This from 1990 something – Anorak
Romantic coastal landscape through a Claude-glass again….
And it seemed that all we`d worked for ebbed away
in the ebb and flow,
of Blair`s sublunary yet lunar sway.
We let it go,
though we never loved the violence of his tide,
we let it ride,
and lost all we`d valued in the undertow.
Well anyway,
these thoughts are branching veins in a roseate glow
and all we say
are leafless twigs in life`s liquid light.
An appetite
for conciliatory night pieces has flown away.
Abandon hope.
To survive, we stretch the truth and turning pay
out the rope
to Blair`s Bush-black wings in the dusking sky.
We`ll try.
Tonight, there`s no room to deny the Fall.
We`ve grown too tall.
Winter woods and fields cannot hold the Tide.
We`ll hide.
There`s no room for This Earth and the Cold Light of Day.
One must stay.
There`s no room for both Hope and the W.T.O..
One must go.
***
Old Song
In the valley of the restless mind,
as I stood musing on the moon
and serious faces left behind
and embarrassments both late and soon,
I heard one moan, “She`s such a dish
`s why you find me here. `s for love I languish.”
Ah yes, I said and share my drink
from eastern sloping terra-firma,
though feet slip gently off the brink,
wine`s soil and sun`ll infuse a humour
to float grief and loss and other rubbish
quietly at anchor, mellowing the wildest wish.
“Great – thanks. Why not? I`ll swig that bottle.
It`s so long since I`ve had my end away.
She says I should read more Aristotle,
(pragmatically) or float above it Plato`s way,
but because memory of it`s far from fresh,
I can`t draw my mind from her human flesh.”
And so we sat watching shooting stars,
as owls t`witted to their mate`s t`woos
and beetles droned their way and from far –
rams were grumbling among the ewes.
And we composed odes to oblivion and sang,
as modern blokes do, and all our echoes rang,
in all terrains from mountain or from mead.
Dear God, The very darkness seemed awake
wherever simple tunes had sown a seed.
All solitary things in nature howled their stake
in the indignity and lonely chaos of defeat,
wherever studious, moon-struck, disembodied voices meet.
***
Drinking Song
Here`s to Giant Steps on our lovely Moon,
early in the Last Century`s afternoon,
which remain, even now to hold the tune`s
intoxicant.
To Contemporary Concern I make my pledge.
Campion and stitchwort in the hedge
are so full for Twenty-first Century knowledge,
they are vibrant.
Here`s rank water for those to whom new forms come,
to mutate Creation to the critic`s forum,
like an Ofsted child to a learning outcome.
I rant
and raise my glass to where Arcady stood.
“Rivive our seminary with curious blood:
fresh as the blue-bells in the wood,
and fragrant.”
For New Generation, New Art, but such dullness is strewn
on pavements to promising forms, that may soon…….
Oh form`s but technology to catch a bright tune.
I decant
my vain sorrow into this old instrument:
a re-cycled form that catches it`s content
on glad roads to Hell, with such indolent intent,
it`s pleasant.
Happiness is a large, though nebulous plant,
pushing horizontal, peculiar shaddows aslant,
as my base drone calls to it`s lunar descant.
***
