Temporary draft
*PHOTOGRAPHY, WRITING WITH LIGHT
A shadow in a shadow in my eye,
A shimmer at the border of my sight,
Quiet colour in the palette of the sky,
Spirits which suffuse and are not bright,
Sparse images be signs to mark the way
For silent powers to infiltrate and burn
For fascinating ghosts to illustrate
Those threads which crowded surfaces inter.
Discern, discriminate and then discard
Glare to draw lucidity from light
By speaking sparely in my photographs
About the numina of dark and light,
And irridescent apparitions stream
In darkness to illumine dark in me.
*THE JOURNEY, A DIALOG, 25 Dec 1999
- I, the father, you, the son,
Through man's small soul,
A needle's hole,
The journey to each other has begun.
- Into an empty room I am become,
Announced, anointed, prophesied,
To walk in desert, Death beside,
I, the world, and you, the sun.
- Be worldly, otherworldly boy.
Be lithe, be blithe, beloved son.
Be grave and graceful as you run
Across rocks to Calvary.
- I have run into tomorrow.
Passion rises like a tide.
Death rises with a rhythmic stride.
Father, be near me now.
- Be quick, be still, be overcome.
Forever still, forever run
Across the world into the sun.
The journey to each other has begun.
STALINGRAD SNIPER
This city has the name of the boss,
Steel city, iron cross.
Myself alone, a living rock,
Unstringing Germans shot by shot.
Steel city, wire rope.
Who enters here abandons hope.
God's bureaucrats are in my scope.
How many divisions has the pope?
A quick quietus as they hear me
Is my gift if they come near me.
They cannot touch me and revere me.
Let them hate me if they fear me.
I hate their life. I hate their death.
I hate them and their dying breath.
I hate the hate itself. Now rest.
You're dead. They're dead. I'm dead.
Sail in stealth and ghostly shrieks
Across the Volga and the Styx.
Ruins recede. My sight is lost.
Steel city, iron cross.
*AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU
My photo shows a big grey sky,
Woods at the end of a railway line
And where people were divided by
SS. In trees exploded ruins lie.
Cold grief hangs in summer air
And cold vengeance waiting where
Demonic things were done. There's
Not peace, but cold suspense of war.
There's not words becoming men
To speak the adequate revenge.
In space made by appeasing man
Evil is because it can,
But come the man, come the hour,
Come the angel, come the power.
*MALLORY FORESEES HIS DEATH
Awake on Everest I taste the wind
That dragonlike invaded dreams of death,
Piled stones around my head and ripped my skin,
And made me stone, who climbed in lonely strength.
Transcendent in the dream's geography
I stepped into the circle of the sky,
Into the clouds which are my family,
Into the wind where fatal dragons fly
To fall into the centre of my self,
To choose an angle of repose in air,
To balance in delight this life and death
To choose this final place because it's there,
Now clad in what I am, essential, I,
Bone, stone, Mallory.
*BOURGEOIS VALHALLA, DEN HAAG IN DECEMBER
Bourgeois Valhalla, brick Benoordenhout
Is rich with emblems and foreshadowed memory.
Haunting heron, eagle owl,
The spirit selves of Grace and you and me.
In dark and darker days and neon nights
Sinisterly zoftig 's-Gravenhage
Summons shadow armies to the sky
Signifying something is to change
Or did already change, but memory plays tricks.
Cold flares up and wind dies down,
The patina is frozen from the brick,
The darkest days come crowding round,
And in this spirit time and place
May angels watch us, Kirsten, Mark and Grace.
========================
*WHAT I LEARNED IN ICELAND
Rhubarb's a stem and not a fruit,
Prunes and muesli make you toot,
But snorchestras will drown out wind.
Allegedly (I'm not convinced)
Box jellyfish aren't jellyfish and
Greenland is further east than Iceland.
A Minister of Elvish Matters
Defines the routes of roads and detours.
Dottirs and ssons of Irish slaves
Kill foxes, whales, whatever moves.
But there's a certain charm in grimness,
Tax evasion, drunken primness,
Real men who reek of fish and semen,
Strapping horses, strapping women.
