages and caves

And sing from there their sonnets that ripple and reverb and rubble in the underground

Echoing the coo cooing of maidens in bardic spring and the glad summer morning

Staccato its theme does punctuate and spine the whole thing through trunking its way to the canopy

Mesma, Amusma and Peone are muse three bringing creatures culled & teased from Mamara Sea

To entertain us, and cheer us with limerick, and spice us with nursery rhyme's archaic patterning 

Like an ocean shallow enough to dip the toes and to sample the warm warm water

As a body deep enough for where the wild things play leashed waiting to be unbound

Tis a place to test and stretch the edge of reason.        

NOW AND THEN

NOW AND THEN - About a constrained Relationship

We will not speak of what might have been, let us not talk of what, perhaps, we would have seen

Though it is a pleasant and disturbing phantom, and it charms us away from the present

Nor will we whisper of a future we cannot give but here and now hand in hand let us live

Even if the dawn is dark and the far distant is but a blank, even if the tree is stripped bare

And even if the life and the kernel is gone, let us be content, as drunken, with mere bark

We may not have tomorrow and hereafter but in the instant laughter and with rude impatience let us comfort and ease the solitude of one who remains not a stranger.

We will not dally and we will not stutter, come, look even now the fat is being taken away from the  slaughter. Let us laden our table with fine goods from China and let us command Egyptian dancing girls and pipers from Afghanistan. Pies to crunch, meat to chew and refined wine too. Drink now and drink deep for tomorrow is denied except for dormant, solitary slumber.

Even if the morning never wakes and the sun comes not near, even if the cistern runs dry. Though the  sentinels fail and the watchmen drift, let us be content as with parched lips, we slake our thirst with a passionate kiss. Hear our chattering guests as they gather banqueting. Hurry now  let us join them in the great hall of Ajalon and feast with them this day long. Here now take my hand and let us live.

OPTIONS UNDER FIRE : LIBYA

Author’s notes: Almost a month ago ( At Sat 23^rd April ) I published a piece called “North Africa in Crisis: Libya”. Here I present a kind of subjective, selective, distorted, poets eye view of the events from Feb 16^th to about 21^st April

                                                                                           

Bring Magic Machine and Fated Mortal Men.

Register them all near Pandemonium’s Portal.

Bring Oil and Bring Blood and the Apothecary’s Art.

Allow the Blood Flow, let it Start.

Bring Human Rights declared Universal & True.

Fathi Terbil, let him be recalled, friend.

And let him, when the hubbub’s Done,

In Libya’s annals green, be mentioned.

Bring solidarity and protest in the streets. 

Initiate a tour of duty patriotic, for loves contest.  

And in the virtual Brave new avenue of Babylon,

Play on Ytube the widow’s pain once more.

Let it be emailed and copied and forwarded

And let those at distance sigh and wonder Why.

Aspire to martyrdom and reject, for the next,

This world’s ignorance of paradise’s lost reward.

Recall the day of rage and those whose lives blazed no more.               

Never forget the fire which fell on mourners in Benghazi.

Never forget the fire tumbling as they mourned brethren.

Power is in the hands of the people, that’s what I said.

From here to eternity, from there to anarchy.

Never to leave my darling dressed in Black, green and Red.  

Bring tanks again in the Night.

Let Thanos reign down its death Shelling expected                

Bring abductions on the outskirts of the city

And no news of the departed.                                                                                             

Prevent farmers from seeding, their fields a fallow.

And in Tripoli’s place fresh wine on the table. 

Bring bone smashed and seared broke.

And the crimson washed aroma of scorched, jellied flesh.

Bring death, destruction, agony, and show no pity.

We struggle for Right, for Liberty

For the world, for out country, for our children,

For hope, for the very heart of the City. 

We shall fight them in the Polis and in the suburbs.

We will never surrender we will never leave; with Right’s 

Aid we continue to harass the infidel until at last they yield. 

Kill everyone who shadow like flits. Anyone whose face does not fit.        

