I came across Czeslaw Milosz’s fine poem, “A Confession”, while leafing through “Essential Poems”, from the Staying Alive Series, edited by Neil Astley (Bloodaxe Books). We are fallen creatures all, and it’s a brave man who recognises his own frailties, (http://enothingblog.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/poem-of-day-confession-by-czeslaw.html).
A builder and a poet sat drinking.
“I am thinking
That its getting black outside.
The moon does hide
Her face.
One can trace
In yonder darkening sky
The fall from grace
Of you and I”,
The poet said
With a shake of his greying head.
“Me missus will
Kill me.
I said I’d be back for 3.
That can’t be right,
The clock says its 10 at night!
Me tea
Will be in the dog, (or over me)!
Oh you poets have such charm.
Go on then, as you twist my arm
I’ll have another drink.
Now what did you think
Of the match earlier today?
And by the way
Did you ever play?”
There was a young lady named Crystal
Who owned an antique pistol.
The gun went bang
And up she sprang
And ran all the way to Bristol!
TonightI shall fly
Through the starless sky
On my broomstick.
And my banshee wail
Will make the righteous quail,
But oh how I wish
That flight did not make me sick …!
There was a young lady named Yvette
Who owned a very strange pet.
It was a cross between a dog
And Farmer Giles’s prize hog,
And it sang Rule Britannia to the vet!
When the blood
Is warm
We go with the flood
And think not of the swarm
That may hide
Inside.
For in the midst of pleasure’s sigh
We think not that we may die.
Sitting here in my home,
That I am proud to own
I ponder on this thing called property,
This mine and yours
(Protected by the laws)
That makes you and me
Free.
Even the dog will defend his territory
And the wise will leave his manky old bone
Alone
For Fido’s teeth
Have brought many a man to grief.
Lock said that property rights are inate
And a man owns what he does create.
The state
Should expropriate
The capitalists Marxists said
(and marked the expropriation with the dead).
Ownership of property
Makes a man free
But what of those
Who have only the clothes
On there back
And lack
A stake in society?
If there number grows
They will trample on the toes
Of the rich
(and the comparatively so)
Many of whom I know
Would die in a ditch
To preserve their plot,
However fairly or ill got.
In my quiet
Study I enjoy
What the mob would destroy.
I remember riot
When people who little or nothing had
Went mad
And broken glass did greet
Me in the street.
As I sit here enjoying the silence,
In my flat overlooking the park, violence
Seems a distant prospect.
Yet those who have no stake
(And therefore feel no respect
For property,
That makes us free),
May one day take
Away my quiet
In riot.
Thank you to my friend for drawing this article to my attention, “28 Of Poetry’s Most Powerful Lines Ever Written”, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/world-poetry-day-28-of-poetrys-most-powerful-lines-ever-written-a6944301.html. There are many of my favourites here, including Emily Dickinson’s”As I Could Not Stop For Death” and W. B Yeats’s “The Second Coming”.
There was a young man named Steve
Who married a girl called Eve.
I attended their wedding
Which took place in Reading,
And while there I eloped with Eve!
At 2 am today (Sunday 29 October), the clocks went back one hour. This does, of course mean that I get an extra hour in bed. However, during the week it means that I leave in the dark for work and return home in the darkness (lucky old me)!
The clocks going back reminded me of my poem “The Clocks Have Gone Back”, which is reproduced below. Incidentally, in today’s technology dominated society, I only had to adjust the ancient battery operated talking alarm clock (purchased many years ago from the Royal National Institute of Blind People) and the chiming timepiece that sits on the bookcase in my living room (the latter features on the front cover of my collection of poetry, “My Old Clock I Wind”).
—
The clocks have gone back and the weather is cold.
The bold
Venture outdoors.
The temperature underscores
That winter is here
And the year
Is nearing it’s close.
Fingers and toes
Freeze.
There is no breeze,
Only the chill air to please
Senses the all encompassing heat
Would defeat
K Morris - Poet 