THAT YAWNING NADIR OF ALL ORGANIC LIFE

I am in the middle of a number of new poems but none are more than two-thirds complete and while I will show rough drafts on the blog I draw the line at displaying a jumble of words. So a couple of old poems this post.

Appropriately for posting on 14 February; the first is a valentine.

VALENTINE’S DAY

My children fly their kites,

bright nylon scraps ride the thermals.

Obsessive I search the beach,

for a heart-shaped stone to give you.

Cold, brown, salt-saturated sand.

Wet colours dull in my hand.

Possibly the outline of India?

Reversed this could be Africa.

Nothing I touch is perfect.

I yearn for a heart-shaped stone

and settle for India.

Near enough in numb fingers.

The kite strings snag, tumble and fall.

Winding twine we leave the beach.

A straight forward poem that records its elements of creation in the sequence they happened. 

I can’t remember the genesis of this next poem- my only note informs me it was written in 1982. I could hazard a guess as to the event but have decided not to share my thoughts.

a post midnight conversation

feels like the edge of this world

time steals towards that 4am hubris

that yawning nadir of all organic life

we talked of first love

the loss of naivety

to which thankfully we cannot return

so we smiled

and slept as close as spoons

Again, a simple poem that recasts an episode from life. Much of my early poetry was in a similar vein.

Here is a recent poem - part of a sequence I may yet post. This takes a stray thought and runs with it.

8.

Unless he fucks up, say

an anonymous coupling one drunken night,

you can see his future.

The engine of her ambition will carry him.

Suddenly he will be middle-management, middle aged,

with never a thought to how he arrived.

I was thinking that some people arrive at a point in their lives with no real idea how they got there. This thought arose when I was people watching.

I’m off to see Midlake next week and I leave you with a song.