The Woman Under The Bridge

The Woman Under The Bridge

On my way to school

I always used to see

This woman –

With torn and dirty clothes

With six or seven children

Dying to suckle

At her ailing breasts

And though she looked poor

Her face was beautiful.

At the roundabout

Under the bridge that flies

Over the cars underneath –

Our cars underneath

Circling her

Like the sharks in cartoons.

I saw her and now cannot forget

The woman under the bridge.

I Always Look Where I Should (Synesthesia)

I Always Look Where I Should

It was dark, so I couldn’t see much –

But I heard a bird sing a song

Like none I had heard before.

He sang, as if calling

Like the rushing wind

Ripe with a summery citric scent

Running carefree fingers through

My thoughts

Trembling in awe like blades of green green grass.

He sang like sunlight strands

Caught in the glint

Of squinting eyes – afraid that

They might not hide love well enough

From a friend they fear is a lover.

Eyes trying to say

‘It’s just a summer day, and we’re just friends.’

He sang like the taste of buzzing bees

Sweet as brimming hives heaving with honey.

As if calling... still he sang.

So I listened (but did not go)

As his song crept up

My skin (rising with anticipation)

And into my thoughts.

I heard joy dancing to his music –

Disguised as youthful half-smiles

And infantile cackle

And rapid-rushing hearts with something to beat for –

Thumping percussively

To the marooned melody of a nagging night-bird.

His breath stuttered and his music grew hoarse –

Still he sang, as if begging.

But it was dark

And I was not expecting to hear a song so sweet

At night.

If he sang by day

I would have gone looking.

Suddenly

His force failed

And his song seized –

I opened my eyes

And it was dark again.

In the morning, I tried to find him

But could not hear his song.

Perhaps it was drowned in the mechanical monotone

Of high technology

And busy people...

There were so many birds

How could I tell

Which song was his?

Sonnet For Yellow and Disease

Trickling slow like pus down a sickly wound

Under sunlight which once ageing love blest –

Amongst green fields where youth did not dare brood

Upon the day when Time (aggrieved) would test

Passion with age and curse the hand which sought

And held and traced that skin so pure and firm.

A virgin place once plump with verve now rots –

Conquered by hands, then worms, which all but squirm

To reach at first, that lands sickly fiction

Of love eternal which cannot be lost?

Trickling slow like pus upon infection

This ailing love dying  (now free from lust)

Curses the sun and the colour yellow

Of hay, of pus, and atrophy mellow.

The Bi-polar Nature of Light Revealed at Sea

In a swarm of liquid waves, I see it reflecting I am naked.

Like something innocent, it flows and ripples and ebbs.

I have no clothes, have no thoughts, and no home

I can see.

Here, where there are no others

I am alone.

The windswept leaves, the water, and the dust;

They all pass through me.

It seems I am empty, like I am not here when

This babbling sea says to me –

‘What deep darkness is this

Lurking in the rays on the crest of my waves?’

Lurking in the rays on the crest of my waves,

What deep darkness is this?

This babbling light says to me –

‘It seems I am empty? Like I am not here when

They all pass through me –

The windswept leaves, the water and the dust.

I am alone.

Here, where there are no others,

I can see

I have no clothes, have no thoughts, and no home...

Like something innocent? It flows and ripples and ebbs ­

In a swarm of liquid waves. I see it reflecting I am naked.’

Red and Yellow

Orange burns like a flame through

Crisp autumn leaves

Desiccating for the cold winter prune.

Three By Eight Wall

There she lay

Down by the

Three by Eight

Wall or bed.

Urine drips

Unto the

Beer trails

On the floor.

Pain is Pain

Pain is pain and Trouble is trouble.
The tear of the forsaken
Together with the fear begotten
Play the same trick upon our passion
Numb the world and kill our reason
And run amok in the same fashion
To steal our meaning and lead us on
With a hand behind us
And another in front -
Without escape
We must bear the brunt
That our pain is ours
And in contempt of hours.

Pain said to Trouble, ‘What do you know?’
And trouble replied, ‘Enough not to owe
A second to pleasure or moment to joy’.
So Pain said to Trouble (in an arrogant ploy)
‘But you are trouble, not pain
And I know that lustreless gloss
Which glazes orphan eyes.’
Trouble replied, with the lonely look of a boy
‘And I am trouble, not pain’
So I know that wonderless moss
Which obscures orphan lives’.
But through those orphan eyes
In pain and in trouble
Pain is pain and Trouble is trouble.