Poems
West Walks [oil pastel]
"and"
This is a poem - fairly recent - describing people and mini dramas passing by the bench in the park where I had taken my m&s lunch bits to eat in the sunshine. I love people-watching, and am an innate nosey-parker busy-body. And I love ideas and words - always too many! - as much almost as I love my music, and my notes! - too many notes! [as the emperor said .... ignorantly].
The park is the Borough Gardens, so close that it is like an extension to our own little garden. The picture is of West Walks when the old railings had been removed, prior to the restoration.
“and”
and you’ll be able to stay with dad
some times
says the fat non-mum to the sulking
unloved child
whose sun was hidden grey
nowhere else to go
poor girl divided
by the ignored wisdom
of solomon the so-called wise
and I start to eat my
sun is shining
here in the friendly park
the flowers and
sleepy lazy
to be yet not two bees
but dying wasp on dry wood
and four girls eight legs
saunter thigh by my
averting gaze each pair
fatter than the last
crisp in the packet
and I eat my vegetable
25% fat and obese
one-pound-skinny-
belsen-boy-samosa from m&s
and the little girl is cross
and screaming sad inside
the prison of her care-less
family that is the question
whether tis nobler to stay
together for the
sake of the
kids who have no say
and I drink my
friend’s fear of
daughter’s pulmonary artery
op to come
bless southampton
general fruit smoothie
again from m&s
in the friendly
and not-so-friendly
park my ideas
of life of death
of dying wasp
and of me. me and dying.
and the pain. and the rest.
and two tall
too tall for me
boys-yet-men
one with squashed ear saunter
bye bye and from lunch break
bach to work
in my mp3 in a funked-up way
and the kaleidoscope of
nursery rhymes too
fill my world with joy
less the parky pain
and not at all the pain
the pain
of the unloved
inconvenient
little girl
and the fat non-mother
and the 25% fat-stat
and the earlobe-less man-boy
and the fate-fearful dad
and I bin my thoughts
and rubbish my bits
and my bobs
and wander
neurologically speaking
back to base to work
and
rumination post samosa
and my picnic in the
friendly yet
maybe not so friendly
park
11.ix.09
This is a poem - fairly recent - describing people and mini dramas passing by the bench in the park where I had taken my m&s lunch bits to eat in the sunshine. I love people-watching, and am an innate nosey-parker busy-body. And I love ideas and words - always too many! - as much almost as I love my music, and my notes! - too many notes! [as the emperor said .... ignorantly].
The park is the Borough Gardens, so close that it is like an extension to our own little garden. The picture is of West Walks when the old railings had been removed, prior to the restoration.
“and”
and you’ll be able to stay with dad
some times
says the fat non-mum to the sulking
unloved child
whose sun was hidden grey
nowhere else to go
poor girl divided
by the ignored wisdom
of solomon the so-called wise
and I start to eat my
sun is shining
here in the friendly park
the flowers and
sleepy lazy
to be yet not two bees
but dying wasp on dry wood
and four girls eight legs
saunter thigh by my
averting gaze each pair
fatter than the last
crisp in the packet
and I eat my vegetable
25% fat and obese
one-pound-skinny-
belsen-boy-samosa from m&s
and the little girl is cross
and screaming sad inside
the prison of her care-less
family that is the question
whether tis nobler to stay
together for the
sake of the
kids who have no say
and I drink my
friend’s fear of
daughter’s pulmonary artery
op to come
bless southampton
general fruit smoothie
again from m&s
in the friendly
and not-so-friendly
park my ideas
of life of death
of dying wasp
and of me. me and dying.
and the pain. and the rest.
