Tag Archives: k morris poet

Train

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My thoughts travel back
Down history’s track.
I hear the clack
Of the wheels of the train
Running through my nostalgic brain.
I recollect separate carriages, each with an individual door,
And me reading,
My imagination feeding
On the contents of a magazine,
Today, no longer seen.
Who could ask for more?

Often I sat alone.
There was No mobile phone
To disturb my contemplation.
The nation
Has moved on.
And the old characterful trains have gone.
I have to accept
That which I would reject,
A perfect world of plastic and chrome
Where man sits alone
Conversing with his friend, the phone.

—

I remember travelling on trains with separate carriages, each compartment having comfortable seats and holding (if memory serves correctly) a maximum of 6 people. The

To my Dog, Trigger

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trigger-in-his-bed

My dog yelps in his sleep.
Can a canine weep?
And what thoughts of joy or pain
Pass through his sleeping brain?

In an exstasy of sound and smell
You dwell.
The freshly roasted chicken, just out of reach is sheer hell
To my friend
Who’s end
Is food and play.

Your day
Will not be so long as mine,
Yet we humans whine
While you in the moment live
And give such love
To your god above
Who sits envying you your state of grace.
Would that I could change place
With you
My friend true.

The Internet of Things

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“The Blackbird on the wing, so sweetly sings
And brings
Joy to we two
Who
Through
These wild flowers
Walk and talk,
Whiling away many an hour”.

But she put no store
In my words
Nor in the singing of the birds,
Which went unheard,
For the ring
She wore
Was connected to the Internet of Things.

The Tower

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A man all his efforts bent
To the exclusion of all else,
On the construction of a tower called self.
The higher it went
The less content
He grew.
Breaking through
the clouds
And feeling proud
He saw
A boy soar,
Then fall, seaward bound.
Icarus was the boy’s name
And from his fall nothing profound
Came
For man continues his building just the same.

Crystal Ball Gazing

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Will the click of a mouse
In the virtual house
Of the brain
Replace
Nature’s sweet face?
Or can man restrain
The genie who, perhaps already half woken,
His words as yet unspoken,
Holds out visions of heaven and hell.

Will men dwell
In the half light
Where day and night
Lose all meaning
And seeming
And fact become as one?
Has man gone
So far
That we lose who we are?

Can rich variety be reduced
And man seduced
By the girl made up of data?

Sooner or later
These things may come
To pass, but history does run
In strange ways, and the historian shakes his head
At the futurologist, now long since dead
Who said
“It is inevitable, For X must lead to Y”.

Ideas live and die.
The historian sighs
And thinks on why
Man tries to make the world conform to some abstract law.
He has seen it all before
And puts but little store
On those enamoured by neat little rows.
The futurologist may into the future stare
While history’s winding track leads heaven knows where.

Beauty

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Sometimes the air is so pure
And beauty’s store
Becomes too much.
At such
Moments the heart is full
And a dull
Ache
Will not me forsake.

Tears fall on the tranquil lake.
The sun awakes.
I will go
And see the rainbow
Shine
And ponder on what some call nature
And others the divine.

The Horseman

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How easy to construe
The new and inviting
For what is true.
The ride exciting
Will
Thrill
For a while.
The denial
That a thing has become banal
Shall
Not prevent it from being so.
The rider halfheartedly says “woe”
But the horse
Will continue on it’s familiar course.

“I will turn back”the horsemen doth say
“Yet how easy it is to stay
On the well trodden way.
The day
Grows dark
And the lark
Has long since ceased to sing.
The weary fairies in their ring
To me call.
Oh, how easy ‘Tis to fall …”.

Should Poets Explain Their Poetry?

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How far (if at all) should a poet explain his (or her) work? I have always been of the view that poets should leave it to the interpretation of readers to determine what their verses mean. To explain all risks treating readers like young children who must be spoon fed. Furthermore, detailed explanations by the poet remove the joy experienced by many lovers of poetry of reaching their own conclusions concerning a poem’s meaning.
Recently, 2 people have expressed the view (on 2 separate occasions in face-to-face conversations) that explanations as regards a poem’s meaning (or what caused me to write it) would be helpful. During the 2 occasions on which I have given poetry readings, I have included a brief explanation concerning the poem’s origins. However I remain of the view that to furnish chapter and verse in respect of a poem’s meaning detracts from the enjoyment of reaching one’s own (often unique) conclusion. One gentleman with whom I discussed the matter suggested that notes could be appended to poems concerning their origin and/or meaning with a caveat that those who wished to come to their own conclusion should skip them. While this is an interesting idea, I don’t want to turn into a didact, I am, after all a poet not a teacher.
As always I would be interested in my reader’s views.

Kevin