I know a young lady named Marr
Who works in a very rough bar.
I like to drink there
With a tough guy called Blair,
And we’re all terrified of Marr!
I know a young lady named Marr
Who works in a very rough bar.
I like to drink there
With a tough guy called Blair,
And we’re all terrified of Marr!
The thunder came
In the early morning.
I heard the heavy rain
And saw the lightning
Flash across the summer sky.
Alone at home
I thought of the old gods
Who will remain
When man can no longer see
The lightning
Nor hear Thor
Laugh
For he knows
Civilisations rise and fall
And men are fragile
As glass
In shop windows
Lighted at night
To display
What we know
Must pass away.
On Thursday 18 June I was delighted to host a segment on the World Poetry Cafe, which is a show on Vancouver Co-op Radio. To listen to the World Poetry Cafe please go to https://www.mixcloud.com/VictorSchwartzman/world-poetry-cafe-june-18-with-kevin-morris/. My segment starts approximately 20 minutes into the show.
Mid June.
Sunshine.
The longest day of the year
Draws near.
Everything must decline.
My rhyme
Will find its end.
Another year
Will bring spring flowers.
I will think on hours
And the brevity
Of rhyme.
I must have liked you
As I paid for us at Kew.
We spent some hours
Among exotic flowers,
And strolled in glass houses
Where respectable spouses
Walked too.
I bought
A room in a cheap hotel
Off Victoria Street
Where assorted lovers meet
Then depart
And no hearts are left
Bereft.
We dropped off the key
At reception
Saying we would be back …
I wonder, did they have any perception
Of us two …
It was just an hour
Or so
In a cheap hotel
Long ago.
But I must have liked you
For I paid for you at Kew.
Some fear their final breath.
I have fought
With the absence of thought
Were I reached for words
And repeated “thank you” again and again.
There was no pain
Of the physical kind.
Just the mind
Closing down
And a lopsided walk.
When I cried
It was not at the fear
Of dying.
I can face my final breath.
No! I shed my tears
For the collapse of my mind.
I found in me
No poetry of mine
But grasped at others rhymes
To keep my inflamed brain
Alive.
I survived.
My brain abscess is no more.
I pour out poetry.
For I am not yet dry.
One day I will die.
I have no great dread
Of being dead.
What I fear
Is living death
Were breaths are taken
But the mind is dying
Or dead.
Whenever I return to my family home
The clock on the wall
Stands alone
Looking down on us all.
I have composed rhyme
To women and wine
And the clock on the wall
Watches us all.
We laugh
And time slips away.
As the clock on the wall
Looks down on us all.
One day
Someone will be gone
And the clock on the wall
Will tick on
Just the same.
For Time is blind
And the clock knows not
Who has gone
And who remains.
Who has
When a young lady named Mable
Danced nude on the vicar’s table,
I said to Miss Hocking,
“That girl’s behaviour’s shocking!”
She said, “Yes! She’ll break that table!”
I walk in sunshine
And gentle rain.
I see
My shadow
Goes with me.
I feel beauty
In rainbows.
But what will remain
When I go?
Just dust.
The elements
And me,
Refracted back
In poetry
A crocodile on a log.
I sat. My dog nearby
And thought
Perhaps
I ought
To run away
To live another day
As the creature might be starving –
But it was merely carving,
A log,
Me, and my dog
On a spring day