Memory. Clearing out boxes and two poems from my Juvenilia, scribbles of another kind from school days. It's the same scribbles anyway.Poetry is pictures, word images. Its always about the image,scribbling with letters or shapes, whether poetry or painting.
1) CITY TRAMPS
It was the city centre that
afternoon I stumbled upon,
where tramps possess their
bench seats,
each to his own; a diadem.
Fumbling in deep pockets
for secrets,
but did they find them?
It was too cold.
They knew.
The street lamp spluttered.
In one scrofulous
phlegmatic
moment they belched raw
breath,
and gave out
as the alcohol yearned,
enflamed them,
enflamed them,
and the lamp light flickered .
I couldn’t see clearly.
not really,
Because I wore gloves,
Woolworths,
£1.99p.
2) BROTHERS
Far into the night we slept
with kings
As the sagamore beckoned
and we were there.
Time became a game between
meals
when only our hunger spoke.
We watched the crouched fly
stalk the mirror
and were vampires,
our teeth chiselled and our
yelling terror
and our finger on the
trigger........
Toyriffic!
The dolphins surfaced and
took me into the blue.
I turned to look again.
I tried.
But you had gone,
run on,
run on,
laughed – Ha- aloud at your
heels ahead,
calling “be on time next
time or you’ll miss the .......”
Guess you were that blob on
the cliff edge,
And I carried blue upon blue below.
My eyes were not behind the
holes.
The dolphins plunged into the
sea.
And I, remembering
fragments,
turned to see again,
“Show me. Show me what’s
hiding,
I see tall grasses move.
Show me!”
It was a seagull answered.
It was a stone fell,
thundering,
and splintered where it
lay.
“It was fun anyway.
And if by chance we
appreciate each other
It was worth it,
Wasn’t it ?”