and two tall
too tall for me
boys-yet-men
one with squashed ear saunter
bye bye and from lunch break
bach to work
in my mp3 in a funked-up way
and the kaleidoscope of
nursery rhymes too
fill my world with joy
less the parky pain
and not at all the pain
the pain
of the unloved
inconvenient
little girl
and the fat non-mother
and the 25% fat-stat
and the earlobe-less man-boy
and the fate-fearful dad
and I bin my thoughts
and rubbish my bits
and my bobs
and wander
neurologically speaking
back to base to work
and
rumination post samosa
and my picnic in the
friendly yet
maybe not so friendly
park
11.ix.09
little bird
La Gaverie, St Germain sur Ay, par Lessay [Normandy]
little bird
you, little bird
who measures out time
in swoops,
dives,
chattering
and song
that fills the space in which we both belong,
in which I heard
none of the pain -
it is the song which you and I
rehearse and improvise
each virgined day,
we bring it on and on again
to nullify
the truth -
that emerging from this clay
we are the same
dulled molecules of dust -
rehearse this scene again -
do not disturb
the tramp asleep,
nor restless muse
who races dawn in creative urgent lust
vaingloriously to lose
the sense of noun
or verb -
your soulful song
and my manufactured phrase
come and go and multiply -
the same dulled molecules make our days:
for you to fly,
for me to sigh -
we do not stay for long -
you, little bird
whistling in the wind
whilst I temper time’s mortal coil
with sweet music of the mind -
in the final silence no song is heard
your song and mine mix their atoms in the soil
rick birley
10 may 2009
you, little bird
who measures out time
in swoops,
dives,
chattering
and song
that fills the space in which we both belong,
in which I heard
none of the pain -
it is the song which you and I
rehearse and improvise
each virgined day,
we bring it on and on again
to nullify
the truth -
that emerging from this clay
we are the same
dulled molecules of dust -
rehearse this scene again -
do not disturb
the tramp asleep,
nor restless muse
who races dawn in creative urgent lust
vaingloriously to lose
the sense of noun
or verb -
your soulful song
and my manufactured phrase
come and go and multiply -
the same dulled molecules make our days:
for you to fly,
for me to sigh -
we do not stay for long -
you, little bird
whistling in the wind
whilst I temper time’s mortal coil
with sweet music of the mind -
in the final silence no song is heard
your song and mine mix their atoms in the soil
rick birley
10 may 2009
split infinity
Life is but an album-ed span
whose final page, the end of all,
without plan
Marks a pilgrimage, whose shadow
Every day of life is a leaf in history
No purpose to call
Save a wonderful mystery
no gold at the foot of the rainbow
And within this span
Of Nano years, months and days
Which split infinity
And prise time apart
Lives hopeless man
Measured twixt daytime haze
And dark night’s counterpart
A mortal Trinity
Of life,
As we draw life's sweet breath
To blow out the candle of each new year
And watch the smoke drift up above
We listen for the dreadful sound
Of endless dark.
We've seen it all before
As one by one our loves and lives
Exit for ever from our stages
Each brief mark
Fading on the forest floor
Our scripts the painful wages
17.jan.2009
whose final page, the end of all,
without plan
Marks a pilgrimage, whose shadow
Every day of life is a leaf in history
No purpose to call
Save a wonderful mystery
no gold at the foot of the rainbow
And within this span
Of Nano years, months and days
Which split infinity
And prise time apart
Lives hopeless man
Measured twixt daytime haze
And dark night’s counterpart
A mortal Trinity
Of life,
As we draw life's sweet breath
To blow out the candle of each new year
And watch the smoke drift up above
We listen for the dreadful sound
Of endless dark.
We've seen it all before
As one by one our loves and lives
Exit for ever from our stages
Each brief mark
Fading on the forest floor
Our scripts the painful wages
17.jan.2009
Acteaon
Actaeon, felicitous youth
Unblushingly fresh,
Did not choose his awful, final truth,
Unwitting in his sight of godly flesh.
But Diana,
Rising from the waters whence
She bathed, with nymphs attending,
Blushed full, and more, in naked shame,
Bold Actaeon her privacy offending
When into her glade he came.
Angrily she cursed his mortal innocence.
Twixt his surprise and her displeasure
Diana mutated his natural make
Into a stag, whose swiftest measure
Actaeon’s own hounds delight to subjugate
For lust’s hungry sake
To satiate their appetite,
He with grevious recognition saw his fate,
Started up in desperate flight.
Diana, Goddess now, rode as Huntress of the Sky,
Saw poor Actaeon’s hopeless plight
Submit
Within her cruel sight;
Enjoyed his piteous pain,
Waited as he struggled yet, in vain:
His knowledge of her dying with his soul.
She in her heaven, set on high;
He below in hell, by his own hounds
Devoured in bloody whole.
Her vengeance knew no bounds
But Death:
And innocence no more
A thing of Beauty on the forest floor.
