If each glass told a tale
We would turn pale
And take
Care
To avoid their
Impassive stare.
Many a glass would break.
Such an easy mistake
To make
To catch a mirror, with an elbow
And watch it go
A-spinning,
And see our sinning
In fragments on the floor,
To be spoken of no more
By the all-seeing eye …
I do not care
For this must
And dust
That thickens
The air.
The scent sickens
Me,
Yet I must
Agree
(as is so often foretold),
That we end our days in dust
And mould.
There was a young man named Zeff
Who possessed no desire to meet Death.
Death visited one day,
But Zeff stole away,
Leaving Death seeking for Zeff …
“Have I heard of you?” she said.
I shook my head
And made reply
With an audible sigh,
“No for I am not yet dead.
But perhaps a paragraph or two
When I am through,
You will peruse
Before passing on to other news
About some celebrity or other, who has fallen from grace
And after whom our moral guardians chase.
Heaven forbid that I should make page three
For better models than me
Have appeared there,
And I would hate to upstage busty Claire
For we are both art
Of a kind.
Beauty resides in the mind of the beholder,
Take your pick, a girl’s bare shoulder
Or a writer’s heart.
—
1. “Page 3 is a colloquial term for a feature formerly included in the British tabloid newspaper The Sun.
The phrase originates with the publication of a large photograph of a topless, bare-breasted female glamour model who was usually shown on the print edition’s third page.
The feature first appeared in the newspaper on 17 November 1970 and on the official Page 3 website since June 1999, where it still continues.
The terms “Page 3” and “Page Three” are registered trademarks of News UK, parent company of The Sun, although the feature has been imitated in Britain’s other ‘red top’ tabloids”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_3).
2. The “Claire” in the above poem, is purely ficticious and any resemblance to anyone either living or dead is purely coincidental.
When I go will it be in a darkened room
With cloying perfume
Hanging like a stark
question mark,
In the unmoved air?
I shall beware
The unlit stair
For I may go
Below
Lest I tread with care.
Will I leave at dawn
With only the birds to mourn?
Or perchance it will be among friends
Who, seeing my end
Will say
“Blast. A blaggard to the last!
He failed to pay, his bill ere he went away”!
I know not the day
But pray
I go with conscience clear,
Without fear
And with those to me dear
Standing near.
“Trust the people” he said, in a manner most beguiling.
The people harkened to his words, their eyes smiling and, afar off the sound of knives being sharpened was heard.
For the good of humanity we must sacrifice the paltry joys of the here and now for the ultimate bliss of tomorrow.
For the good of humanity we must abandon the selfish goal of individual fulfilment for the common good.
For the good of humankind we must place freedom on the backburner for we are building an earthly paradise where “the people” shall rule.
Yet Eden remains, floating, somewhere forever out of reach while “the people” shrug their shoulders, and smile or weep.
Written after reading an article on North Korea).
K Morris - Poet 