The taste of rice cakes on your lips
and the sea in your hair
whips your locks here and there
coupled with your hand snugly in mine, it grips
the edges of my soul and yours
as we walk on the edge of the water,
its salty smell on our tongues, even better
as your touch heals all my sores.
Respect
A song by Aretha Franklin,
A good song at that,
The youths would call it “a banger”
But it’s a rather nebulous term
What does respect feel like?
It’s not like hunger, that’s fairly clear
(Actually I’m pretty hungry now)
Or thirst, or bodily desires, they’ll all easy to pin down
Put a pin in, pin on the noticeboard, easy to spot
True respect is many things,
It’s love, it’s knowing when and how to love
It’s the pause before an utterance
It’s people’s liberal stance’
It fits your heart like a glove
Snug and warm inside,
Wanting to put it on again
Most of all, it’s mutual understanding
It’s why we’re both still standing
It’s mature like good vintage cheddar
Although I can’t say I’ve tried to eat respect
It would be good to include it in society’s diet.
For the first poem entitled ‘Respect’, see this link.
These poems are not related, although as others have said, “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes”.
Life is like a play: from whose perspective are you looking?
From whose perspective are you being played?
The omniscient writers with their secret agendas
Or the actors, pawns on a chessboard
Beyond any dimension
It’s you, it’s her, it’s all of us
So many chessboards, so many theatres
All here flowing towards the Eternal Question
The rhythmic pat of the drum
and the soft touch of the piano keys
is all that’s truly stable
in a world that is abominable.
So much ill and suffering
has happened since I came here last
at least I have reassuring sound of jazz
as others elsewhere are called to heavenly mass
I wish she was here
to understand and to share my sorrow
together we’d gaze into the skies and see the moon
while breathing to the pangs of Clair de lune
Indeed, all that is stable in this world
is the sound of the piano, of kindness, of love
even if others strive for it to be smothered
human generosity and truth will prevail
All will be good in the end, they say
All that’s left for us to do is help and pray.
I think I like to imagine you sitting here
Your body as smooth as jazz
Leaving the confused mess of life behind
Smoothening out its creases
You know I’ve made up my mind
The soft dance of the candlelight
Bathes you in ever-irresistible velvet
Like the crisp crackle of dark chocolate
Melting on your skin, your fingertips
Raising my crown, tugging, pulling, making me affectionate
Oh how that saxophone blares when we kiss
Birds of paradise in utter bliss
In joint unison levitating over life’s jarred days
Oh how I’d deeply wish
You were here to hear this jazzman’s plays.
January’s fog as thick as hot milk
Shrouds, bleaches, suffocates the landscape
Only the lone farm’s lights twinkle through the glaze
Setting the milk a bold yellow ablaze
From the window, a young lady watches
Only the candlelight’s shadows move
She can smell the dust, the memories, the toil of long ago
Looking where her grandmother’s tulips used to grow.
Her grandmother was a hard-working woman, never fazed
by any menial tasks or obstacles
Her back bent, as she weeded the tulip patch
Before the thorns and thistles snatch.
She would tell her “don’t you step on that precious soil!”
As the baby girl made her first steps
Almost trampling where the tulips would be in the spring
Her grandmother would swoop and home safely bring
Now the baby girl is a young lady
Watching the fog creeping over where Granny stood
it spills across the earth mound
surrounds the house round and round
The memories of all the years
With grandmother by her side
Now it’s the granddaughter’s turn
To preen the tulips before the summer sun’s burn.
After reflecting on this poem that I wrote, I was reminded of Seamus Heaney’s Digging, It’s an excellent (and very famous) poem covering a somewhat similar theme to this one here.
Going back into nature is like returning to an old friend
You can talk for hours and sit in silence
Bask in the silent understanding
While both your hearts mend.
Holding banana bread in my hand
A bit soggy, like the weather outside.
The raindrops crumple against the windscreen
as the banana bread crumples in my mouth
It’s more of a squish than a crumple, really.
Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Driving away from Christmas
Towards Bruges, being
a tourist at home
A glimpse of the cars streaming past
Like the raindrops
(only, thankfully, a bit more stable)
Sitting in the passenger seat,
the well-dressed man’s asleep
His wife, girlfriend, sister?
an earphone hanging from one side
In another car, the BMW driver
grimaces at the greyness of the world
as we pass over the local river.
It’s a funny language, Dutch
like lots of boiled potatoes falling apart
in your mouth
throw in some nails and beer for good measure
adding some nuance for the pronunciation.
I’d keep on writing here, but we’ve arrived
And now it’s time for me to look at pretty houses
As Chris Rea echoes down the street
Hold my banana bread
as I engage in conspicuous capitalism
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I want to write a poem about Christmas
About love, and the tender caresses
of good, home-cooked food,
of the shadows of a love
and of last year’s shadows.
How this is the last Christmas I’ll be spending here
A new house, a new home coming near
This one will retire to memory;
as I suppose we shall all one day
one day, it’ll be me and you
memories of us—
reduced to spiritual dust.
But I fail to do that:
I can’t write of Mary
and the way I wished she’d travel
through our souls, our bodies
but maybe I should write of Mary and Joseph
after all, their lad’s had a birthday.
Neither of us will be doing any travelling:
my Mary, well, she was very clear
and the famous lad, well,
he’s a bit on the pale side
(to put it very mildly)
and Santa’s monopolised the market.
In the last minutes of Anglo-Saxon Christmas Day,
writing this in bed, and as proud as a sticky sun ray
with Joni Mitchell lodged nearby:
I’ve yet to see life from both sides
and I’m bloody well looking forward to it
to find out where peace, love and all that waffle resides
maybe on the other side of December 31st
maybe Mary will show me one day.
Then I’ll discover what life’s both sides are
by then I hope to have refreshed my repertoire
and replenished hope’s anguished reservoir.