As I sat listening in the other room

Time passes, swiftly, the world’s on fast wheels, 

it isn’t hard to comprehend just why 

we need a sort of madness that reveals 

what morning shows us, and what darkness seals

to keep us from replacing truth with lie.

Time passes swiftly, the world’s on fast wheels,

we need a sort of madness that reveals.

we need a bardic frenzy like McNeill’s,

but Tony’s at the palace in the sky.

We need a sort of madness that reveals

what’s truly there, what stands when a man kneels 

praying to absent gods who won’t deny

time passes swiftly, the world’s on fast wheels.

Were we to understand that light reveals

the hardest knowledge on which we rely:

Time passes swiftly, the world’s on fast wheels,

we need a sort of madness that reveals.

We have forgotten much, but not the weather

 In the end we all leave in the routine

process of passage from one state to next,

it’s equally for all, do not be vexed 

no one’s yet found out how to make it mean

anything that we can comprehend.

There’s nothing more we’ll ever need to do 

but wait our solemn turn and pas on through 

the tunnel of unknowable dark end.

When we begin, we know not what we are 

except we see, and hear, and understand,

some of what the world seems to demand,

and know how to keep close and wander far

until we reach the furthest we can go,

uncertainty and fear our only guides,

yet we still found our voices and our sides,

leaving us little more to seek or know.

We aren’t the titans that we yearned to be 

at the first moment when we learnt ride

the winds of fortune, and to take the tide

at highest point and enter the huge sea

on which we sail, but never in straight line,

for currents move us that we can’t deny,

while the far shore lies far beyond our eye,

and we keep moving in both foul and fine 

to the deep point, and there we wait our turn 

while greater vessels pass out of our view.

When we move on we shall find something new,

regret our missteps, then trim sails and yearn 

to join a fleet, or simply to advance 

and learn as much as we may safely know.

There’s nothing much we learn that is quite so

alarming as the purest, clearest chance

to set the course and then let wind and tide

deliver us to our most wanted port.

It isn’t that our journey has been fraught

with endless perils of the long, hard, ride

across the waters to this newer main.

For a long moment we desire to stay,

but we keep constant to our given way,

not needing either ease of task, or strain

to overcome our worry, fear, and thought.

Backed by swift breeze, and following our star

we journey onward, and no storm can mar

our purity of purpose. There is naught 

beyond our voyage, and our urgent need

to reach our goal, and take the gangway down

to the safe harbor, and the happy town 

where we can at last rest from the hard deed

we have accomplished. After weary trip

we praise ourselves for having passed a test 

of all our powers, and now may pause to rest,

and see it all as one more simple sip

from life’s bright chalice. All that task is done,

we shift our cargo from dark hold to bright dock,

and that is all, there is no more to clock,

we get a moment to rest in the sun.

We have learnt how to answer each great call,

there’s nothing now can make us sigh or fall.

Herakleitos was absolutely right

We go up the same way we go back down,

it’s the sole way all lives and oceans flow; 

a tide’s a time, and human life is so

bound by the years. We may smile, laugh, frown,

expostulate, or claim we have a crown,

so cannot be compelled to sigh and go

straight down to that one place we cannot know,

we are not saved by fame, nor by renown.

The planets in their turning do not care

whether you live or die, the sun will shine 

regardless of your short and futile cry

into the coming dark it should not dare

take you to silence, for life is divine.

It does not matter, you must wave goodbye.

All that remains is a silent tear

 On the slow train, following the river,

there’s time to ponder why I’ve sought to go

up to the north, towards the shining snow,

where I have nothing to get nor deliver

and no hope of welcome makes me shiver 

expecting angry faces, and a shout of “no,

you are not wanted, leave here, fast or slow, 

you are a taker, in no way a giver.”

Then, cursed and fearful, I must then depart 

unhappy, unforgiven, lacking any choice 

since I can neither answer nor explain 

but stand there mute knowing I cannot start

any excuse, nor speak with honest voice,

so silently I climb back on the train.

The ordinary voyage

 Plain foolery had been the last resort 

in our long struggle to stay on the page

until we dropped our anchor at the port.

Had we been wiser there’d have been report

of our good deeds, and no word of our rage;

plain foolery had been the last resort 

to find true shelter. We could not disport

with any comrades of a proper age

until we dropped our anchor at the port.

We had no choice but to fall very short 

of any honest option to engage,

plain foolery had been the last resort 

of our engagement. We could not abort

shouts of alarm at the absence of courage, 

until we dropped our anchor at the port.

