There is another train, mummy!
– Yes, there is. But it is not our train.
– Why is it going, then?
Tag: poetry
-
Conversation overheard at the train station
-
The waters of eternal youth
My well is deep and almost full of sadness,
its waters dark, its syrupy contents
attracting ants and flies and other creatures:
some birds and mice that sunk under the surface,
preserved in sugar – feathers, fur and bones,
like little gods, demanding adoration.
The lure so sweet: abandon hope,
abandon disappointment, strife and effort,
become an angel, paragon of virtue,
of feathers so smooth, and white, and silky,
forever undisturbed, forever perfect,
forever still.
Intoxicating poison
of sugar, death and mystery fermented –
the nectar of the gods,
the well of legend
containing waters of eternal youth. -
Summer Day
Dried tears of rain
streaking the window.
Tired late train
slogging through the dusty landscape.
Long summer day
dragging into the past,
unheeded. -
Sleeping Beauty
With gratitude to a friend and a poet, Yana Kane, who asked this question – and inspired so many others.
White monolithic marble
slowly flows into
blue, where curling spires,
gradually exhausted,
fade into sky and vanish.
Tracing intricate movement,
my gaze, under its enchantment,
takes me away and out
where there is no sound,
colour or time – just spaces
still but containing movement.
Somewhere in these spires
there’s an enchanted princess
sleeping a hundred years
and one.
And then?
[question from the audience]
What happens
In year one hundred and two?
And then…
When a miracle happens it gives you a choice –
it defies the prediction’s imperious voice.
If the prince failed to show and give you a kiss
you can give happy ending a miss.
You can stay in your own unchanged universe
and ignore the fairy’s presumptuous curse.
You can stick middle finger to human endeavour –
Sleeping Beauty, enchanted forever. -
Snide comment
Oh, if the world made sense!
Unfortunately, my wishes
in the survival race
go, sleep with the fishes.
Our present form
is but a crude romance
of survivable norm
and insensible chance. -
Tsuren’s Sonnet
Like wilted leaf it falls upon my soul –
this day that wearied me before its start:
interminably slow as a whole,
unmemorably fast in every part…
This day is full of empty conversations,
of actions I repeat without thought,
of petty, unimportant irritations
that cause no pain, of deeds that come to nought.
But in the evening burning leaves begin
to raise the flames to empty skies, like prayers.
I smell the acrid smoke through my skin
with clarity and sharpness of nightmares.
Contorted, twisted, dry, as black as coal,
the burning autumn leaves subsume my soul.