Volcanic science,
Car-mangling giants,
Fire and ice,
I think it's nice.
*ACADIA
Acadia, Mansell, Bernard, Beech,
Sauveur, Penobscot, Valley Peak,
Pemetic, Sargent, Dorr, North Bubble,
Gorham, Champlain, Connor Nubble:
I banged my head on icy tracks
All for the sake of Cadillac.
Imagine my concussive shock -
I could have driven to the top.
Goddamn.
*TOUPEE OR NOT TOUPEE
Toupee, or not toupee, that is the question
Whether 'tis nobblier on the bonce with plugs,
To crown the cranium with an outrageous rug,
Or to take ointments 'gainst the curse of slaphead
And by anointing end it ? To dye, to streak,
No more; and with a wig to make amend
For thinning of a thousand natural locks
That make a hair-do? 'Tis a flocculation
Devoutly to be swished. To dye, to streak,
To streak, perchance Brylcreem. Ay, there's the rub.
To be, or not to be: that is the question
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub.
10 December 2007
Up to a point I like your style,
Your noble face and natural grace.
Tho thigh boots make me run a mile
No mannequin would take your place.
I, loved in another time and space,
Now serve you with my credit card,
And hover in my proper place,
Some outer orbit of your heart.
I, more eccentric, more elliptical,
Twirling, twirling, unperturbed,
Less reactive, still as whimsical,
But more resigned and more reserved.
'The door is closed.' Well thanks for that.
There's 2 sides to a door.
'It's closed. Slam-bang, clunk-click, that's that.'
Ok, I get the score.
'The Elements of Style' is sent
To signify you're 42.
Good luck. I came, I saw, I went.
I had no option, unlike you.
Lady, laugh at ludicrous anger,
Lady, laugh as it all goes smash,
Lady, laugh in the face of danger.
The element of style's....panache
GRAPPA IN THE BLOOD
From a modern hotel on a Norwegian fjord :
"Sun in the eyes - grappa in the blood"
Confessing to flies - sweating a flood
Last sheet of bogroll - face in a flush
Losing your balance - life in the bush
These are a few of Finn's favourite things
And these are the gifts that Namibia brings.
Nature is calling - life is a passage
Don't poo-poo our offer - don't pass by our package
But pass us your Euros to tour the turd world
With the dusty delight of relieving yourself
At the Norechab No-Star No-Plumbing Hotel
(Ask your guide about spiders and scorpion as well).
BUY GARRY A DRINK
Buy him a drink to light and death
To choke him with his dying breath
The light to light his way to night
And death because there's nothing left.
Spill the dregs on canvas skins.
His duty's done, descent begins
Through light to death and death to light.
So spin the wheel and spin him as it spins.
ACADIA
Acadia, Mansell, Bernard, Beech,
Sauveur, Penobscot, Valley Peak,
Pemetic, Sargent, Dorr, North Bubble,
Gorham, Champlain, Connor Nubble:
I banged my head on icy tracks
All for the sake of Cadillac.
Imagine my concussive shock -
I could have driven to the top.
Goddamn.
RIGHT ATTENTION
Look relaxed, relax your look,
Smile quietly under shining skies,
Stand loosely where the others walk,
See straight into averted eyes.
AUDEN in NEW YORK
In a dive on 52nd street
The English Wystan Auden sat.
Erotic dust was what he knew,
But not the Proletariat.
Collective Man he'd never met.
Imperialism, Democracy -
Big, windy words and cheap to speak
In exile from his poetry.
SLICK WILLY
A smooth politician from Hope
Played greasypole games with his soap.
Fairy Liquid was fancy
For Ronald and Nancy
Slick Willy Palmolives his stroke.
Composed in the sauna just now:
The SE1 Forum's a-flutter
The curse "homophobic" 's been uttered.
Did a gym's hanky-panky
Make everyone cranky?
And my gaydar's gone haywire; it's buggered.
GOODBYE, MATHILDE
On Scheveningen beach flies up a kite.
Mathilde Schnauzer walks at Kirsten's side,
The three of us parading at high tide,
Examining an unexamined life.
