www.pasdelabas.org

when you find out about time

it’s time to see

it is neither good nor bad

yes, it’s a long time and it’s no time

so don’t complain about God being good

When at Cambridge I was bound by urgent

torments of prejudice.  Not just the fears

of status jealously desired but

immeasurable views, a paralax

of shadows, a chiaro-scuro of

moorish taste. He fat, she common, he wrong,

she right. Always a frame like a butcher

evaluating, scouring the block. 

The memoried practiced eye weighing his

tropes of old, or hers, now them or other.

Much like an abattoir or a hangman’s

skills at suffering, perhaps easing death.

Now, time apparent has wrent the forms once 

learned. Years like a lathe reduced and shaped

the stump, the lumpen gnarled yet curious

array.  Smoothed in places, smothered elsewhere.

I’ve heard
Metaphors like Haikus
Trip up

Meeting

Each themselves recognises in the other
That which the other’s eye alone can see

Be here when you’re here.
Be there when you’re there.
But never leave here.

Behind Words is some thing.
I thought it
The moon over Mosborough.

Something you heard
Something you heard a thousand times
But this time you heard it

Going to take a shower
Don’t stop – start smelling
The jasmine is out

for Roger and…

He entered these doors a deep sea diver.

This day, with the helmet of his bell suit

fogged with tears, he told of deciphering,

of streams of struggle, the letting of blood,

the patience of grief, know-not-I-what-else.

That time is fallen? Floored is memory?

Ignorance is mercy? At this threshold

the pressure of love is in its semblance

to the unspoken. Tremulous again,

the risk of breathing an air too viscous

curdles his words, their favours sad sodden.