Index


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


[me and my Dad]

16 July 2010




 

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