Rick Birley
Cae Rhedyn 13/14.viii.98
Unblushingly fresh,
Did not choose his awful, final truth,
Unwitting in his sight of godly flesh.
But Diana,
Rising from the waters whence
She bathed, with nymphs attending,
Blushed full, and more, in naked shame,
Bold Actaeon her privacy offending
When into her glade he came.
Angrily she cursed his mortal innocence.
Twixt his surprise and her displeasure
Diana mutated his natural make
Into a stag, whose swiftest measure
Actaeon’s own hounds delight to subjugate
For lust’s hungry sake
To satiate their appetite,
He with grevious recognition saw his fate,
Started up in desperate flight.
Diana, Goddess now, rode as Huntress of the Sky,
Saw poor Actaeon’s hopeless plight
Submit
Within her cruel sight;
Enjoyed his piteous pain,
Waited as he struggled yet, in vain:
His knowledge of her dying with his soul.
She in her heaven, set on high;
He below in hell, by his own hounds
Devoured in bloody whole.
Her vengeance knew no bounds
But Death:
And innocence no more
A thing of Beauty on the forest floor.
Rick Birley
Cae Rhedyn 13/14.viii.98
the Weather of her Soul
She peers into her glass
a toad stares back She steers her wooden stare through bosky grey to fields of furrowed clay shared and scored anew each uncalled-for day With roughshod care time’s rivelled hack reflects through her etched weatherglass She peers into her glass and sees beyond the dullish stare stares back from ash veneered opacity She holds the stare and starts to float guides her ancient sonde across the pages of her almanac to the crowded footnote of her existential vast extensity She peers into her glass and passes through floats through the black lights of her eyes and humming a tuneless barcarole drifts into the inner void The faintly azure blue stares back in thin disguise and brushes past the membranes of her soul vibrates the familiar schizoid Here she sees another face reflecting in a room of glass whose panes touch at the darkness without Whose edges of infinity reflect in truth the greater keenness of her space Whose focus seeks an edge on which to shout but never sharpens its ephemeral mass nor matures its sallow youth That wretched soul of hers whose heart is filled with rarest art lies wrecked on the low-tide shore midst wrack and mortal ruin waiting for the reaper’s cart The journeyman whose stealth avers the artless truth of life’s assassin The nevermore of evermore Rick Birley 6th March 2008 | glass - mirror
bosk – thicket, or little wood shared – ploughed [ploughshare]; also shares the image score – notch, gash, scratch; also as in music roughshod – provided with horse-shoes with projecting nails to afford extra grip rivelled – wrinkled [OE] hack – a horse, esp. one in a sorry condition. Also a gash, a notch weatherglass - barometer sonde – [Fr] device for obtaining information about atmospheric or weather conditions at high altitude existential – relating to human existence extensity – massiveness or spatial quality in sensation from which perception of extension is derived barcarole – gondolier’s song, or similar azure – of a faint blue, sky-coloured schizoid – one with schizophrenic personality – introversion, tending to fantasise, duality keenness – sharpness – also as in having an acute or penetrating mind; also intense ephemeral – short-lived - ie the mayfly whose adult life is very short – often lasting but a single day. sallow – pale yellow [of skin] wrack – seaweed cast ashore, stranded; also wreck; also vengeance aver – declare to be true journeyman – a hired workman, one hired by the day; also one who is competent at his trade [no longer an apprentice] artless – guileless, unaffected, simple; also inartistic |
Love's Passage
Willed yet not controlled by will
I was lifted to a great height
Onto a vast and grass tussock’d hill
Up into the yearning light.
She and I ran hand in hand in love
On endless summer’s days
Protected and immune up there above
We happily lay together till dusk’s haze
Willed again; as time drew on we ran as one
Toward the edge of the unknown
And plunged headlong into the dying sun
And over the abyss! And there spirit has flown
Into an ageless clime, the kiss of Spring
Gives our love in timeless bliss its fling.
I was lifted to a great height
Onto a vast and grass tussock’d hill
Up into the yearning light.