A double rainbow draws a double line
Above a progress comic and sublime,
Tiptipping thru the world duchesa-like
And constant in inconstancy of time.
Time comes to join the circle round her life,
To circumscribe the flirt, the appetite
For plumcake and the smelly world outside.
Mathilde smells the sea the sand the sky.
She came and went and what is left behind
Is essence of an unexamined mind .
Don't look too close there is a proper time
To let the mind evolve and just be quiet.
The kite describes the unexamined wind.
The tame is a veneer for what is wild.
A child sees her. Mathilde leaves your side,
Tiptipping silently towards the child.
HELLO, GRACE
22 June 2001
We turned around and there was Grace,
Colliding from another place,
From inner into middle space,
Event horizons in her face,
Nothing from nothing, Grace from grace.
We turned around and there was us,
A fusion made without a fuss
With charm and stangeness, down and up,
Fertile fundamental stuff,
Nothing, nothing, you, me, us.
Guide our marriage and our child
Simplify our laws of life.
Define our triple interface
With the fundamental force of grace.
GOODBYE, HARLEY
Harley Hauschildt take this kiss
To catty nothingness or bliss.
If bliss, know Kirsten's man like this;
He knows a cat for what it is.
Be leopardlike in afterlife.
Bait dog with tailtip in its face.
Look straight with your unweeping eye.
Unblink at fidget human gaze.
Manhattan's numbered dawns and days
Light human and unhuman ways.
Mathilde, Tonto, Kirsten, Mark
Still move here in the light and dark.
When I lie down, confused, to die,
May some unsimpering cat come by
To calm me with his touch and murmur,
To care and not to care, a brother.
A SPELL FROM BRIGHT ANGEL CANYON
This is the spell:
Words to one us.
Signs to sight us.
Dreams to wake us.
Listen, Kirsten. Kirsten, listen.
I'm speaking through the sky,
Sky where sea was, sea where stone was,
Still sky and sliding sky,
Still sea and sliding sea,
Still stone and sliding stone,
Still speech and sliding speech,
Words to cut you, words to paint you,
Words to look outside with flat eyes,
Words to look inside with round eyes,
Words to one us.
Look, Kirsten. Kirsten, look.
I'm shining through the sea,
Wet where dry was, sea where sky was,
Still, sliding, tidal sky.
These flags are made with broken mountains.
These signs are made with prints in stone,
Bright eyes of snakes and angels' dark eyes,
Signs to cut you, signs to paint you,
Metamorphic signs to jewel you,
Signs to cystallize our sleep's design,
Signs to sight us.
Sleep, Kirsten. Kirsten, sleep.
I'm turning symbols through the stone,
Still, sliding, lullabying, Rio Colorado stone.
I imagine light and dark,
Stille nacht, Walpurgisnacht,
Satanic night, Bright Angel night,
Demonic days, angelic days,
Chiaroscuro, Colorado days
And days of seeing straight, dynamic days.
I magic dreams to still our mind
And dreams to wake us.
This is the spell:
Words to one us.
Signs to sight us.
Dreams to wake us.
PLUMCAKE
"I value the physical sensation of sexual intercourse
about as highly as I value a piece of plumcake"
- Shaw in a letter which I gave my mother-in-law.
I will not meditate on sex,
I'll meditate on something serious:
'Plumcake's' the thing in anglo-sax.
'Pflaumkuchen' makes it sound mysterious.
If you are sick in life or love
And love's untruths are hard to take,
Book Gerti for a belly rub
Or better still a piece of cake.
Her cake's a better bet than sex.
Its sultry scent seduced my nose.
I tasted pflaumen and I went
To places you don't want to know.
Some sing of Sachertorte's charms
And Belgian chocs for melting hearts,
But give me Kirsten in my arms
And Gerti Hauschildt's fruity tart.
I won't compare one with the other,
The sensual cake made by the mother,
The daughter's fruity love-baked kisses.
My soulfood isn't GBS's.
So, Gerti, here's a yellow letter.
Shaw's brain still fizzes on the sheet.
It's lightly given. please remember
Free spirits have their cake and eat it.
(Or have the courage to throw it away).
