Life Curves

I knew behind those clouds were

stars, just the ones I could see, and

behind them stars and stars and

yet more stars

 

but so what when

life is almost but

not quite, close but

no cigar? Well maybe

 

half-empty or half-full

life curves away from

mystery to the

stone kicked, the

 

moment we have all felt when

our dreams must

give way to a

different reality.

Advertisements

This Aye Night

I heard the first fleeing geese

this evening at 7 pm under

reddening skies, Sunday

September 16th, 2018.

 

Why am I so precise? Well

it was a warm day, one of

many and no threat of

change to weather or forage.

 

It might have been some subliminal call

triggered by the approaching equinox, or

maybe just one goose panicked,

honked out, “Quick, let’s go!”.

 

And we know how panic grows at the

thought of being left alone with

night falling and a

long way to go.

 

At a quarter to eleven this

same night I heard a fox bark or

perhaps a dog barking at the

thought of a fox.

 

“When on doth rush the enemy…..”

Fridayam's Blog

So busy being scared

we have become the

people we despised, the quibblers,

back-turners, eye-closers,

street-crossers, the

endless-evidence-gatherers, blaming

global warming for the heat of

shame in our cheeks.

 

View original post

Pelions Upon Ossa

Fridayam's Blog

My mother’s father was gassed at Ypres,

gasping to his early grave when we were

supposedly at peace and such

barbarity forever forbidden, but

two World Wars, fought now, would

sure be lost, so supine, so suspicious, so

fraught with fear have we become that

Hegemony would be total, the

Holocaust successfully concluded,

Pelions of additional dead piled forgotten on the

Ossa of those we pretend to remember yet

daily dishonour.

 

View original post

Moths

The long Summer, the open door, light

make my kitchen a

moths cathedral, or rather

their mausoleum.

 

They fluster round my fingers when

once they used to

make me quail and

swat and kill.

 

So fears once ferocious pass with the

sough of a soft wing amidst these

fragile carapaces, these

powdery lost souls.

Athena on Old Street

Fridayam's Blog

My wisdom was always twisted

like a worm in the earth or the way

birds convoluted in the air, with

words scarce since they

teemed with hidden meanings

only I understood.

There is an owl imprinted on my

coffee cup at this

impressive data start-up where

all these kids think themselves

head-born but really don’t know

shit from Schenectady.

These places are all like

steamy kitchens with a sorry

lack of sieves, so they will pay

top dollar for my wisdom not knowing it

lies all about them,

free but unclaimed.

Thames bristles,

chill breeze at my back:

beset by algorithms,

I should come back as code.

View original post

Swords with Words

Fridayam's Blog

I said one thing and

she heard another and we

sallied back and forth like

skirmishers of heavy elements

just over the horizon which then

met in murky light,

little-used guns barking and

back-firing, taking chunks from our

tight-packed troops, our

positions penetrated, our

arguments shredded like

standards, each praying the

other would sue for peace,

would admit that to

cross swords with words was

indeed mightily perilous.

 

View original post

“Las Meninas”

Perhaps when all is quiet

I can make a start

when the maids have

stopped their fussing and the

Infanta has stopped her tears and the

hangers-on hushed out and the

hound cajoled with a kick from

somnolence to stridour but

whilst I wait for your

Majesties pleasure I can

at least paint that writhing

waiting moment before my

painting is painted.

Shipwright

Fridayam's Blog

The big unfinished ships squat on the beach,

bodies on their backs, bare ribs

bemoaning lost faith, so I

hurry past to something simpler,

clinker-built, water-tight, well-

suited to shallow ponds or

chalk-streams, easy to work with

adze and chisel, stopping my ears to the

ghost groans of the oak that

might have taken me out to sea.

View original post

Adam’s Rib

Fridayam's Blog

My rib hurts—

the one that’s missing, lying

upstairs alone in the

spare bed.

It used to hurt when

we were forced apart,

by work, by babies, by

wanting to be whole

and joined again as

man and woman, viscerally

smiting each other

hip and thigh.

But simple joys go simply, leaking

like the thin air of a

doomed encampment in a

high place, leaving only

the memory of a missing rib.

View original post