Servus Servorum Dei

In a deserted scriptorium

amid the dusty scrolls

there works alone

a ghostly monk

moon-faced and sedulous

scratching his sempiternal script

with a dry quill

onto the pitted parchment

- senza sestertius.

Sedition with scrivener's palsy.

His shadow

may never grow less.

In midnight's fog

scullion soldiers oversee

the scrape and clank of shovels

- the gentle rattle of shackles.

At sunrise

the sharp-faced sexton

will toll the bell.

Servus servorum dei.

Crossing the Freeway

I guess that was Buk's last job

honking them over

the Harbor Freeway

crossing them over

by San Remo

his warty eyes blinking

in the blinding steel and gas

crawling all day

along the freeway

jamming up the place.

Say, you might read me a passage

from Buk's new book

The Last Night of the Earth . . .

You'd like the feel . . .

the black and red cover . . .

the acid-free paper . . .

We Sing the Body Electric

Dedicated to Ray Bradbury

What say you my reader there

under this electric air

that sings between us

and carries my immortal rhymes

over and above the songs of

trilling birds and humming bees

and through mysterious space

and time;

are you and I the one and same

in this universal game

enjambed just as those singing birds

whose words each dawning

trill the skies?

My song this day is sung for you -

you who seem to be

as much a part of me

as all those trilling birds

and humming bees.

Who Speaks?

Who speaks for the schizo phrenics -

those poor creatures in habiting

the shadow y world between reality

and un reality now roaming the gray

and cream corridors of the world

and its men tal institutions?

Who speaks for the hollow-eyed one s

in the corn ers and the grinning ones

with hives of bees in their heads

always whisper ing and twiddling

in their mad moon existences?

Who speaks for the dangerous ones

locked up in their straight jackets?

Tell me dear voices - Who speaks?

Cold Sweet Tea

Boys, who can barely write, kneel

deep down, miles out to sea beneath

the black-ribbed sands, before

the coal face and pneumoconiosis.

Stripped to the waist, mine's as thin

as a prop; a crab-shadow clawing

for coal to make a rich man richer.

From time to time he swallows

cold sweet tea from a tin,

observed by a sleepy canary

and a blind pit pony in the light

of a Davy Lamp. When the clock

strikes I prepare his sink:

water, scrubbing brush, soap.

Listen for his footfall. The house

within spitting distance of

the shaft, is going to its knees;

coming apart at its dusty seams.

Buckled and sagging, it creaks and

groans with each subsiding night.

Forlorn Point, Wexford

On Forlorn Point

slithering over seaweed

and crunching

over shells

he boot ends a coil of rope

toes over a rag of net

- a old beachcomber

under a setting sun.

A solitary cormorant

flaps purposefully

westward

- an outgoing pterodactyl.

What the old man will take

from Forlorn Point

Is the taste of a wind with salt

on its breath

and the splash of the swell

on the rocks.

Temple Bar, Dublin

This isle has a wealth

of places and things

that do not exist.

Clonmacnoise

Castlestrange

Marino Casino

and Lustymore Island

were energy vibrations

of a past which is

not really the past. In

Ireland today

there is only the future.

Awaiting the future

we kill time

flicking the drip mats

and trying to make sense

of Finnegans Wake.

Italian Sunset

Luciano, my friend

with your smiling eyes

and unshorn beard

with Italia in your voice -

the language of opera

and amorous dalliances -

sing now of football and of gondoliers

and of the love of well-born ladies

and Tuscan wine and conversazioni -

sing to us now in the glowering light

of our fading torches and flambeaux -

perhaps of Naples and Venice

and send us your best long notes

down the sunset of your going.

In the Infinite Night of Light and Stars

Is it a solitary watchman

who sleeps within

the brazier's glow

Or is there perchance

some caring nurse

going on her rounds

with lighted candle

and reassuring word

her gentle hand

upon the ward

Or on the beat

a constable

with friendly nod

and timely counsel

to keep the evil-doer

at bay

Or heavenly squadrons

storming ever onwards

with flaming swords

Or is it only fireworks

Deus Absconditus

Sunday in Wales

and small white clouds

drift over the sheep

on the hills like prayers

on the way to heaven.

The pessimistic metaphor

R S Thomas will preach

from the black pulpit -

painted black

by his own hand.

"The supreme being will doubtless fail to joins us."

His flock has dwindled

to a faithless few.

The hymns will be softly sung

and strangled

In the wind's knot

before the lichgate.

The sermon will be short

and unmemorable.

Muttered prayers

will barely move the grim lips.

Not one voice

will reach the clouds.

Snap

In the lunatic asylum

where we live

there are no mirrors

or clocks

and it's normal to cheat

at cards.

We shuffle the pack

and palm

an ace of hearts

hidden

in cancerous clouds.

Our friend Groucho Marx

plays the violin

and spends his nights at the opera.

With Groucho

we always deal straight

from the top.

When we play God

we leave

the dealing to him.

He deals

as he will.

We always play snap.

The Guardians

With croaking frogs

and jambu trees

we share moonlight, fruit

and flies.

With bamboo flutes

we call upon

celestial lords with powers

to come.