ANIMALS
Spiders, snakes, dry-humoured bats,
Octopussies, even cats;
Mark and Kirsten dig these critters.
Bats with batty ears and whiskers,
Spiders orchestrating webs
Everywhere with eyes and legs,
Snakes the poison jewels of life,
Cats-the fat that scratch and bite,
The thin-the cat that walks alone,
The thinlyfatcat danger prone.
Octopussies, muscly boys,
Are passive, active, paranoid.
An octokiss or lippysuction
Is a kind of fat reduction.
And if you want an octohickey
Tender suckers splotch you quickly.
Octos, pussies, bats, snakes, spiders;
Mark and Kirsten dig these critters,
But man which names himself the wise-
It can be hard to like these guys.
ANNIVERSARY
22 June 2000
A year of you a year of me
Until our uneternity.
Unbound and bounded, bound and free,
We are the same deliberately.
It changes and it stays the same,
A ceremony and a game,
A crystal in the entropy,
The will of you the will of me.
You know me and are known by me
And own me and are owned by me.
Be still. Recall you married me
By drifting sand and drifting sea.
Two rings will ring us two in one,
A symbol, but a simple one.
Speak simply when you speak my name.
Love changes and it stays the same.
PRESENT
10 Dec 2002
My simple present to my chosen bride
As we decide to act out chosen lives
Is a thought experiment to set aside
Resentment by defining where it lies.
Define a line. Call it ‘now’.
Define our hurt and love on either side.
Give love alone the transcendental power
Of moving back and forth. Let hurt abide.
The line divides what’s been and is to be,
Which make a mental dance with what is now,
So in this psycho-choreography
Old damage is delineated out.
Why do this? To choose the thing I am
And turn our wounded steps to loving dance.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
10 Dec 2004
Happy birthday, social worker wife,
Still married by the skin of your sharp teeth.
I knew you'd be a trouble and a strife,
But Good Grief! or just delete the 'good' and grieve.
"You can't be intimate. Our life's a living death.
Love me my cat, my dog and Christmas schlock.
I need another dog, another baby and no sex,
And love my plants and love their fucking pots.
My hurt collection's incomplete until
In Therapese you break down and confess
To issues of control and feel your guilt,
And, English twat, you're sexually repressed."
Once and future wife, here's the bottom line :
Self definition is divine, so self define. 39.
ON LOCATION
Down mean Manhattan's streets I sauntered
Into a girl with size 10 feet.
Appropriately Attired it flaunted
Its credibility in the street.
Hair-Steven G, white pants, white top;
West 10, pm, NY, NY.
Manhattan woman in its pomp
And image-poacher,little I.
My Canon's crosswires stroked its face.
The autofocus hummed and whirred,
But with a meaning moan this Grace
Stared and glared and hissed these words:
"Please stick your tripod where it hurts.
Keep trucking, mister, cease to bug me.
Some day I'll drool about your work.
Today the camera doesn't love me.
My picture's mine not yours to take.
I'm just not in the mood for smiling.
My hair's not soigne' or my face.
My feet aren't copasetic either."
It made a face to make me stone.
It snarled and spat and clicked its teeth.
I shut my eyes and snapped this Gorgon.
I stole the face but missed the feet.
What's this to do with Gerti's birthday ?
Not much, except to make you laugh.
Teach Kirsten more snaphappy ways
And make her safe to photograph.
ONTOGENY RECAPITULATES PHYLOGENY
to my unborn child
10 Dec 2000
Piscis, avis, chimpanzee,
As DNA is debonair
Insouciantly swim in air
To you, but on the way to you is me.
What will I to you ? This above all:
Let me be true to me in you
And you to your own self be true,
Then we cannot be false.
English, Jewish, German, American cells,
Deoxyribonucleic tides
Sedately twine and gently slide
Till starstuff turn angelic in our girl.
KIRSTEN'S BIRTHDAYS
10 Dec 98
On my 1st birthday I was naught
Is what they thought.
At 1 I wailed,my legs grew long,
My will grew strong.
At 2 I grew. At 3 I grew.
At 4 I knew I was a girl.
