Epiphany in the Rain
This cannot drown me, nor chill me, nor dampen my mien –
For I have seen something like nothing of all things I’ve seen.
Not from a far world, nor next world, nor somewhere between –
It came from within me, from ev’ry damn neuron and gene.
Gillingas
“First recorded as such c.698. Origin: (settlement of) Gilla’s people, from Old English -ingas ˋpeople of’.”
– How England Was Named
Eight miles west of Charing Cross
And just to south of Hanger Hill,
Lived farming folk whose Saxon Boss
Is with us yet, through his old ville –
Now while our names are doomed for loss,
Gilla’s people linger still.
Mate in One
Lay out your pieces, comrade:
With the tzar in the centre, his back to the wall –
Now just a figurehead, limping-scared, out-weighed
By his regent tzarina, striding bully-tall.
Propped-up by the church, with its zigging-zagging raid,
And crooked-jumping noblemen heralding the call,
As barons in their fortresses sidle and invade –
Headlong-forward charging through this no-man’s-land-in-brawl.
But there in the frontline are the workers all arrayed –
Surging from their trenches, then trudging through the sprawl.
Their only hope, to reach the end and give themselves in trade,
And not be tossed as sacrifice to spare the tzar his fall.
Enough ! Let them strike at those behind of them who stayed
Cowering astern as the fodder feeds the maul.
For even such a lowly piece can put the tzar to blade
Game over, comrade. We both win, after all.
Convergent Resonance
Tumbling lines, one from another,
Falling in behind the last –
Each one linking with his brother,
Lacing up and holding fast –
So ev’ry time a rhyme should sound,
Then, potently, a rhyme shall kick,
Until the final line is found
To shut the box with sweetest click.
Spectacles
Strange to think,
How we used to blink and grope our way
Through the blurry day,
Our vision out-of-sync.
Ever since the needle was invented,
How the squinters were tormented
Without sharpness to apply
The thread into the eye.
But then, and just in time for printing,
Came the perfect cure for squinting –
All was focused once again,
From furthest hills to finest grain.
Of all our labour-saving friends,
I say the lens is friendliest of all –
It works so simple, cheap and small –
Such humble, perfect skill !
And yet so mighty, how it bends
All light unto its will !
To let us see, when genes and wear
Would waste our rods and blank our stare –
Linguistic Schtick
Synonyms, ah synonyms ! The poet’s greatest rule –
Facilitating, all-enabling, multiplicating tool.
Synonyms – repeating things – they let us say once more
The same old curds in diff’rent words – a dozen ways to score.
Anon. Smith, Esq.
Have you heard about Christian Jewson ?
Lived and died most ordinary
In his flat not far from Euston,
’Cept for his obituary.
Seems that none who knew him, knew:
Was he a Christian or was he a Jew ?
Now our Chris was blond by nature,
Yet his eyes were very dark.
No pork, said his legislature,
Cos he lived that vegan lark.
Was he church or temple sworn ?
Was he of Hebrews or Gentiles born ?
Couldn’t be from both descended,
Thoroughbred, he said, his folk:
Shem or Japheth, never blended –
No mulatto, him, he’d joke.
But beneath these joshing jibes,
Was he the Goyim or was he the Tribes ?
Why keep such parental myst’ry ?
Was shame undersigning doubt ?
Did he even know of his hist’ry ?
Was he scared of finding out ?
Was it glamour, cheap mystique –
Second-hand exotic with a tuppenny chic ?
Chris, I think, was far less caring,
Never much the man of faith.
When he died, his prayers were sparing –
So which heaven holds his wraith ?
Can God even not define
Was he of Semite or Aryan line ?
Now these questions may seem suspect,
Matter none save Chris alone –
Smacks of fear and disrespect
When he has nothing to atone.
Yet still I ask, a son’s remorse:
I’d take either gladly, just give me a source.
The Elephant in the Time Machine
Suppose I were to travel back a day
To when you tossed a dime,
And watch in secret as you flip the coin
To see if you and helpless fate should join.
I, of course, already know the way
It came to land that time –
If I don’t tell, and you don’t know,
Then is your will still free, or just for show ?
And if I travel back a thousand-fold
To watch, and watch, and watch.
I would, I bet, observe the constant threads,
The endless runs of heads, heads, ever heads.
So does your ignorance then not withhold
Your destiny one notch ?
You are a puppet on a script –
And so, I think, must I be likewise gripped.
But no ! For we’re all Tempus Domini aboard
The Tachyon Express –
Speeding sixty-secs-per-minute forth,
And always quad-dimensional due-north.
For time is just our name for this vast hoard
Of causes and effects.
Through seas of future we must plough,
Just surfing on the ever-later Now.
Dry Love
I try to extol your virtue –
And oh, what virtue, fulsome virtue !
But though I rack till I hurt, you
Form no vision or flirt.
And all my labours exert to
Bring on nothing but dirt,
With nary a trickle or spurt to
Dapple your laundered skirt.
Your beauties just won’t blurt through –
From I, your lover inert.
In Mind
Ask him a question, he answers precise and pristine:
The greatest and smallest, and ev’rything shaded between.
Ask him a question, the height and the year and the queen –
He knows all the answers, but hasn’t a clue what they mean.
Rhyming Couplets 