All that is learnt was always plain

You’re not alone in seeing what you learn 

fade into nothing, into a vague fume

absent of meaning. So must spirit turn

from action to the knowledge of its doom.

As for the past, I’m always in its debt,

so I shall think of it without regret.

The journey up is just the journey down,

said Herakleitos, and he got it right.

We should pass onward without stare or frown,

accepting that high noon must lead to night.

Each destination has for us been set,

so I shall think of it without regret.

The youth who gazed up at the summer sky

is bald and grey, and almost out of time

to repent of each foolish act, or lie,

while grateful that his feet could bear the climb

to see reach the future with unclouded eye.

At times I lost, at others won the bet:

So I will think of it without regret.

There has been luck, and happy accident,

with stupid error, and with gross mistake,

enough to know that nothing I have meant

was wholly for my undeserving sake.

The path was dry, but it was also wet,

so I shall think of it without regret.

Hard winds have blown me on so many ways,

have taken me to harsh pain and fine joy,

and yet have given me so many days 

of honest happiness to just enjoy.

What I obtained is what I had to get,

so I shall think of it without regret.

My few abilities granted a chance

to see the world, and take into review 

how at each halt, or half-advance,

I found, and reverenced all that was new.

I saw the pale, and then I saw the jet,

so I shall think of it without regret.

I reached up to the limits of my power,

but what I held I knew could never last;

for some time soon comes the defining hour 

at which I may not quail but must stand fast.

I have learnt much from all whom I have met

so I shall think of it without regret.

I'm just another fish caught in the net,

so I shall think of it without regret.

Some form of triage

When we arrive, we always seem to find

a long line of petitioners who await

the chance to demonstrate a pure mind.

The keeper of the portal is not blind,

but chooses, carefully, who'll pass the gate:

When we arrive, we always seem to find

that there's an altercation of some kind,

that gives us all, with good words on each slate,

the chance to demonstrate a pure mind

not only to ensure us this tight bind

won't overwhelm each silly word we prate.

When we arrive, we always seem to find

that there's one traveler who seems to find 

no difficulty with grace to donate

the chance to demonstrate a pure mind.

This exercise has never been refined,

and, if you think so, you'll meet with rough fate.

When we arrive, we always seem to find

the chance to demonstrate a pure mind.

Exhaustion is almost an art

 If I could choose which way the road would  bend

I'd make a map of every ideal way,

and have no reason thenceforth to delay

my onward journey. I did not intend

such a long pause, but now I must attend

to all the beauty of this late spring day

permitting every thought to have its say,

allowing each to find its proper end.

When we begin, the choices are not clear,

we can't tell the crude path from the high road,

except that at the end we hope to find

a place to rest, and a fine new abode

for aching body and overwsrought mind.

White sour

 Steve Miller’s a man with no wit,

of decency he has not a bit.

But if you’re pale white

he’ll grin in delight,

which proves that he’s a huge pile of shit.

This was the road upon which we fell

 We are no longer in a happy age,

for all around are visible the pyres

that speak aloud the fury, and the rage

of millions whose frustrated desires

are, to the rest of us, a warning knell:

All our ambitions led this world to hell.

You read, or watch, or listen to the news,

see failure and disaster as the mark

of our disgraceful lack of honest views,

returning all of us to the blind dark 

lacking a cure, or even a true spell:

All our ambitions led this world to hell.

There are no gods or demons to command 

our choices or our failures to decide 

that halted us from making any stand.

We came together in mass suicide;

and so, with neither whisper nor loud yell,

all our ambitions led this world to hell.

There isn’t much that promises new day

as wolf and leopard consume every gram

of human fools just learning we are prey,

and weeping as the predators now damn

all who are left into a stinking cell.

All our ambitions led this world to hell.

The truth is that the lot of us had known

that we had hastened this bone-crushing force

by turning conscience into cold stone

believing it was simply the right course 

to joyful ease. But we’re obliged to yell

all our ambitions led this world to hell.

We had been granted healthy rain and light,

yet gave them up for each new shiny lie

declaring that there’d nevermore be night,

that we’d be happy and no longer die:

But there was one truth not dispel,

all our ambitions led this world to hell.