At 5 I had a memory, a history,a ponytail.
At 6 I saw sex is a bore.
Then 7 came and I forgot.
Pflaumkuchen kicked in strong at 8
And after that I grew a lot.
My hair was summer-white at 9,
My skin was summer fair.
I swam in leafy lakes at 10,
I ran in leafy air.
11 made me self-aware,
My reproductive power was there.
12 brought self-love, 13 self-hate.
The years will now accelerate
And 20 birthdays more have come.
At 33 I'm growing young.
I swim again in leafy lakes
And go again in leafy air
With my lover who delights
To look upon my yellow hair.
My lover wishes this for me
In 20 years I'll younger be.
He wishes this for me and him
In leafy lakes we'll always swim.
FLYING TO AUSTRALIA
10 Dec 99
Here it is - a flying kiss
With nearly supersonic lips,
A jumbo splat, mid-air attack
To make your flying arms go flap.
Between Australia and UK
Your birthday vapourised today.
It vanished in the sky behind
10 December 99.
Your present disappeared as well,
So here's a rock from Hotazel,
A Kalahari healing stone,
2 billion birthdays underground.
So if your bones ache in the dark,
Remember rock, remember Mark.
Hip hip hooray for Wesselite
3 cheers for me that you're my wife.
PRESENTS
25 Dec 98
Bless these little cotton socks.
May they save your feet from shocks.
May they save your feet from pounding
On the paving stones of London.
May they make you blithely walk
On the sidewalks of New York.
When the wind would bite your toes,
Crossing Tower or Brooklyn bridges,
Never fear how cold it blows
Because I lined these socks with kisses.
Bless these Japanese binox.
May they zoom where eyesight stops
And eyeball alligators' eyes.
May splashing dolphins make you blink.
Be beamed high up by this device
To lunar seas and Saturn's rings.
But when you put away these lenses
Look to see who looks at you.
See in my face the evidences
Of sea and sky and stone.
COSTA RICA
A New Jersey girl loved her toes so
She waggled her foot-fruit a-go-go.
From the side of a boat in the jungle
They dangled. Alas, she had bungled.
Croc teeth left one little toe solo.
ECL Experience Compression Laboratorium
they fuck you up your mum and dad
they may not mean to but they do
they give you all the faults they had
and add some extra just for you
but they were fucked up in their turn
by fools in old style hats and coats
who half the time were soppy-stern
and half at one anothers throats
man hands on misery to man
it deepens like a costal shelf
so get out quickly while you can
and dont have any kids yourself.
philip larkin
it fucks you up your sexual drive
you know it will it always does
it gives you all its sleepless nights
and adds some nightmares just for fun
Ersatz & Satzer arent for real
but Minipix and anal probes
will take us to a better deal
it hurts at first but later glows
the sharks are circcling all around
white-tips, great whites,hammerheads.
the hammerheads are winning now
but Minipix will get ahead
all around us in the sea
theres photoluminosity
if you think thats obscurity
go swim at night at half past three
they call them needs theyre really wants
me-me me-me me-me me-me
de-dum de-dum de-dum de-dum
and so on to infinity
but dont devalue words with slush
keep them polished up and sharp
some day youll need words without mush
to stick them in some others heart
ECL, Direct Report,
betty,craig,dawn,greg and scott
water words and whisky words
on one hours sleep dont mean a lot.
From the sauna (!):
There once was a blithe sobriquet
Which I used for my children so gay,
But society’s unravellers
And their fellow travellers
Defiled it then stole it away.
As The Stately Homo never said: “Don’t call me gay. I’m quite miserable.”
WIP/SCRAPS
MARK and MARION
She has tarried to be married
And been skittish to be British
We hope she’s chuffened to be Uffened
BECAUSE IT’S TOO LATE NOW.
God the father keep my grace from harm
She sholuld be cradled in your arms and mine
She should be guarded by our wedding charms
Held blithe between her mother’s arms and mine.
Her mother hates me.’you should be ashamed.
You don’t support my social work degree.’
A devil laughs, a twisted truth takes aim
To kill what’s true in her and true in me.
