Skip to main content

Because the world needs poetry right now (and always)

Annual Commemoration of the Divine Passion


You eclipse me & I have stained the Sun with black love . . .
death from a bottle cools my ardour
for a while, until I see you again.

The damp distance is bleached
then blackened with shadows
& flocks of shrill birds, screaming for blood

Bound hands grow swollen
body – silently numbed
a bed on fire I laid upon
now reddened with burning life

In these blistered hours of insomnia
objects are like lead
I believe they are other things & less than they are
as if fewer of them would create
a stillness like sleep
— if only to dream of her again . . .

The cushions beckon in the mirror
white & summoning, judicious
the bed reflected in that fantasy land,
that round pool of hope

Why stir dust on a sacred tomb
as I lay down with a prayer for darkness
a snowflake melts on her virgin eyelids
somewhere & now, together again
we drink every breath of poisoned air
she asleep, I awake . . .

Not believing in resurrection —
I stroll through cemeteries
looking for her name, not wanting to see it
the damp brown earth reminds me
every hour we breathe is our last . . .

Victims don’t want blind skies
their toil & consistency as mortals
are truer religions than faith itself,
so welcome me as one of them — into your house.

The last star’s neon spark
will be dissolved painlessly.
Morning will knock on the window, still —
like a grey wet wind
slow day will begin to stir.

Livestock shiver in the cold dawn,
some kind of slaughterhouse morn
the blood drained dreams
dissipate, replaced by
perpetual sameness . . .

Awakened from a long dark dream,
I thought I saw her somewhere in there
the awesome force of sleep’s return
shut me down like wild song
like black amphibious wine
a hollow ghost —
peering senselessly through the cold
window of every lost night

This morning once again
on motionless ground,
& along with it
drinking cold mountain air outside;
refined air, once, our air . . .

Across the crisp cool valley — white snow
blue mountains of decrepit glass & dream
dissolve, in this fresh green brocade

Hope sparkles in the diamond dew
that mirrors the sun
for a minute
while across the way, beyond this place
despair draws its dark curtain of cloud
over the broken road . . .
another day annexed,
closer to you again, I come.

This poem was written as a bit of a homage to Osip Mandelstam. If you haven't read any of his poetry then I recommend you do. 

This poem is also included in my collection of poetry, 'Corpus Delicti.' Available from Amazon (click the cover image below).


Poetry Book Cover - Amazon Link

 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to Combine Multiple PDFs With Adobe Bridge CS5 and Acrobat

If you are using Adobe Photoshop CS5 you have probably discovered that you cannot merge multiple (PDF/image) files without a great deal of effort and manual dexterity.   If you have the Adobe suite there is a much simpler and effective way of doing it, as outlined below. Adobe Suite (CS5) includes Adobe Bridge - follow the instructions below to seamlessly merge multiple PDFs into a single PDF file presentation. Can be used for images as well.  Merging Multiple PDFs With Adobe Bridge CS5 1 - Assemble PDF files (or JPEGs etc) into an easily accessible folder (Desktop etc). Make sure to name the files alpha-numerically so that they automatically sort when you open them in Adobe Bridge (e.g. file_1, file_2, file_3, file_4…). 2 - Open Photoshop/Adobe Bridge CS5 3 - Use the drop-down ‘Folders’ tab to select the file folder with the PDFs/JPEGs you wish to merge into a single PDF (see image below).   4 - Select all the images/PDFs you want from the lower

Immanuel Kant was a Bloody Artistic Genius!

This article was written in 1999 and was part of a paper I was completing in Art Theory under the tutelage of Dr Denis Dutton. Having the good fortune to be a student of Dr Dutton's was a highlight of my academic studies and I am very proud to boast of an 'A' mark for this particular essay. I have updated it slightly and it will be part of a larger collection of academic articles I plan on publishing, concentrating on art, literature and philosophical theory. Denis Laurence Dutton (9 February 1944 – 28 December 2010) was a philosopher of art, web entrepreneur and media activist. He was a professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch , New Zealand . He was also a co-founder and co-editor of the websites Arts & Letters Daily , ClimateDebateDaily.com and cybereditions.com Immanuel Kant KANT’S NOTION OF GENIUS IN ART In an integral section of The Critique of Judgement [1] that deals with notions of art, Kant attempts to expl

How to Write a LinkedIn Recommendation

Do you know how to recommend someone on LinkedIn?  Recommending someone on LinkedIn is relatively simple, if you know what you are doing. There are many good reasons why you should recommend others and why you should request recommendations for your own LinkedIn profile. As suggested by the folk at LinkedIn: " A recommendation is a statement that is written by a LinkedIn member to recognize or commend a connection, such as a colleague, business partner, or student. People who view your profile will often read the recommendations you've received from your connections to see what others have to say about your work." For those who haven’t recommended someone before, or who are requesting a recommendation from someone who may not know how to do it, this simple 5-step guide should help you to write a recommendation without too much hassle.  Here we go: Log on to LinkedIn > open person's profile page > use drop-down menu from the blue ‘Send