Judgement Day (aged 16, 18, 21…)
If there was something to be gained
in being the final one,
the last envelope to remain;
if there was sufficient reward in opening it alone
to confront diminishing self-respect
or face down self-spite
or recognise the negative effect
of embracing un-timetabled delights;
if there was a prize in finally feeling free
I’d strive to camouflage the public shame
at this climax attached to me
- or apply to change my name
or seek a dodge of some unqualified sort -
and burn the damning end-of-term report.
Me, v9.0
Haunted by the simple delight
of unencumbered youth
I seek out its fragile ghost despite
knowing to search for its illusive truth
will consume my failing wit.
Chained by loss, what more
can I other than sit
and interrogate memory’s store
for things once loved and things despised?
What can I give
to find myself unmesmerised
by the vapour of how I used to live?
Now there’s nothing left to be
other than the latest iteration of me.
Première
Who would not aspire to invent
a radical new symphony of verse
lauded as truly excellent?
Queues would form to watch my choir rehearse
guided in pace and pause by me,
a conductor at the height
of his linguistic puppetry.
Romantic in the spotlight
such performances would enhance my worth,
reward me for the skill to innovate
and rise above the dearth
of brilliance I have produced to-date.
Yet persistent silence lengthens out my days
elongated by the absence of your praise.
Castaway
I have heard you sing
sea-shanties, though not to me.
I have seen you bring
togetherness, yet willingly
condemn me to live
in a vacuum of one.
What bounty can I give
you, shipwrecked and alone?
What can I hope to prove
and thus be freed to leave
this desolate outcrop of love?
I can deceive
only myself, sing this tuneless refrain,
and broken and washed-up therefore remain.
The Inevitable Covid Poem
How can it touch us all
this enemy we’ve never seen before?
How can some ignore the call
to prevent its spread? There is always more
that can be done
yet each new red line seems hesitantly drawn.
We listen to soundbites and, trapped at home,
fixate on graphs and charts, watch fears born
out, enacted by a ghostly thief
who turns wealth to poverty
and every day to grief.
Such assault may leave no evidence of injury,
but all-pervasive, indiscriminate, the data shows
it hunts us down, this most feared of foes.