Marriage is a symbol and a thing
Which is our child and grace the child of it
To break the symbol, break the wedding ring
‘till death us part’ sounds like a piece of shit.
You will renew. I will renew. Grace will renew.
What we killed will not renew.
Still be still.stand where I stand.
Spells turn out inert and magic moves
to grace and sylvie. Wedding bands
Symbolize just words which are unproved
Things change. I don’t revoke my words
But I can see the flux
Tho promises are meat for magpies and
You’re married to me while it suits you and
The language of relationships is bland
And promises are solid as the sand
Still be still, stand where I stand.
Alice, here’s a phrase of health
To summon up your father’s help
To bar the lying smile of hell
A spell to bring your father and an angel.
This is the spell : defend me by
Discriminating dark and light
Stand on my left and on my right
Eliminating lies with light.
Alice, here’s a way to write :
Cut words sharp. Tie them tight
Unlatin,anglo-greekified
uncute acute and dark and light
Alice, here’s a way to speak:
Playful, artful, free not cheap
meandering to what you mean
By winding ways to clarify
Unlatinate and anglo-greek.
Alice, here’s a way to think
Self-absent, right-attentive things
dissolved invisibly in ink
which leaves a stain but not a stink
Way to dream
Way to live
Ethics
I do not know and do not care
if right and wrong are absolute
Or tangible like earth and air
The same applies to lies and truth
The same applies to beauty too
Ivan’s xtc
‘I wish mother was here’ ‘ but she isnt here she’s dead’
Then in Ivan’s face her death crosses his dying.
Appearance disappears. He stands outside the world.
Appearance disappears.
Make me a road. Make me awire.
Make me the fuse that transmits fire
Make me a thing unmakeme from me
Make me make me free from me
Make me make me free
The horrors men devise for other souls
So many so banal and so grotesque
I pray laboratory rats will meet again
The mind that bent their mind and bled their brain
And will devise an elegant revenge
To watch into eternity himself defile the rat
Prayer for new york
The devil crossed the ocean..
Sand island
The eurasian plate is drifting north
Schiermonnikoog is drifting east
We move as drift on drift
For sean and daniella in namibia
We wandered in air and wandered in dunes
And a rocodile river beneath a ghost moon
Giant herons and snakebirds watched as we went
To etosha sossusvlei fish river and then
Orange river and norechab south from the north
And back in a circle, Daniella and Sean,
When you travel alone or you travel together
May your journey be charmed on the road to each other.
kirsten angela boneybutt's
a honey but her buckle abuts
her hip and not her belly button
inappropriate attire around Manhattan
It isn't it's a case of mutton
dressed as lamb. I'm only fuss'n
Cos boneybutt is smooth as butter
And needs no slutty tricks to love her
anyhoot, companion mine
take this Companion to the Mind
to celebrate your presentation
in social working's comfort station
to those within their comfort zone
of intellectual disgrace and some.
i hope you knocked their smelly socks off
while I wrote this to get my rocks off.
Sylvie angela, sylvie angela,
English trees are whispering your name
Sylvie angela, sylvie angela
To make you smile for our delight’s their game
Hunku khola, bamboo hotel
Mud mud spurious mud
Mum, let’s not speak of you and me
We know about our frailty
Let’s talk about serenity
Abandonment will bring
Knees are not particular until
a tipping point occurs and then
our flexible and knobbly friends get ill
flip back to front, rotate or bend
with ghastly bulges, gruesome twists
The moral isn't special pleading
placate the god of knees with gifts
and here's the rub - knees need kneading.
22 June 2005
Wife, we've come to where we are.
Did you think we'd get this far ?
Maybe there's a lucky star
Winked when we were wed.
Trouble and strife, we got a life
Together as a man and wife,
Two monsters in our little tribe
Bouncing on our bed.
Mrs me, i never guessed
How bloody awful and how blessed
We'd be together. some tough test
For the emotionally incorrect
So, serpent mine, you're looking swell
On hissy fits and spitting. Hell,
Snake charming with bright angel spells
Takes more love than dread.