And in the virtual and brave new avenues of Babylon,

Let the Orphan’s cry be ignored.

Bring the Battle tanks and daub them with the slogans of Liberation.

Sons and Daughters sing their blood for the soul of a Nation.

Spring the Multiple rocket launcher and let it ripple its barraging effects.  

Let Qatar our brother be first to match word with Mirage jets.                                 

From United Arab Emirates a full horn’s complement came.

More “Fighting Falcons” & Mirage planes – 12 in all named.

Launch Attack Wind and assault with Apache and Exocet missiles

Release Storm Shadow and payload its missiles armed to the enemy’s chest.

Stir The Hornet and sting superior with front line multi- role fighter.

Awake The “Sea Sparrow and anti- ship harpoon missiles”:

Bring the Sea King chopping copter and enlist the Wartog.

Bring them now and let us go together up to Mount Whitney.

Bring mutilation and blinding white light, bring wailing in the night.

Bring mourning and death.

And before the scurry is done its message telegraphed far and wide.

Many will flee, even Mercenaries and hardened paid men of war,

From below the great desert and the near neighbours of Kemet.

Bring a safe distance and let us observe from a far

Let us be numb to it for after all it’s just another bloody war.

Let our allies and friends know that if they will help us kick

Out Ghadaffi then the whole world will live in Peace. Just as Lennon said.

Let our allies know that friendly fire, well the dead are getting higher.

Release from gun barrel Liberty’s freedom’s flower.

Let the African Union know and understand that Revolution and not

Reform is what the blood on our streets whispers beneath our boots.

Strengthen rather our arm in this dread fight 

Rather than prop the arm of the Colonel’s economic might                                  

In the night it comes with its soothing song telling us it won’t be long.        

VARIATIONS ON A 'G' STRING

Author’s Notes: Inspired by Bach’s “Air on a G String”

I know just where, just where to go, when ere I,      

When ere I am feeling really cold, and rather low.

I go there for sweet comfort only you really know.

For my love you really care, and comfort me there.

Just by where calm springs and clean water flows,

In your healing embrace I now repose and recline.

For you really can mend this fevered heart of mine.

You really comfort me my love. And I know dear  

Just where I’m to go, I go where the healing spring,

Where waters refreshing, divine and free do flow.          

In your embrace’s healing I now would rest and recline

I know where, just where, to lay this weary heart of mine

I know where to go for true love that’s mine. For my dear 

You really comfort me right there, just where the spring clear waters flow              

For you really mend again this hot fevered heart of mine.

Your closeness and care-song they’re dearly sweet to me.

You’ll be there, right there, right near to me,                                      

Right by where the spring water runs fresh

And clear again ever renewed by you love.

In the morning walk I really know my soul restored

I feel so new whenever I’m with you 

On moonlight walk you keep me company

For I know just where to go,

I go where still n’deep waters they gently ever flow

From your face I see that smile again it shines

It spreads its wings high and covers me with love

I’m feeling strong again my love just by where

The still sweet spring waters cascade love’s divine heart flow.

               

HAIKU CLUTCH

Author’s notes: Live and Learn we say! Live and Learn!  Near the time of his death the Japanese Master poet ‘Basho’ gave what has become known as ‘The Death Poem” …..

“Still on my journey - / dreams roam / parched moors”…..at about the same time he also gave another which now has only the second and third part preserved…

“ …………../ roaming still / my dreaming mind”. Intriguing! This piece assumes that since he was giving these two together they are in some way connected as is suggested by the words used in each.  I have pursued this thought and produced three Haiku’s to be clutched together as one…

Today’s renewer -                                                      

Urging morning’s chorus song  

Once more ancient path

 

With you my songbird

Across enigmatic land - 

Arise and journey 

When birdsong ceases  

Then louder our fabric heard -

Drink sweet tea with me

                       

HAIKU'S METACOUP : Basho - The Poet of the Banana Tree Hut

Author’s Notes: Wishing to return the 'favour' of a review I visited one poet's page to find it was all ‘Haiku’! - A quick bit of research was called for. The website “In the Moonlight a worm” was a

particularly helpful and informative website. Especially helpful with many examples given from Basho himself.   - That done - and assuming I understand the basic idea – I composed and published my first ‘deliberate’ Haiku...Having digested the “data” a bit more I thought  I would makes some notes in poet form... They may be of use to someone thinking about Haiku but like me ‘knows nothing”…Thanks also to Jane Reichhold for her extremely lucid and informative article “Metaphor in Basho’s Haiku” (ahapoetry.com)...

