Occasional Impressions - music, prose, poetry and prayer on the web

1. A starlit night... A starlit night - bare branches web the moon, and she not minded to romance this night, but white, pinched with old rage, peering down, clashes her hard light against our mortal world. Heaven-high, aloof in fatal beauty, yet not like to be remote from men who do and who endure. The ebb and flow of tides obey her gentle yet relentless beckoning. Treacherous power... Troubled dreams she sends, and turbulence, striking the thin chill menace in our melody, sardonically viewing our desire for harmony. jeh 2. Ediluini Ediluini believed in god and rested on stone praying for prayer - he asked for heaven and won a place there he walked a golden highway and made his way to god who saw a human matted with blood to quote a modern poet ‘Intime sympathy - flash of divine contempt for all created - exalt, praise, flash, crown.’ Ediluini said ‘it’s not enough to be down’ christ leaps up ‘it's not enough to be up’ and sits down Ediluini ‘nothing’s enough anymore’ and renounced heaven and hell as well. ijf 3. Why wait for sunset... Why wait for sunset? Half-way to the sea the sun sets, even now, in time for dinner. Why climb up high to look out longest? When sunset-time is captive in a second’s split though scarce entangled by the aeon yet. But, when it is, Who’ll see its glory set? (No, I dun wanna bet) We are not fused with this with that with this (yes - pray continue in you) Except deliberately! anxiously...? “tidily” at bus stops... missing trains; (or at the mattins bell?) Unconsciously, no-one will e’er succomb Stop probing, Sir, to free my undersoul for harnessing in regulated, freedom, normally. Look at the sun (its rays almost unfound you) And let my tired and taughtened conscious ride... emn - march 1972 4. Lazarus The first things were not difficult: To pour the scalding air again Into my unaccustomed lungs, to let the blood wake And spin again in the whirlpool veins, to boil and drown My shrivelled limbs. Darkness, heavy with the smell Of my new-found decaying (four days old, they said), Beat on my stretched and hollow skin, another's fingers Flogging and scratching me to sound and breath. But then, They brought me out. They pressed words into my ears Until I screamed, afraid the drums would split, Afraid the tender new stretched skin, Over my whirlpool bran, would split - The sucking vacuum too quickly filled. I have seen The soft pale underside of things. Why? Why do you spin these ropes of sand around these shadows? What knot of words is tight enough to stop The shadow leaking out, Eating away your net? There is nothing That can be talked about. (They were surprised - Tell us, they said, Tell us what it is like. But there is nothing to be told, I said, forgetting they could not hear me.) This is the worst, the knowing I must Close my eyes and grasp the thing with words, Learning to forget the soft shadowside That slips away from grasping, That lets words sink and die and disappear into it, Swallowing them painfully: the vivisection Of an unanaesthetised reality. Let me go back. The soft shadowside I put my hands to To let the shadowed water wash away The sticky clinging smell of living and decaying (But all the waters cannot sweeten, cannot Sweeten these murdered hands), But found there answering hands That groped and seized for mine To tear them through the pale soft shadows Into his face. O Lord Thou hast deceived me and I was deceived. (But, they said, tell us, what is there? Look at the man beside you, I said, Look at the man beside you, Forgetting they could not hear me. Let me go.) They took the stinking clothes away, and still I saw they could not hear me, except one. I said, Why do you make me break Tortured into the world again? Why Have you come into the warm shadowed pit To wrench me out? What have we to do with thee, Let me alone, art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art. Why did you Love me too much to let me rest? rdw - may 1972

Occasional Impressions Poetry Collections - The Gemini Poets (1972)