Tag Archives: literature

Postmodernism

Let us deconstruct all things

In this Postmodernist day.

All our elusions must fall

Away

And everything be analysed

Until our eyes

Can no longer see

Beyond this reductionist

Ideology

After the Rol Play (Fiction)

We role played.

Afterwards you stayed

And spoke of your childhood

Which, on the whole, was good.

 

Then you told me

Of a family friend’s knee …

 

But now you are at university

And all that was long ago,

And besides, you do not know

Whether it was really so.

And of course you are free

To say “no”

To me

 

It happened years ago

And I have no responsibility

For what he may

Or may not have done.

 

 

Its just fun

To engage in role play.

No harm is done

Or so we say

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early Morning

Sitting in just

My boxer shorts

In the cool of a summer morning,

I think on is and ought.

 

 

I touch

My own skin.

And think how thin

Is the veil

That separates me

From the eternity

Of dust

 

Consumer

A man in a sweet shop chooses

From a menu online.

The sweets are divine

The website says

So no-one loses.

 

The candy arrives

In pretty bows

And wrapping

Fragile as flowers.

 

He knows

How it goes:

The tapping of heels

Bring deals

Of sugar sweet

He can’t keep,

While the website

Offers fleeting delights

Of fresh flowers

He takes,

But his thirst

Remains unslaked

My Younger Self

I sit here

Drinking beer

Alone at home

In this dying heatwave

Unable to forget

What I could not save.

 

 

As I drink

I think

Of girls who padded like cats

Around my bachelor’s flat

In their bare feet.

 

 

We drank wine

And, sometimes

I would find

A kind

Of comfort in a stranger’s arms.

 

A few  left charms behind.

A hairband

I kept in a drawer,

Though I saw her no more.

 

I returned hair extensions.

There was no pretention

Of love.

 

Drinking my beer

I look back on half wasted years.

There where tears and laughter

But what comes after …

 

Perhaps I can find

A sort of tenderness

Tinged with regret.

 

 

I can not forget

And sometimes wonder

What they remember

Of me

Thoughts on a Thunder Storm

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.

Mid June

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.

Kew

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.

 

Brain Abscess

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.

The Clock

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