And we fall down

on the floor

like

sticks.

The guardians sit

on lotus thrones

and slap their arms

and thighs.

The nagas swim

in seas of milk

and never ending

noise.

Magritte on Owls

Imagination is simply zero

and nothing more

to cramped fingers

working hogshead bristles

over stretched canvas

and intellect straining syntax

into poesie al olio. Meaning

rests

in having no meaning

and no place to go

dressed in upright bourgeois attire

with bottles of pinot noir.

An owl's face is a clock

with no hands

A Monster

A monster has appeared

in the forest.

A great mechanical bird

It pokes its greedy neck

into the canopy.

Its big beak searches for food

And crows rush to investigate

like policemen.

Flying in from all directions

Until one crow reports back

that the monster

is being rendered senseless.

A human being was observed

grappling

with the monster's controls.

Anopheles and Aedes

This Christmas

Anopheles and Aedes

Will fly once again

Angels

On charity

Transport

Missions

Loaded with presents

They will land

Where children

Sleep restless

On simple dark beds

Humming

Seasonal songs

They will steal

From bed to bed

And leave behind

Small packages

Gifts

To be later

Unwrapped

Single-celled

Asexual

Parasites

Will divide

In the blood

Cells which in turn

Will burst

Like party balloons

Consider

The parasites

Borne

By the Congo

Mosquitoes

Says the doctor

Peering

Into his microscope

How attractive

They are

And how little

They think

Of the morrow

Masai

Walking

in the bush

on red earth

wrapped in red

tartan blankets

the Masai

are at one

with nature;

high-foreheads

proud

happy

strong

with smiles

as wide as the sunrise

and many wives

and happy

children.

Behind them

run messengers

with serious eyes

and holy books

full of advice.

The new road

now rolling out

like the extensile

tongue of a reptile

will soon thunder

with jeeps

and trucks

fetching

ranchers

farmers

and growers

to a shanty town

with fast food

a bar

and a gas station.

A-Bomb Dome

Okabe's hand blurs over a surface

and an image appears on paper;

each stone leaves a unique imprint

just like your fingers.

He's fetched a row of stones to show us -

grey blocks from Old Ujina Station;

platform stones that have survived

the Dark Face of the Light.

And he also has a map to show us -

with its delta rivers drawn in red ;

it's marked with rings to indicate

the target will be 5 miles wide.

There are frottages of City Hall

and Hijiyama Hill

the Savings Bank

and Red Cross Hospital

Masao Okabe asks:

Is there a future for our past?

Crash

They'll be selling

from the bell

the market's weak as hell

across the board

he splutters

through

blue arthritic lips

lumbering from the cooler

vid-phone cigar and polycup

in hand

the modern custer

making his final stand

betting

on the big picture

on the broad perspective

it was a labour of love

and damned percentages

he'll tell them later

lying on the couch

Patient in the Queue

Patient in the queue

with a bunch of grapes

and a hand of bananas

I can't help wondering

what I'm really doing here

standing in this big shop

with its bright lights

air conditioning

chiller cabinets

freezers

all humming the same tune

behind bing-bong

announcements

of special offers on dog

food

while six go through on the

other side.

I'm in the wrong line again

the checkout girl has a

bark of a cough

and the belt

is piled high

with plastic coated triple

wrapped

hygienically sealed things.

An old man ahead of me

with a frozen baguette

sneezes as we all take one

step forwards.

One step

nearer the checkout.

In the Park

On the grass

someone is sleeping;

I think it's a woman.

I think she's asleep

under that green plastic

sheet

directly in front of that

bench

by the drinking fountain;

supermarket bags arranged

on the seat.

But I don't want to wake

her and ask her.

No doubt they contain the

usual things;

old magazines, broken

biros, newspaper,

a curl of orange peel, two

or three cans of beer,

a scattering of bent or

broken cigarettes,

smelly clothes, tangled

string;

you know the sort of thing.

Nearby a man and some

children play;

wrestling on a heap of

bouncy blocks.

Another man is pushing a

bike away.

Waiting

We are waiting

for the thunder

it will come today

they said on the radio

but then they said

that yesterday

and also the day before

but maybe

the ants know something

for tonight they've come

out of the walls

and into the rooms

where they are

making for the windows

which are tight shut

against the torpid heat

against the heavy heat

of the night

the heat of

the heavy breathless night

earlier

the anvil cloud

full of fluffy white promise

suddenly evaporated

and the thunder didn't come

perhaps

it will come tomorrow

or the next day

or the day after

so now we are waiting

for the thunder

with the ants

the ants

maybe they know something

The Border

Finding the border was easy.

Crossing it wasn't.

National flags greeted our approach.

It was where the map said it would be.

It was where the road stopped.

Radar was a timely sign that we were there;

painted olive-green to match the surroundings

scanning in the direction they came from last time

with their surprise attack.

An absence of vegetation followed;

concrete watchtowers with slits for eyes

appeared on barren hills amid curls of razor wire

barring the way to the minefields.