She and I ran hand in hand in love
On endless summer’s days
Protected and immune up there above
We happily lay together till dusk’s haze
Willed again; as time drew on we ran as one
Toward the edge of the unknown
And plunged headlong into the dying sun
And over the abyss! And there spirit has flown
Into an ageless clime, the kiss of Spring
Gives our love in timeless bliss its fling.
disappearing
an appearance demands
a physicality, whose balance
both demands and exudes purpose
and the stage is salty wet with lamentations, curses,
the unfairness of it all
the choppy swell
of the level playing field drowning
in its own tears
the hopes, the aspirations of this single chance
of life
and all its borrowed abundance.
no choice, out of nothing but no choice.
creatures of the moment, trapped in a brief instant,
prised out of the enormous enormity,
no purpose here
no selected team today
to complete the mindless relay
under starter's orders we writhe,
crawl, totter, walk, amble, run
blindly leading the blind
with erudite emptiness
and learn-ed philosophy to ease the pain
of physicality,
whose balance still
both demands, seeks and manifests purpose
on the slippery stage.
as we tire, urgently breasting the end tape,
we writhe once more in pain
lamenting the loss and counting the gain,
ship the oars and unfairly drift
at the mercy of the fading dream.
some life! some death!
a transient nothingness disappearing,
the parting waters departing
with the drowned, whose wet memories merge
merge and are lost
into some vast ocean which knows no depth
and flows into itself
over and over
and never knows the pain
of the tears
which are its eternal spring.
such sick physicality appears --
endlessly appears --
and just as endlessly
disappears
for life and death are one
Rick Birley 5 April 2009
I Am My Little World
I am my little world, said he,
And round about my soul
unfurled for all to see
The pennants of my lifeline flutter helplessly
In the silent hurricane of this other me
Tattered, unravelled
seams of my humanity
Trailing in sparkling threads
of bright mortality.
There, there for all to see, he said,
Save by the sighted blind, who have no tear to shed.
I am my little world, said he,
A willed and willing player
yet a hapless refugee
Unsewing pennants' seams creatively
Unpicking threads of fragility:
Wrapping new lines round sense
to help me be
Inured to life's nonsense,
and its keen insensibility.
July 5th 2010
Rain
we form our state high
high in some shapeless vapours
immeasurably refined and redefined
from past wetness now washed clean
and raised expectant shy
we grow newly redesigned
with vibrant sheen
our drop drops roundly from the sky
begins the folly of our freefall capers
some float as mizzle
some sting as driving rain
some from a huge and frowning height
dive headlong earth bound
in joyous pain
most from the dullness of some grey drizzle
touch ground with silent sound
with empty gain
all fall in vain
few shine resplendent bright
in glory of sun’s refracted light
most lost in viewless blight
in numbness of endless night
high in some shapeless vapours
immeasurably refined and redefined
from past wetness now washed clean
and raised expectant shy
we grow newly redesigned
with vibrant sheen
our drop drops roundly from the sky
begins the folly of our freefall capers
some float as mizzle
some sting as driving rain
some from a huge and frowning height
dive headlong earth bound
in joyous pain
most from the dullness of some grey drizzle
touch ground with silent sound
with empty gain
all fall in vain
few shine resplendent bright
in glory of sun’s refracted light
most lost in viewless blight
in numbness of endless night
new year carol
and the waters singing shall wet the stage
on which we tread
on which we lately tread
there on storied pebbles fresh immersed
washed on riverbed
washed clean on riverbed
reflecting slippery time whose yellowed age
when done and said
when all done and said
makes its exit finally offstage
no curtain call
no scene change
no props to rearrange
no sounds at all
save rippled water coruscating over shallow stones
and new laid bones burbling their sweetest tones
to gently soothe our hapless quicklimed yearning
its flowing thread
intently binds our weak and helpless rage
now stranded dry – such parched and brittle learning
entirely unrehearsed
its calm and flowing thread
intently weaves a new and endless age
entirely sans script unrehearsed
when we are dead
we all are singing unversed
songs of pebble-washed time
which will become immersed
one unsuspecting day
in lime
or clay
over which will run the ever running stream
smoothing out the pain
smoothing forever the awful pain
singing softly of a pebbled dream
our new year carol strains the air
in sad lament
as the melody of one so fair
is spent
rick birley19.i.10
on which we tread
on which we lately tread
there on storied pebbles fresh immersed
washed on riverbed
washed clean on riverbed
reflecting slippery time whose yellowed age
when done and said
when all done and said
makes its exit finally offstage
no curtain call
no scene change
no props to rearrange
no sounds at all
save rippled water coruscating over shallow stones
and new laid bones burbling their sweetest tones
to gently soothe our hapless quicklimed yearning
its flowing thread
intently binds our weak and helpless rage
now stranded dry – such parched and brittle learning
entirely unrehearsed
its calm and flowing thread
intently weaves a new and endless age
entirely sans script unrehearsed
when we are dead
we all are singing unversed
songs of pebble-washed time
which will become immersed
one unsuspecting day
in lime
or clay
over which will run the ever running stream
smoothing out the pain
smoothing forever the awful pain
singing softly of a pebbled dream
our new year carol strains the air
in sad lament
as the melody of one so fair
is spent
rick birley19.i.10
The Season for Loving
Now is the season for loving;
For the days are long,
The nights warm,
And the sun rises each day
On a timeless holiday.
