Sometimes I would
That I could
Write about flowers,
Yet the night
Hours slowly pass
And my thought
Runs on lass
And ought?
‘Tis strange how interpretations differ.
Some will
Read a poem “as is”,
But what is “as is?”
When all is still
At night
The poet may
Stay away
And write
A verse
Or, with a curse
Taste the apple of Eve
Although he does know
That he should leave
The fruit, once sweet
Untasted, he will eat.
In “On The Brink Of A pit”, David Holbrook describes taking his daughter, Kate to a party being held to celebrate the 12th birthday of her Jewish friend, Melanie.
The friendship between the 2 children is very close:
“I took our child to her party, carrying a book-token
Covered in child-gay seals, because they love one another”.
And:
“Melanie assured me with her guileless big blue eyes
Her father would bring Kate home, fondly drew her into the house”.
Here we have a beautiful picture of 2 children, one Jewish and the other non-Jewish who love one another and are unconcerned with racial or religious differences.
This beautiful portrait is enhanced as the street is full of birdsong and:
“Warm sun honeyed the suburban gardens”.
Yet the line:
“handsome women
tapped over a few skeleton leaves on the muddy pavements”, signifies that all is far from being right. “skeleton” speaks of death. The leaves are as dead as the Jews who perished in Nazi Germany’s “Final Solution”, under which approximately 6 million Jews where murdered in gas chambers and by other means.
Holbrook wants “a thousand lives to worship what Melanie was”, and the thought of the horrors of the mass extermination of Jews causes him to openly weep in the street
“There being as much hate in garden cities as at Majdenek”.
This is a deeply shocking poem which never fails to move me. It is as relevant today as when it was written. In its mildest forms I have heard people say, “the Jews control the media”, or “Jews are mean”. Such words are often spoken by those who would be genuinely horrified if they thought that by speaking them they could be contributing to antisemitism, and that they could, indirectly cause a resurgence of virulent Jew hatred. Yet such words do feed the monster of hatred towards Jews, and I hear behind the words spoken in pubs or over dinner tables the crunch of jackboots in concentration camps.
Other expressions of antisemitism are more direct, ranging from the desecration of Jewish graves to the murder of Jewish people.
It is sometimes said, by ignorant people that poetry doesn’t matter. Holbrook’s poem prooves them wrong.
(“On The Brink Of A Pit”, can be found in “The Golden Treasury of The Best Songs And Lyrical Poems In The English Language”, selected and arranged by Francis Turner Palgrave. Updated by John Press. Sixth Edition”. page 571).
Under the sterile
Sheet they meet
For a while,
And smile
The smile
Of the crocodile.
When a young lady named Rose
Bought a set of completely clear clothes,
The people, being rude
Said, “you are nude!”,
Why they said that, nobody knows!
Some girls dance
For the love of the thing,
And others For the security that a ring
does bring.
While others, with a fixed smile
Dance in bed
For they have bills to pay
Although it has been said
That some would rather be dead
Than go down that way.
Be that as it may
Will you condemn
Those who with men
Consort for pay
When the wolf
is baying at the door
And call them, “Whore”?
Or will you
Metaphorically flay
The lonely men
Who pay
For company,
And more
With a girl you label “Whore”?
Tell me
Who will you condemn?
I long for
A knock
At my door
And for
Passion to unlock
In loss of shoe and sock,
But please, let it not
Be as before,
A girl, half there, longing for
The door,
And me
Wishing that she
Where more . . .
“Vita Brevis Press, LLC will begin accepting submission for its first poetry anthology in the fall. The anthology will feature emerging and established poets and will be available in print and digital formats”.
To find out more please visit this link, https://vitabrevisliterature.com/poems/big-news-the-vita-brevis-anthology/.
A couple of days ago, I was sitting at my desk trying to compose a poem in rhyme. My rhyming muse had deserted me, consequently I experimented with free verse. My muse still refused to play so, in frustration I turned off my computer and went to bed.
My inability to compose in either rhyme or free verse may have stemmed, in part at least from my need for sleep. However, come the morning my rhyming muse perched upon my shoulder and I was able to pen a rhyming poem with which I was happy.
As those of you who read my poetry on a regular basis will know, my preference is for rhyme. This is both because I find rhyme intrinsically beautiful, and due to rhyme coming naturally to me whilst, generally speaking, free verse does not. There is much great poetry written in free verse, its simply that, on the whole I prefer reading and writing rhyming poetry.
My muse refusing to play reminded me of the following response I received from a reviewer when I contacted them asking whether they would be interested in reviewing one of my books:
“I took a quick look at your site and at the reviews your book has on Goodreads. You’ve got a talent for rhyming. Unfortunately, I prefer to read free verse
and if I were you review your collection, my disdain for constant rhyming would bias my review”.
I was grateful for the response (as not all reviewers do respond to requests for reviews). In addition, I appreciated the honesty of the reply. We all have our preferences, mine is for rhyming poetry, whilst the reviewer’s is for free verse. As to whether my poems utilise constant rhyming, as the poet, I am probably not the best person to answer that question. However what I will say is this, I believe that whilst the best rhyming poetry is intrinsically beautiful, there is no point in marring a good composition by forcing a rhyme where no rhyme should properly be. It is not wise to force a size 10 foot into a size 9 shoe. One can do so however the foot risks being mangled as does the poem. Sometimes its right that parts of a poem rhyme whilst other sections do not. I am by no means a purist in such matters.
I have heard the view expressed that rhyming is somehow lazy as its easier to compose in rhyme than it is to use free or blank verse. I beg to differ. Whilst the best free verse poetry is a pleasure to read, the worst reads like prose of the most prosaic kind. Whilst there is, undoubtedly bad rhyming poetry, the subtlety of good rhyming poems is a real pleasure to peruse. The use of unusual (but highly effective) rhyming is a real skill which takes time to develop (and is only developed by some). As for the “disdain” for “constant rhyming”, whilst I can understand why this can become tedious, surely it depends on how the constant rhyming is done? “The cat ate my hat. I chased him with a bat, crying this was my hat!”, can quickly lead to tedium on the part of the reader, but much rhyming poetry is not like that!
In conclusion, I understand the views of those who dislike rhyming poetry, however I do not share them. Both rhyme and other forms of poetry possess their merits but I, personally prefer rhyme for the reasons set out above.
As always I would be interested in the views of you my readers.
Kevin
I prefer
Sitting in an old, comfortable armchair,
Reading traditional rhyme
As my clock’s regular chime
Speaks of a more ordered time,
To the idea that we must
Forever thrust
Towards some utopian goal
Where my soul
Is nothing when
Compared to the common good
Of collective men.
I would
Rather sit in my armchair
Or, out of my window stare
not at some abstract “common good”
But at a fine old tree
That will outlast me
Unless some vandal destroy that tree
In the name of a better society,
That will never be.
So many disdain
The life-giving rain
And pray
For a sunny day.
But I
On hearing the rain
Pattering on my window pane,
Or, on looking up to the great sky
And feeling purifying water upon my face,
Give thanks for this green place,
And the flowers that in such profusion sprout,
And pray that we can avoid a drought.