                                          

Recently I had pause to consider in brief the Basho pattern poem 

Home in the East and from the hand of Japan’s Master poet man.

Banyan tree rooted by students kind, in front yard of his cabin built

So he would have a place to stay and not be obliged to pay any rent.

And he became by popular consent, The poet of the banana tree Hut.

A keen observer of Nature’s bounty he lacquered it with respect right deep

Up to the very day of his death. Many of his works do ‘focus’ on Gaia’s

Turning seasons. Autumn in particular, seems to have been a favourite of

This character and other things, dragon flies, crickets sour chestnuts,

Worms and spider’s crying in the wind.

His expressions intent was to distil,

And snap the existential moment and convey facsimiles part to the

Skin, eye, ear, heart and hand. Instructive in layered ways, their

Underlying structure universal, cross culture clearly they do span.

That’s ‘Haiku’ to you and to me. Its bipolar tripartite pattern clear for all to see.  

Its intricacies, as in the Western mind, part contributed by the reader,

Can surprise, inform and comment on the condition of man, and delight

With the delicacies of reflection’s crucibled titration eased on the heart.

And, as with Poetry tree in the West there’s talk of forms, oft conceived

As antithetical, the ‘strict’ and the ‘free’. Some even sail on to speak of

What is eyed upon and of what is Best. Nevertheless, ‘Classically’

Seventeen syllables are embroidered in sections and apportioned out in lots of three.

Five and Five equal either side of the Seven in balancing swing

Usually written in Kanji the language of Japan, and patterned apiece after every

Day warp and woof of folk’s speech; one might be forgiven for thinking that, for

Them it’s much easier to understand.

Seventeen syllables then, cut in two sections.

As to where the cut or break occurs, for that

A signal clear such as a comma, exclamation mark, dash, etcetera.   

As for the works of Basho its said an early one concerned, not the early bird,

But instead the evening rain and how of it, it was the basho who was first to say

Said by some to be his most famous it might be called the crow, its metaphorical power magnificent.

It illustrates well the power of spiralled, reversed, double speak.

Of how crow alighting on autumn’s branch at dusk settles lightly calling to the night.

At the passing of the day into the Winter nights of Seth

Basho’s poem is there by popular behest.

It’s called the Poem of Death. What composure!

It speaks of dreams roaming on his Journey across parched moors of last breath.

And another, spoken just after, and more Intriguing still,

echoes the dreaming and the roaming of the moors and there it just ends!

Basho now under, Own Cherry Blossom Tree would, I think be pleased there.

FISHING : ARCHAIC HAIKU

Author’s Notes: I have a couple of friends who spends long stretches of time “fishing” on a variety of virtual fishing spots. They are quick to emphasis the “authenticity” of the spots and talk of the ‘bite rate’ in statistical terms. It all seems very ‘weird’ to me, nevertheless, beyond the appearance there does seem to be ‘something else’. In this piece, I have tried, as an outsider, to describe some features of that “something else”….

On reflections edge, in solitude’s bliss

Where Summer Sky meets Earth Green.  

Beauty Smiles mirrored in silence,

To the sound of the Cuckoo’s spinal tap.  

Clouds far fluffed wonderings drift white, 

Existenz cascades tingle sound surround

Rest melting on expansive consciousness.  

Quintessential buzz blue electric eddies

Twi Twi Tweet echo high, reverberates  

Lemon grass green calm flushed through,

And tips into underground cooled cisterns,  

Casting contentment’s call, circled deep,

To inner souls tension breathing peace.