I've reached this dubious maturity,
Sweated my tears,
In dismal places,
And in those dread days
Each hour was an eternity.
And after each eternal day,
Another; yet as I look,
Look back on hell,
I am as far removed from then
As then I was from now.
Each moment flashes swiftly by,
Some savoured,
And some hated;
But I am changed and older now,
Impervious to their mood,
No more afraid of living,
Longing but to love;
And hell long since gone,
Replaced instead by a timeless void,
Timeless season for loving.
For the days are long,
The nights warm,
And the sun rises each day
On a timeless holiday.
I've reached this dubious maturity,
Sweated my tears,
In dismal places,
And in those dread days
Each hour was an eternity.
And after each eternal day,
Another; yet as I look,
Look back on hell,
I am as far removed from then
As then I was from now.
Each moment flashes swiftly by,
Some savoured,
And some hated;
But I am changed and older now,
Impervious to their mood,
No more afraid of living,
Longing but to love;
And hell long since gone,
Replaced instead by a timeless void,
Timeless season for loving.
The Buccaneer
My Dad
The Buccaneer
In the weather of his dreaming
A dull grey mist
Blends the edges
Of the above
And the below
His horizon no longer
Sharpened keenness
Where once the clinched nails
Held fast the full-ribbed clinker
Planed and skimmed
To the finis terre
And made battles
With the monsters of the deep
Where once the smooth-oiled planks
Of seasoned oak creaked
In the high sun’s radiation
Now groans with agued age
And splits the splinters of wisdom
Into brittle sticks of parched sinew
Smiling with confused emptiness
Redundant in thought and deed
Just as now the proud
Proud jutting prow
Is blunted
No more the wave slice
Synergy of winded cloth
And sheeted tension
Dividing the waters
In pursuit of gems
That boyhood treasure
Plundered in eternal leisure
Is now spent
Linen sags today
As yesterday
Listless and heavy cheeked
The contraband was spent
The open chest full empty
Cutlassed spoils dispersed
Vacant and sallow-cheeked faces stare
From dark recesses everywhere
And he himself in skull and bone
From deep in a spray-damp chair
Which was not always so
When strutting the decks
Visioning through the prophetic glass
The shortened view
And the long range investment
Riding aloft the crests
Tearing through time
Amassing considerable wealth
Crafting imagination with fire
Jewelled and crafted fire
And objects of great beauty
Ripping through the Roaring Forties
Into a cascade of rich abundance
Until the distant years drew near
And gleaming metals gathered rust
And riming reason turned to dust
And
And memories forgot themselves
Forgot themselves and
And
Fragmented time and space
The old buccaneer yawned
And the chasm yawned too
Tales displaced doing
Stories found their summaries
In the hold
The gold is tarnished
What is old is withered
And encompassed with an acrid mould
The eyes that smiled grow grey
Deep blinking confusion
Non-thought nonsense
The glimmer of who are you
And hopeful of a deeper well
Of cognition
You are who
Who are you
You are you
How do you do
Not too good
These days
Bless
Bless the shadow
The like of which inhabits me
Bless
Bless the blessed memories
The dreams of which possess me
Bless
Bless the man
The seed of whose being made me
The old man falters unbalanced on the edge
Still dancing on the dancing ledge
His canon defiant
His cannon silent now
And at the edge of the world
He drifts helpless
Over the eternal waterfall
With monsters
Me and all
Rick Birley – [me and my Dad]
16 July 2010
