Inside/Outside

Am I inside or

outside? Should I

attend to the meal I

carefully prepared or

gawp at the clouds and that

further beyond that

beckons with a

crooked finger that

never points to anything

definite but

merely implies?

 

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Morpheus in the Underground

Fridayam's Blog

It was our eternal foursome,
Orpheus and Bacchus leading
Aphrodite astray, all ending the night in
my encompassing arms, the
arms of Morpheus, but there are no
moans and sighs now when
morphine has stolen my
name and purpose.

I see those three sometimes
across a crowded bar, still
cavorting but with no need of me,
so I make my excuses, walk the waterfront
seeking out the homeless for whom
sleep is like a gratuity, rare and
grudgingly given.

I find them wherever the
wind can’t get, unless it is
particularly playful, on thin cardboard,
wrapped in whatever they own,
hidden beneath the great buildings in which
they are bemoaned, sometimes drunk in the
shadow of sobriety.

I try to give them my gift but some
resist, their feral dogs snarling as they
twitch and fit; some squadies salute,
caught between squadron and squalor; some
sigh and grasp my hand…

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Amen

Fridayam's Blog

It’s one of those times when

some sort of light clings on

even as it should be night

as hands are sometimes

disinclined to part

as lips seem sometimes

stuck together in the

hesitant silence of the

nearly-night when love is the

amen to all prayers.

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Tempo de Amor

“Tempo de Amor” (Vinicius de Moraes/Baden-Powell 1966)

 

You have a lot to record, so

many songs, but no

studio time so you get

wives, girlfriends, mistresses

(who knows?) singing a

complicated chorus so

beautifully out of

key you can hear

Vinicius loving it,

propelling it and

Baden-Powell aching to

remake it to its

detriment.

Pilgrim

I could, of course, still walk the

Pilgrims Way, just up the

hill from me, but I have

lost the will to go on

pilgrimage, or perhaps

hope, that intangible

something to pray for.

 

But then the bushes about me

blossom as always

come what may.

Formal

Fridayam's Blog

A formal garden, bleak, with

coyly nude statues beneath a

sealed-in sky, your

off-white dress skittering between

bare but budding trees as I

pursued you across

frost-crickled grass and

caught you,

pinned you against the

plinth of a naked urn

which swayed and

grated worryingly like my

skull against my spine as your

hot mouth clamped mine with a

kiss like the

ghost of sunshine.

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Aries

Fridayam's Blog

The best grass in the best fields

–all yours, Ram, in return for

your fleece—which seems

like a bargain until you find your

fleece is golden and

requires your death and

banishment to a star-field where

the grass is piss-poor.

Your fleece, meanwhile, is

dangled before heroes like

Jason, a death-or-glory boy

happy fighting harpies or

cthonic armies in rusty armour

for the honour of wearing your

chafing hide around his

ham-like neck.

And who thought of you, up there

eating burnt air and

eternally knowing what it’s like

to be tupped?

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The Droghte of March

Fridayam's Blog

Chaucer’s dry March starts drizzly,

dark and cold—not Minnesota cold but

cold for Kent, where his pilgrims

ambled to Canterbury, singing, telling

jokes, laughing, farting after a

good lunch, enjoying

each other’s company,

relishing the stories.

My fellow pilgrims tonight were

wrapped in the silence of loud

inaudible music while Kent

whooshed inchoately by—

Ebbsfleet, Gravesend, Strood,

Rochester—all starting my

mind from its blocks but

conversation killers here.

The train paralleled the ancient road,

the taxi left me at my home on it–

the same road, built by Roman soldiers to

expedite invasion, beckoned pelerins.

It was Friday night and there was

revelry aplenty but I didn’t want to join it as

the pilgrim road now leads to a disco where

the stories are drowned in sound.

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Spring

Fridayam's Blog

Spring when it comes will call me

as it always does with

wriggles of desire and self-doubt,

niggling aches of curiosity and

nostalgia, above all with the smells of

time-fused fecundity, like the

rioting vernal clock on the hills above my

boyhood bed overwhelming the

docks’ ship-oil pungency, urging me to

cast off, make steam, dump the charts,

live, love, fuck, explore

foreign soils or the

strange secrets of the

next street.

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Frayed

I’m frayed but

unafraid of being

battered by elements

as long as one

strand will bear my

bare footprints

long enough to be

seen before the

high tide comes.

 

(Photo with the kind permission of Richard B. Potter aka The Subtle Penguin on Twitter, and go see his lovely work)