In the last village before the border

at a small round table outside a bar

three men sip coffee from small cups;

smoke cigarettes;

exchange sporadic remarks

concerning a lottery ticket

- you couldn't call it a conversation.

At the first hint of rain they move under cover.

It's the same on the other side.

They have their border paraphernalia too.

Here is an old mirror. This crack

from top to bottom

is no man's land.

The Brush Man

A loud knocking at the front door.

"See who it is," said mum.

He opened the cardboard suitcase

and pointed

to

. . . the scrubbing brushes

. . . the clothes brushes

. . . the shoe brushes

The case twitched

and the brushes shook themselves

and fell out

all over the path.

"God save the King!" shouted the man.

"Hurry up boys! Fill the ranks! Fill the ranks!" he shouted.

Mum came running

brushed flour from her apron.

Attending a Poetry Reading

Nobody understood it

really

understood

what it

was

really all about

though some of us

had heard it

once or twice before

and one of us

had even read it

several times

but still it was the fact

that nobody

understood it

and after

when I pressed her

pinned her

to the bar

she gave forth

that it

was all a stream

of consciousness

and that

we ought to have known

that

what went unsaid

was meant

and was indeed

more than implied

since

some of you are poets

too

or so I've heard

she said

The Umbrella Man

Glorious glorious sunshine

and not one sign of anything else in the sky

not one sign of a fluffy white cloudlet

or even a single herring-bone

and strange to say not even one vapor trail

in this day's blank blue sunlit sky.

The weather forecast

is on the Sony Walkman

when I take some garden rubbish

to the large green compost bin

at the end of the street -

record temperatures for the time of year

warm wind from Africa

high pressure over the Alps

quicksilver climbing

to a record 21 celsius.

Coming towards me a man about his business

determined stride

confidently swinging his umbrella

carrying a large green shoulder bag.

Mysterious. An umbrella - this weather?

And a large green bag?

The stranger stops at the bottle-bank

and sets down his green bag on the pavement.

Now he starts fishing. Yes, fishing

with his umbrella. Out of the bank

come the beer bottles -

hanging delicately on the umbrella's tip. One

by one he fishes them out. A catch every almost time.

One, two, three, four, five . . .

he lines them up on the pavement.

When he's finished he transfers the catch

to the green bag

and soon it's bulging with bottles, it takes

a hefty heave to lift it. Now off he goes

with his bulging bag of bottles

rattling gently down the street,

his umbrella casually swinging

pointing the way.

An Old Man Walks Home

In the garden there grows a crippled tree

heavy with crab-apples

food for worms

and wasps.

In the garden pond

the frogs float

grim faced

they blink and croak.

On the outhouse roof

the owl rests

patient for the night

Magritte's clock with no hands.

Homeward on the wing

not contending with the problem

of where he came from

the white dove.

And below is an old man

walking home and wondering why

he was given the ability

to question it all.

In the kitchen

his wife

face to face with twilight

draws the curtains.

Eggenburg White

Detritus laid down in the shallows

of the long-dead sea makes the bed

fishy carcasses

spiky sea urchins

cracked seashells

sharks' teeth

are once more rendered workable

sandwich-squashed

in layered limestone

it's the sought after stone

for the carvers of idols

and the cutters of milestones.

And yet -

the dusty clinks and taps

of the workaday chisels

and the heavy groans

of the heave-ho pushcarts

lugging the loads

to the ends of the tracks

are more than a wave away

from the world where the tide has turned

and is green.

Old blocks now rest

on beds of camomile

as cogs and handles rust

entangled and rosehipped in brambles

where heavy elders

loaded with drooping fruit

sigh and droop

over an old sea's bed.

Abandoned

below these wine-drenched

waterline

slopes

columns of white-eyed men

glare all ways

into the yawning skies

and the infinite tides and times.

Longsighted

He smiles the group around and up

the anti-clockwise steps

inside the automated light of Hook

the oldest working light around he claims

and broadly beams.

There were three cells

built inside these walls,

these walls that are ten feet thick,

for Pembroke's monks

who were the keepers of the light

yes, monks from Wales

humped countless bags of coal

up to the roof to fuel the flames

and light the point of Hook.

Out there in the graveyard

of the thousand ships

and over there by Crook

was Cromwell

not here by Hook he beams

once more and sharply sparks

his match across and

down the wall -

where it flares and leaps.

He brings the leaping light

adeptly to the bowl

descends the steps

inhales the dreams.

Haircut

Gordon spoke in soft low tones

over the rapid clip-clip and snip-snip

of his flying instruments.

I went for ten minutes every month;

my gaze would meet his on silver surface

that was bruised and chipped; I'd catch

the steel gleam in his grey eyes and

note the eloquent lift of his right

eyebrow.

The place smelled of lavender

and bay rum

over exhalations of linoleum.

He touched on important subjects;

women, football, cars, condoms,

the latest gas leak and

how every creature on earth was preyed

upon by some other creature.

He was a fount of wisdom and insight

and when he paused to catch a thought

he made half-masticated noises

with his loose teeth. There was a vein

to his chat if you followed it. Words

gushed from him.

Customers came and went

swift as swallows;

restless, shifting,

fugacious as time itself.