“All things considered”- A poem

“When I consider how my light is spent
     Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
     And that one talent which is death to hide
     Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
     My true account, lest he returning chide,
     “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
     I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need
     Either man’s work or his own gifts: who best
     Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
     And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
     They also serve who only stand and wait.”  John Milton.

 

 

 

“All things considered”

When I consider the run of my hours,
the pass of time, the way I angst over
chimes and chains with balls attached, balls of iron.
And dates and doom. And tome and tomb.

Time spent in and out of sorts,
on and out of love’s course
and the run of the river.

When I think of the time I have spent
half in love, in love with halves,
I have half a mind, to seal myself
away from waking eyes and dreaming thoughts,
breathless, some beast cursed for lack of purer morals.

And I look back on my life and see.

I see young men on the breeze, down near the surf
I see them stand in board shorts and with boards
as waves whip up and crash to shore.
I see a shower and sandy feet.

I see the night streets.
And ghost houses standing, lights out, but shadows behind the window awnings.
And cars moving against the grey morning.

I look on my life and I am having flashes of dreams in waking.

While half drunk on cheap Russo Vermouth
Nothing is at my mouth, but devils.

They speak and are gone.
They listen and are gone.

I look down and gravel is crunching at my feet.
I look down on my life and see it
moving.

Trains leaving every half hour.

Inside them, people in their own business
bathed in the effervescent fluorescent light.
A young couple kissing and cuddling.
An old woman
her face like a dried fruit.

A drunk with a big black beard.
Indian youths on their phones speaking their own language.

Security guards in blue uniforms
school kids in blue uniforms.

I look down at my life
and see my watch is slow by ten minutes
the kettle still warm
off the train and the wind blows up and whispers an ancient riddle
all the stars are laughing and the moon in the first house
is shedding her skin of darkness to show us….

What?
What secret have I found under the gaze of distant suns?

Stolen kisses, in the lamplight, by the sea
with a girl who used rose-apple scented shampoo
and was flirty, but not fond of me.

Sex behind the biggest tree in Musgrave Park

While distant shadows moved in nearby windows
the night getting later, dark coming down as the lights went off
and in the shadows cast her jeans unbuttoned, her shirt pulled up
darkness my armor, darkness my cloak of covetousness.

Darkness, my friend in lonely lust.

What else is the wind born of shadows saying?
Nights of labor
vast, plastic, lifeless Christmas decorations
hung to the smell of sweat
the ache of bodies,
the taste of wine.

An empty stage
the lights go out
silence falls in a second after initial applause
I step out.

I step out of the train.
It’s new years eve, a lesbian on my arm.
Standing in the queue, to the ball
the big one; in City Hall
a plump girl in front of me
grey hairs behind,
a marriage proposal at the stroke.

Morning arise.

All things I consider.
Images beat through my head like wings
Forest – trees as far as I could see; dark, whispering silences, like a wall.
Twilight, the purple sky.

A sea-shore.
And war monuments in the distance.

A town wall, twenty feet high.
Cobbled stones, streets, cathedrals on the skyline.

I look down to my shoes and I remember
the cobbled stone streets, the market square,
the turrets, the towers, the great spires, the dungeons,
but mostly and above all,
the broken stones
in the street.

I prayed last night.
A foolish thing.

I lit candles and tried to chase spiders in my mind
and found they had left plenty of cobwebs
on the old furniture I left unguarded
and dust had formed on photos in places of my memory I left undusted.

I had a dream. Of a ruined city.
And in all the rooms were pictures of people I knew.

Morning arise.
Saturday. I hear every young man have his hangover.
Bottles lay here, bottle lay there,
naked women and poor planning, everywhere
Road-works stretching vast miles,
cranes in the skies.

Signs.

“Save your sex life”

“Plan for the future”

“Channel 9”

In my recycling
papers are crushed and thrown in with the empty bottle of vodka
and two empty bottles of dry
the words emblazoned bold read; change
the words emblazoned bold obscured from gaze
by my last box of tissues.

When I consider
how my tears are shed
I pray
a foolish thing.

My heretic ancestor worship not withstanding.

I saw lately
more pretty girls, their eyes in tears,
talking in hushed, angry, desperate tones,
on their slim line, flip top mobile phones

I saw lately
the human heart, fractured, bloody, still
and it was broken.

Footsteps echo in empty stone halls
and on the night streets.
Where ghost houses stand and whisper their stories one to another.
what is that story? Where is the echo and the reply?

Where is the fury and the vengeance?

Where is the change they spoke of?

Where is the brick in relation to the sun?

Where is the Son in relation to his God?

At a latitude
of one hundred and eighty degrees
south of heaven.

Here
at ten thousand
kilometers away from Eden
I sip the juice of forbidden fruits
look down to my boots and up to see the horizon waving in the distance
off the roves of distant buildings. I see summer in a sweat droplet on the forehead of a pretty woman in a café.

And at midday
ten thousand kilometers from Eden.
The cup runneth to empty
The river runneth over.
The petrol tank is empty.
And it’s not over;
War. Strife. Greed.

This is not what was written
but it is how we are judged.
So where then?

Is the marking place of great thought?

I have no great thoughts
I barely open my mail, I don’t return phone calls.

I’m considering those echoes and calls
angels make past midnight,
things said to bare breasts and sleeping babes.

Today
at ten thousand kilometers away from Eden
I’m back in the café.

Spending my last dollar.

And melancholy, my friend, grabs me by the collar
and says to me;
unloving words and forgetful things.

I probed my mind and found
rust and dust and dreams buried
under concrete and the first winter’s snow.

I tore up the papers and bills.
Made my bed and died to the world.

Choirs sang and priests shouted
a word.

Cars started.
Babies slept.

Their mothers
wept.

Against the stones erect
in forgetfulness.

All things considered?
The taste of wine, of juice
of cheap Russo Vermouth

Perilous times
the doom
awaiting at the end of the tunnel

life ground down to a grain and a kernel.

sifted through the shaking hand of a poet
who says nothing
prays mostly
foolish thing.

The carolers sing
And Christmas lights adorn all the houses

All things are stirring
men and mouses

And my mind
hums, like a dull groan, an engine
left to run all night
till it considers

all things.

Darkness, my song and my last love
Where is the tune? Where is the melody?
Where is the memory?

In what part of the brain did I leave my hope?

When I came around did I leave my keys?

What did I hide behind the locked door?

What’s the score?

What more can I say?

To sun and stone
and sand and star
and distant lights that we gave names.

What did we trade or lose in being here, being now?

When I consider the run of my hours
I think, no more and no less
of everything in its place, a place for everything
but instead, I see what is lost.

All things considered
what is gained?

What did we lose or trade in being here, being now?

Did we laugh and love beyond the time the owl sung his last?

Were we steadfast or has the tyrant won, the world come down
and these houses are our ruins that we, in darkness, cling to?

If  I wanted to kiss would you want to kiss too?

 

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