The Whale’s Tale, composed 27 April, 2011.

Because I seem to stand alone,

Because I seem to stand

Alone.

On feet which waver

Here

                        And there

With small recourse

To the brightest night.

Walking round the living circle

Living lightning, whaling rope

Slithering round

The sailors scream

                                    And die by water

When Ahab roamed the open sea

(consigned by ship to ne’er be free)

He struck the sun, the whale’s tale,

Through its own fragile mask,

Frail.

Son of man ye want to make

The thirst of justice ever slake

But Ishmael saw the shadows, still

As Rachel wandered moaning,

Moaning for her children.

Wailing, the winds flail,

Whaling, the sailors sail

Moaning, I stand alone

As Rachel wails for her children,

All alone.

Two step two step, one two three,

Dancing dancing, come join me!

Singing singing come be free;

I’d prefer not to.

Around the bend and up the stair

I walk, the wind shuffles my hair.

They all look on without a care

And say “it is not nice to stare”

He stares, and waits, and hopes, and prays

Who inward yearns for enchanted days.

Yearns to dream and dreams to hope

And, dreaming, slips and drops the soap.

I’d prefer not to.

Winter’s warmth, deceptive, heats

The mind and deadens the senses, calm.

Still.

The silence of the line

Which girds us round (the silent line)

Like lightning, living, all around

Snaps!

                                    And we drown.

If hell’s a circle stretching down

Then life is hell, it goes around

In days which all alike, the same

Forces me to curse the name

 אני יברך מברך אזור טוב ורע

For everything I ever saw.

I do not dream of ancient days

I would             prefer not to.

Shipwreck, composed on the afternoon of 28 January, 2011 whilst “reading metaphysics.”

The violent sea rebels and laughs

At puny man who dreamt to dare

To dare to claim dominion’s staff

O’er her who rages without a care

A simple ship moves through the storm

With broad bow beaten and all sails torn

Her hull her decks her masts all shorn

The waves grow higher as to crush her form

But soon the winds come calmer and

The waves reduce their pace. The ship

Is left a drifting in the dip

between her roils. Too soon sees land.

A grey green mist collects at dawn

The ship stands out above the waves

She stemmed the tide of nature’s brawn,

A testament that man is brave.

Empiricism, composed in a rage directed at David Hume upon the bright morning of 14 February, 2011 just before Metaphysics.

I close my eyes, and open them again.

My mind moves fast, I think I am insane;

My brain is full of questions here and now

Of who, of why, of where, of when, of how.

My head doth spin like a small yellow top,

But try s’I might, I cannot make it stop.

The earth around the sun does spin and fly,

But why? And how? Gravity makes me cry.

“Self evident,” they say to me as if

My wonder is a short and shallow cliff.

Science can see, but art is childish,

So come with me, and see your father, fish!

I laugh, I cry, my humours have a hold

Upon my mind, and leave my body cold;

Cold as a fish who may my father be,

My tired mind groans, “Impossibility,”

And sullen slink away to ask a sign,

But finding none, I listen to them whine.

By all that is (I mean all that exists)

I curse your names, you vile empiricists.

Sunset, composed at sunset on 27 January 2011.

The sun goes down, to earth descends

The cool west wind blows in to make

A broader way, between the clouds

To let the light ignite the lake.

The fi’ry water, glistens shines

I sit and watch the quick pass of time

The world around, like a mother

Bends in to hug the night so sublime.

The light goes down, the dark sky fills

With brilliant stars uncounted still

The virgin moon pokes out her pure face

And lights a landscape, marv’lous place.

Listen to the silence, fallen down

Soft slow and simple–quiet sound

Quick kisses now she lavishes here

And spreads night’s joy to all around.

The dark sublime of night’s dark clime

Is his in the beauty of the sight

But there beneath the moon’s dark glow

There hides a darker blacker might.

Ballet Practice, composed on the eve of 8 February 2011, more than 300 miles distance from the subject (i.e. nowhere near practice).

State’ly skillful dances Emma,

Silent smiling saunt’ring roma;

Whirling, quiet, my gipsy queen,

Works hard on floor with glossy sheen.

Among the various students dancing,

Careful, cordial, in her prancing,

Only she of all those inside,

Only she can catch my dark eye.