10 dec 2005
goodbye 2005
hello what's left of life
goodbye sprinkles
hello wrinkles
goodbye shenanigans
hello quadragenarians
goodbye pheromones
hello senior moments
goodbye cigarettes
hello senior sex
goodbye 39
hello slow decline
goodbye 39
hello goodbye
goodbye the life when you were bad
40 is so old it's sad
the wrinklies and the crumblies beckon
and soon the zombies too I reckon
still teasing keeps you young at heart
your elderly admirer, Mark
February 14, 2007
His funny Valentine
April's not the cruellest month.
It's February's phony signs
Of love by numbers, love for lunch,
Need setting where the sun don't shine.
'Men are fools' a wise man said
And women know it to their toes,
And that's ok, as in his head
She's fed his ego to the crows.
His funny kind of Valentine
Discards him every other month.
He buys her stuff to buy him time,
But time and stuff are not enough.
It's a funny kind of Valentine
To mislocate a wedding ring
'It isn't lost but do you mind
Replacing that symbolic thing?'
Then kiss the cobra's head. She smiles
At knowledge oh so serpentine.
He's snakebit and he's in denial
Of his funny kind of Valentine.
True minds may one day wed again,
That tricked themselves like fools of Time,
But better not to hold his breath
To hold his funny Valentine.
It makes no sense she's still around,
It makes no sense he's still supine,
But nonsense makes the world go round.
Funny ... she's his Valentine.
22 June 2005
well, wife of mine, we're where we are
but did you think we'd get this far ?
maybe there was a lucky star
winked when we were wed
well, trouble and strife, we got a life
together as a man and wife
2 monsters in our little tribe
to bounce upon our bed
well, mrs mark, i never guessed
how bloody awful and how blessed
we'd be together. some tough test
for the emotionally incorrect
so, serpent mine, you're looking swell
you hiss and spit a bit,oh well,
your man will cast bright angel spells
with far more love than dread
10th December 2009
This year's deeds included these:
We left Miami for the Keys
In a Beetle in a breeze
On Interstate number one.
Then in London Grace and Sylvie
Came to see her namesake Sylvie,
Guillem of that ilk and glory,
Ballerina number one.
Escalante mountain lions
May have seen us on Hell's Backbone,
In skinnydips or slim slot canyons
Under the Utahn sun.
Wild horses drew to Assateague
To frolic in the waves and scream
At white horse wave-tips like a dream
In the Virginia sun.
At Trickey Pond in Maine again
Grace grabbed the rope and swang and swang
And we two loons just swam and swam,
While Curt slept in past one.
That summer ended cool in Kjul,
But we had plenty logs for fuel,
A kite, a rainbow, Skagen blue,
But Angela didn't come.
In Fall we walked the empty moors,
The big sky country north of York,
The landscape that made Captain Cook,
And where I used to run.
These postcards are your birthday card.
They took two hours, it wasn't hard.
What's in between is hard, but then
Walk thru the door to 2010.
haiku:
Fake data buries
Science settled like the snow
Outside my window
for DT:
So farewell then
Proprietary trader
I was one now
I gamble with my own dosh
It's much nicer
Most of what banks do
Is proprietary trading
They just don't get it
Risk that is - what it is
I will miss you anyway
And London will be
Duller and poorer
=
Movie review for Sweeney Todd: Sweeney slits throats, Mrs Lovett cooks stiffs, Pirelli's shaved close, Judge Turpin damns kids. The Beadle's shriek-whistle, Sweeney's tipping contraption, Meat pies and their gristle, All give satisfaction, But it's not for the queasy. I'm slightly reserved about Johnny Depp Who impersonates Sweeney Like a man unpossessed. Death without depth. Fear and Loathing in London, Scissorhands in a slasher, Willy Wonka with vengeance, Jack Sparrow with razors. His singing is honest His acting's quite fine But the role's painted on him It's not from inside. The pacing is spot on, The visuals astonish, 2 thumbs up to Burton And 3 thumbs to Sondheim.
=
Grace's 10th-
-
This thankyou comes a little late
Since you were at our hippy date,
The party when Grace turned to ten,
Tie-dye to die for, thanks again.
