Tuesday 27 November 2012

Tuesday Poem: "Fall of the Empire"



Caesar bows his wine-stained head
to the will of the people.
He remembers the day he crossed the Volga,
his cult of personality so powerful
that the Senate acquiesced
and made him Emperor.
But now his bullish demeanour has given way
to a tired uncertainty.
He failed to heed his loyal lieutenant's warning:
“Beware the Ides of August.”
Though sworn to uphold perestroika,
the Praetorian Guard rose in mutiny,
but were swept aside by citizens
tired of circuses without the bread.
Its idealism soured,
the Empire disintegrates like a rotten fruit
as Caesar gasps: “Et tu, Boris.”

POET'S NOTE: This poem was written in the post-euphoric state ushered in by Mikhail Gorbachev when the totalitarian state gave way to a more liberated way of life for the Soviet Bloc. Sadly, the pure ideals of Marx's vision of Communism were never realised and Orwell's vision became the truth. Then Gorbachev softened the hardline and people had to accept the failed and flawed version of Capitalism. Only Jesus could encapsulate the true and pure form of Communism. Us fatally flawed, egotistical, hierarchy-obsessed human beings could never realise the purity of a True Communism. More is the pity.

Thursday 22 November 2012

Tuesday Poem: "Entrusted to Love"



The key is love
but you were born to a family
with too little love to go around.
To be whole is a crime
in a kingdom of cripples
so they sought to maim you
with violence and neglect.

The key is love
but you could not find the lock
to open up the house of light.
So you smashed all the windows
with the cudgel of anger
but the light and warmth fled
from the darkness you unleashed.

The key is love
but you tried to buy it with pain
and the price kept rising.
One more organisation whose best intentions
were handcuffed to a shrinking purse,
one more hostel where the bullies
made you too scared to be scared.

The key is love
but now you must seek it from strangers
whose heads get in the way of their hearts.
You drag me into your bitter self-hatred,
pushing me to lose sight of love
but it is my beacon on this quest
to discover you by discovering myself.


POET'S NOTE: For my sins, I once worked as a live-in Cottage Parent for an Anglican-run residential  home based on a semi-rural property. We looked after children who had been removed from their parents by Social Services because they had been maltreated in some way. Naturally, it was a very challenging job and our job was to try to "normalise" the children so they could be placed in Foster care or, if at all possible, returned to their families. To "normalise" the children, we just had to treat them the way their parents should have, with love and respect and kindness.

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Tuesday Poem: "Winning God's Lottery"



Freewheeling down the Port Hills
after a morning with you,
I feel the fetters fall away.
Nothing can impede my jouissance
as I overtake a cautious braker,
passing effortlessly around metaphors,
indicators dancing in the dappled daylight.

My world has become ripe with promise,
fat with the flowering of a future fantastic.
I feel a rightness deep in my core,
deeper than any intellect can dive.

POET'S NOTE: The poet wishes to acknowledge The Press in whose pages this poem first appeared.

Tuesday 6 November 2012

Tuesday Poem: "The Last Fluke"



The sea was once lover to the land,
caressing it with kisses
or biting it with passion.
The sea seeded us upon the land,
its siren song forever tattooed upon our genome.

From its deep heart it created malachite sculptures,
chiselled by reef and wind
and sacrificed in shards of white
to the beaches of the world.

And from these depths our cetacean siblings
sang to us, but we had
forgotten their lyric language.
Yet their forgiveness never waned
even as the last giant tail fluke
farewelled us as it sank
into the cauldron of poison we had created.