All we have left is rot and nasty smell:

All our ambitions led this world to hell.

Come fly with me

The Emir, and all of his tribe, 

said it really wasn’t a bribe

to give Donnie a plane,

but they could not refrain 

from making an Arabic gibe.

True minds may marry, but also they may not

So there’s this boy I want, but heart still yearns

for dark-haired girl that both of us desire.

Every illumination must leave burns 

created by the fundamental fire

that blazes in the heart and on the skin 

of each who loves, and who now feels the pain 

of knowing that each option is a sin

unexpiably laying down a stain.

It isn’t that we have no ringing voice

to prove each honest word we have to say

allows each other perfectly free choice

to kiss and leave, or else to kiss and stay.

Our hope is that the giving of this trust 

is not another thing that falls as dust.

The day came once, and it may soon return

The poets of the thirties all seemed scared 

of darkness coming, but the certain fact

there was no single thing each of them lacked

did not disguise the evil that they feared 

would come at sunset, as cool neutrals stared

patiently waiting to see them attacked.

When the bombs fell, the ones who could not hide

looked upward even though they’d lost all nerve,

thinking their only choice was wait to die

under the rubble that would soon appear.

Still poets’ honor is to march and serve

while urgent death comes from the darkening sky,

and for that moment they hold back all fear.

It was in autumn

Up in the north the sky’s a brassy red,

as signal of this monstrous storm’s approach,

whilst we experience a mounting dread

although we still have water and soft bread

enough to keep our planning from reproach.

Up in the north the sky’s a brassy red,

while on this hillock all the truth’s been said,

we are just noting that the clouds encroach 

whilst we experience a mounting dread.

We chose to stay, although our neighbors fled,

the basic fact is one we need not broach:

Up in the north the sky’s a brassy red

informing us that what we fear’s ahead,

as ineluctable as swift cockroach,

whilst we experience a mounting dread

feeling the weight of air as hard as lead

on our stiff shoulders, sensing storm approach.

Up in the north the sky’s a brassy red,

whilst we experience a mounting dread.

And then we’re hard awake

You know the fact that within every crowd

there’s one voice shouting that we are all wrong,

and never should have chosen to be proud.

There’s always one more verse to every song

in every language, we have to respect 

even the ones that have the chorus wrong,

before we dare to cavil, or reject 

the wiser option of a single pause,

at the good timing of the worst effect 

of this false application of the laws

regarding human limits, and form

in which we take or ignore our own cause.

There’s never need to stray from any norm 

our fathers set, to keep us far from war,

of honorable action in the storm 

each one of us sees in the light afar,

and cannot hope to duck or to evade

the monster darkness eating the last star.

Probably should have just let be

I’ve taken every shortcut on this road,

my feet remember each old bump and hole,

my heart and memory have paid their toll

so all I need is to resume the load

I bore, on the old shady track I strode

in the past days when no weight on my soul

could ever matter. I had one clear goal,

and the one gift that nobody bestowed 

firm in my heart. I could ignore the law

all shall submit to on the unknown day 

when we must choose to flourish or to go

much further on. So see how every flaw

within each being leads it from the way.

Eventually we must stop pretending

The law’s no longer our faithful safeguard

against the monsters of a darker day,

nor will it aid us, even though they say 

they shall uphold it as our spear and ward.

It’s not as if we see the world as marred,

instead we sing, and dance, and paint, and play 

the whiny flute we’re given to allay

our fears, and to teach us submission isn’t hard.

We have no message for those up the road,

who’ve not yet learnt to shuffle their feet by

the crucifixion of our hopes and joys.

We have no way to shrug off the hard load

of all the elements of the great lie

that we are humans, and not tyrants’ toys.

If we can name it so

The justice that we get is never fair,

nor is the burden that we’ve been bestowed,

there is no reason anyone would care

which way we have to go, by ramp or stair,

to reach the point of setting down our load;

the justice that we get is never fair.

No one who suffers ever has a prayer 

of momentary rest, there’s no safe code,

there is no reason anyone would care.