So here we are, unjudged by any court,

but with an urgent need to be offstage.

Plain foolery had been the last resort 

until we dropped our anchor at the port.

When silence speaks

All through the day he taught the ducal court

the proper way to bow, how tie a knot 

denoting station, the most proper lot

for those who know that duty is no sport 

and who are always ready to consort

with nobler men. It’s thus he paid his scot 

to be protected, and to be forgot

till it was needed to bear proper port.

Now he goes home, to eat his grain and rest 

with one more day of service now gone past,

and then he sees the housing of his horse 

turned into ash, yet he’s not depressed 

but asks to make sure not one boy had passed,

and did not ask about the steeds of course.

ἠν ἀρχή κάι ὁ λόγος

 At the beginning, with a long, loud, cry,

we make our entry upon this vast stage

with one last moment of regret and rage 

at what we’ve lost, and how we don’t know why

we’re in cold air, with giants standing by

as strange and frightening as any mage,

with unknown noises we fear to engage.

We cannot walk, but we now wish to fly.

All that will come we do not comprehend

since at the moment we have only fear,

and rush of vision gives us yet more fright

at a new world in which we must depend 

on a large stranger, whom we now see clear,

and who will teach us how to love the light.

Not a Rhyme Royal

 Our sovereign, our mighty king,

says each and every correct thing 

to make us feel, with one accord,

that he’s our rightful royal lord.

But what, exactly, does he bring?

Up a steep mountain

 The last hard steps on the long walk uphill 

start at a village on the lowest slope, 

on a rough road that leads towards my hope.

Each pace I take is driven by pure will

yet without fear, for when I reach the crest

what I shall see is the place I know best.

This course begins when I am half burnt-out,

exhausted but with many miles ahead 

for my tired feet. Not knowing if some dread

might yet await, or whether with glad shout

at wanderer’s return I will be met.

No matter what, my destination’s set.

If I had done what I should have known best

would have led forward, then the coming climb

would not have happened till a better time 

and this would not be a most urgent quest 

in hope with happy greeting I’d be met.

No matter what, my destination’s set.

I had no thought when starting up the hill

except to wonder how much I could take

of a hard journey. Still the end at stake

was worth the task I now had to fulfill.

The walk begins, I have no time to fret.

No matter what, my destination’s set.

I’ve no idea who said this was a road,

a stony track glaring in the harsh light 

of angry sun. No one had greater right

To be afraid, so that is now my goad

to make the climb with no thought of regret.

No matter what, my destination’s set.

I have no money so I cannot stop,

and absolutely I may not delay,

nor take a single detour on the way,

not even at a most convenient shop

just halfway up. I cannot tarry yet.

No matter what, my destination’s set.

Here now the junction, a road that I know well

from years of walking, in the time before 

I knew what line of fortune was in store,

and whether I’d reach heaven or some hell

at the far end, but no time for that bet.

No matter what, my destination’s set.

At the last turn I’m greeted with the view 

of my old home. Then one short walk downhill,

with great refreshment of my starting will,

and I’ll have done with what I had to do.

I don’t yet know in what way I’ll be met:

No matter what, my destination’s set.

But, tired and dejected, from the crest 

I see my home, and know I shall have rest.

Made it

 They called me too much of a toff,

at each careful step they would scoff,

but still I declare 

I’ve passed all despair 

and now I’m emeritus prof.

What happens now

 I have achieved my longest-held desire

and scaled the ultimate forbidden wall,

so what remains may blend into the fire.

If I had ever felt no rage or ire

I would already have said unto all:

I have achieved my longest-held desire.

I am no longer one voice in the choir

it is no longer what might make me fall,

so what remains may blend into the fire

adding more light in which to play the lyre 

that I’d abandoned, waiting for the call:

I have achieved my longest-held desire.

At end of journey I cannot go higher

than a small hillock for I am not tall

so what remains may blend into the fire.

I am not yet quite ready to expire

so I declare right now, to one and all,

I have achieved my longest-held desire 

so what remains may blend into the fire.

suppose we choose to start again

 Now I have left my muse deep in the past 

because the river of my thoughts had dried,

and the new spring was held so deep inside 

that I had thought myself to be outcast 

by my own heart, but now I see at last 

a brand-new freshet on which words may rise 

unbidden. So I shaped a newer guise

for a new journey, and thus with a new mast.

So down the stream I send my newborn heart 

in brightest hope, hoisting a remade sail,

no longer in the shallows but afloat;

thus out of shadow I make a fresh start, 

uncertain, but determined not to fail,

I now weigh anchor, seaward goes my boat.