You splashed about like hippy frogs
And scared the local bears and dogs
I'm not sure you're a frog princess
But hippy-dipping's good for stress.
Thanks for the gift you gave to Grace
And the hippy dippy smile on your face
"Peace out, cake in" is our refrain,
"Give sweets a chance" and thanks again.
Henry's Christening 29.7.2012.
Daughters andmydaughters' daughters,
Those in townforHenry'sChristening
Andthosewholiveacrossthewater,
Idon'tsupposetodayyou'relistening,
Buthere'sanagingboy'sadvice,
Who'sdoneabit,ifnotenough,
The thingsyoudodefineyourlife:
Football,trading,all thatstuff.
Self-contemplationisn'tfun;
Thesmilesarewan,thelaughsarefew.
Happytheywhoseracegetsrun,
Foryouareonlywhatyoudo.
Love,Mark
10 December 2007
Up to a point I like your style,
Your noble face and natural grace.
Tho thigh boots make me run a mile
No mannequin would take your place.
I, loved in another time and space,
Now serve you with my credit card,
And hover in my proper place,
Some outer orbit of your heart.
I, more eccentric, more elliptical,
Twirling, twirling, unperturbed,
Less reactive, still as whimsical,
But more resigned and more reserved.
'The door is closed.' Well thanks for that.
There's 2 sides to a door.
'It's closed. Slam-bang, clunk-click, that's that.'
Ok, I get the score.
'The Elements of Style' is sent
To signify you're 42.
Good luck. I came, I saw, I went.
I had no option, unlike you.
Lady, laugh at ludicrous anger,
Lady, laugh as it all goes smash,
Lady, laugh in the face of danger.
The element of style's....panache.
Our special's Obaman solutions
Of free stuff and redistribution.
Debt's up the wazoo
In the policy stew
And the recipe tastes pretty gruesome.
At Garry
Methinks he doth protest too much
about the gods all that guff,
but when he brings a painter's touch
he cuts beneath the skin of stuff.
Symbols, icons,gods and clowns
converge and clarify as light recedes,
but known,unknown,unknowable unknowns
mock atheistic pharisees.
You might die laughing if you're lucky,
I might laugh with you for a while
and stepping smartly into nothing
salute the sacred with a smile.
Raven on Blaven
Summit at sunset
Rhum Cuillin beyond
And crumbs when I’ve gone.
In memoriam, Edna K
So. Farewell then, Mrs Krubopple.
God knows why I've been watching
That ungrateful bitch on Breaking Bad
Instead of watching you.
What the hell kind of name is Skyler anyway?
Is it a made-up name like Trayvon,
A sound to wrap a lazy tongue around?
Edna is a proper name.
It means something, it means Edna.
Now you are immortal. Ha!
Not as immortal as Homer, but quite immortal.
So. Cheers to chalk and God bless sailors!
So. Chalk into chalk dust and ash into ashtrays
God bless the navy
Want a light?
Imagine straight reporting
It isn't hard to do
Comment is free, but facts are sacred
And honest liberals too
Imagine all the sheeple
Getting fed the tru - oo - oo - oo - ooth.
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
To despise the main stream media
As menday-ay-ay-ay-acious scum.
======
Omi at 80
From the Eiffel by Algiers and Brooklyn,
New York to Jersey, Gerti Berg to Bergen
County, to a cul-de-sac called Benson
With 2 tall toddlers, John and Kirsten,
Nearly 50 years ago she came.
Now she's 3 score years and twenty
Her children's children all have plenty
Curtis Hauschildt, Meg and Emily,
Trixie, Charlie, Grace and Sylvie,
Brains and beauty is their game.
Gerti, when you're two-thirds old,
There's only 40 years to roll,
So travel and enjoy the world,
As you did when you were girl.
Business class will keep you sane.
=======
Steven Hayward
A whiskified blogger is Steven,
Likes peat in his scotch beyond reason,
Not Trump's boastful feats
And impolite tweets,
Gets corrected by Lady Lucretia.
Likes peat in his scotch beyond reason,
Not Trump's boastful feats
And impolite tweets,
Gets corrected by Lady Lucretia.
========