I watching glory to be with her,

She is, alone, my gorgeous sister.

The Sea. Composed 1 April, 2011, with a fleeting image before myine eye which was prcipitated by a poem read to me on a fine evening by a fine friend.

The sea is like a blanket on the white sea shore

Like a blue sheet on a mistress who will sigh no more.

The waves flow back and forth upon her pure white breast

As the sun, her murderer, reaches to stroke her chest.

The seafoam forms a zone of white to beautify

Her silent form, and cover it against the sky,

But can it ever stop the prying gaze

Of an onlooker, apart, who stops to stare, amazed

The Drunkard, composed 18 March, 2011, in a huff with my dear friend over his habits.

A man who wanders lives to roam,

And has no place to call his home.

Alone he walks, alone he sleeps,

Alone the long night-watch he keeps.

Secluded, simple, solitary,

Often sad and never merry.

He lives to drink and drinks to live,

Though little pleasure drink can give

When drink imbibed is drunk alone.

A drunk must learn to right, atone,

But hope remains forever bright

And plausible if he will fight;

Fight for his life and honour still,

Then he might conquer this brown swill.

[The eye is like a telescope] – 2 March, 2011 (untitled because I don't have any idea what it is or where it came from. . . . .the horrors of metaphysics class

The eye is like a telescope

To see the panoramic view,

But can we ever dare to hope

Our faulty lenses to eschew?

The ear is like a microphone,

That transmits all that it can hear,

But can we trust in it alone

To make impressions without fear.

The hand is like a pressure plate

That warns when other things are near,

But can we hope to trust our fate

And know what’s there is fully clear.

If all we have is physic form

With which to know the world around,

Then can we know this sens’ry storm

Is truly there; our reas’ning sound?

Thank God!  We have a rational soul

To comprehend our mortal world.

Without it we would be unwhole

And left

                                    Alone.

My Lady Wakes, an experimental mock epic composed on 11 February, 2011, after a failed sonnet, in the moonlight, whilst thinking of home, with a fine cigar.

(dedicated to my father)

My lady wakes and blinks and sighs,

Her room alit by bright’ning skies.

Around her head the fairies dance,

Laughing and pulling her glad glance

Away from sleep and t’ward the morn;

Her brilliant face they do adorn

With joy itself’s glad countenance,

Then flit away before her glance.

She quickly climbs out of her sheets

And down across her bed, on feet

That long to run and dance and play,

To spin and twirl the whole long day.

Her toilette is not complicated,

She flies without but is ill-fated

Soon to return, soon to retry,

To fix her dress (put on awry).

Topsy, her steps atop the stairs,

A pirouette, her pink skirt flairs.

Then down she runs and down again,

For breakfast time (she won’t abstain)

Comes now at nine, the best of times,

The fairies laugh as down she climbs

And guide her steps to keep her safe

Their marv’lous charge, this brilliant waif.

Then eggs and milk and cereal,

Proper fuel for a growing girl,

Then off to visit mys’try’s land

With costumes various near at hand.

A queen, princess, and mother too

Her horsey friend has got the flu.

So, “Quick Cecilia!” now she cries,

“You be a doctor,” the surmise,

And very soon the crisis past

Good luck indeed, for lunch comes fast.

And after feasting once again,

She vanishes and naught complains.

For rest the day is filled with laughs

The fairies clap their hands (not gaffe).

Then dinner baths and rosary,

And daddy comes home tired to see.

But still his presence deep joy brings:

My princess flies as if on wings,

To greet him at the very door

When he arrives, all tired and sore.

He scoops her up, she squeals with glee.

He hugs her close, he’s glad, you see.

Tired and calm she drifts away

To fields of sleep where fairies play.

Her father smiles and walks upstairs;

He lays her down, soft strokes her hair.

In dreaming fields the world moves on

And tho the day, (so fleeting): gone.

She dances on and dances still,

My lovely lady, golden thrill.

My Lady Wakes, composed on 9 February 2011 in a moment of homesickness at night.

My lady wakes beneath her sheets,

And rubs a bleary sea-blue eye.

Sitting up straight she looks around,

And gent’ly she begins to cry.

Oh mama mine, oh mama come.

I want you to be here with me.

My nap is o’er my time is done,

And I would like you face to see.