Sunday 12 August 2012

The Power of the Word


The academy is gathered
Suited, ageing men going grey
Growing into texts, so bending
And swaying like overbearing trees
And those listening, lost in the forest
The frost settling on the ground
The cold biting, the dark deepening

The care only for ideas
Those of self and others who have threaded
Thought-waves of a similar ilk
Through the silver-surfaced mirror that reflects only
The image of Manifold Unafraid Man's Folly
Singular Wisdom waited a while in the hall and then turned to go
Weeping, as she locked the door to protect those on the outside

(written June 2011, after an academic poetry conference)

Saturday 11 August 2012

Ode to ....


O how tortured was
this man
How few could
understand - even now
it is still the case
[But how more acutely so]
The dying in his voice
Asking what it is
That so unites their 
prejudice
161 years on
And - who know?
...
The voice, full worded
[like a living orb]
Pierces Time's artery
...
'Truth comes wholly together, and waits'
'Language needs no shield or sword
But masterpieces'
'The plaster crucifix came of its hook,
Fell like a handful of snow'
'Life is the price of a seat'
'From the top
of my own ruins I say only this'
...
'The spiritual has touch
that which is paved'
...