We can’t expect, and so we may not dare,

to reach the place where nothing could explode:

The justice that we get is never fair,

it cannot be: So long as we breathe air,

or have this filthy planet as abode,

there is no reason anyone would care.

We know there is no option, anywhere

we look, we can’t reach what we’re owed.

The justice that we get is never fair,

there is no reason anyone would care.

The Vatican called, it ain’t me

A Chicago lad, once called Bob,

chose preaching and prayer as his job.

He was not a dope 

so they made him the Pope

because he was no normal slob.

Someone may know the answer for I don’t

 Today, at least, we learnt of no new war

nor any other sources of mass pain 

beyond the limit we can hold the strain

before collapse in weeping on the floor,  

in pity of the folk whose final store

of hope and promise has left on the train

to destinations, it is only plain,

at which all hopeful purpose is no more.

At every moment we have missed the mark 

for which we aimed on a far brighter day

when we expected neither wounds nor scars,

and did not think that day would turn to dark

without regard to any word we say,

and unilluminated by the stars.

The single answer to each query known

 This is a place where none will ever stay,

since we go down the road on which we rose

the map’s not needed to show us the way.

The path we travel’s easy to expose,

and we don’t reach the objects to bulldoze 

might bring to mind the thought we may transcend 

our ordinary selves. But then things froze,

we all arrive at the same equal end.

We are the actors in an absurd play

scripted by fools whose purpose, we propose,

is to proclaim that they’re another clay

than us onstage who seek to grasp the rose

that rises from our hearts, but none yet knows 

if we’ll meet darkness, yet we all pretend 

to think the rules are broken by our pose.

We all arrive at the same equal end 

by every road at the same point of  day.

If we could strike our rivals on the nose

it would not matter, we can never stay

in a safe garden. No one may oppose 

our onward march, nor that of all our foes,

to the one factor we cannot transcend

 either in poems , or in simple prose:

We all arrive at the same equal end.

Prince of injustice, whom we may suppose

eternal ruler, that you won’t unbend

is the one law that every being knows,

we all arrive at the same equal end.

Four seasons

 In summer, the cranes

stalk the road while eating.

We observe, and smile.

In fall, the snowbirds

arrive, then clog the roads.

We observe, and smile.

In winter, the sun

smiles upon both beach and street.

We observe, and smile.

In spring, all guests leave

promising they’ll soon return.

We observe, and smile.

Our yearly cycle

is always just the same.

We observe, and weep.

I am no Faustus, I am just the clown

 We know what’s coming, it is our reward 

for each adventure, and all of the parts 

we learn to play, regardless of how hard 

it is to practice the obscurest arts

of presentation, and to fill the stage

with a true message risen from our rage.

Each author thinks they are the only bard,

the only master of the hidden charts

from which all others have been strictly barred

for lack of ingenuity and smarts 

to set the right words on the proper page

with a true message risen from our rage.

All other pathways must be marked ill-starred, 

so we have learnt, and thus we play our parts

as humans whose great hopes are often marred 

by inability to fill the arts

that are the dullest aspects of our age

with a true message risen from our rage.

Our strategy is always to bombard

the watchers with shocks off the charts,

requiring constantly that they discard 

the words they’ve dragged as if on heavy carts.

So we ask to be filled, by fool or sage,

with a true message risen from our rage.

My friend, I know you got each proper card

to cue your entrance, and hurl the right darts

into observers of both calm and jarred 

odes aimed directly at the calmest hearts,

and fill the minds that know not what’s backstage 

with a true message risen from our rage.

We answer both the victim and the mage

with a true message risen from our rage.

May rain

 When I start out, I know the rain won’t pause.

It’s hard and steady, and the path unsure,

there’s a deep river filling the storm sewer 

and what was easy now is full of flaws.

I’ve always been found guilty, and the cause 

is to reject me for being too sure 

I’ve learnt to do the job, so I endure 

the insults and the arbitrary laws

I must obey. But it’s the only form

of justice that an angry god permits:

Never be praised, but held to a fixed code 

of strict obedience to the hardest norm 

of obligation, under constant blitz 

of cruelties, and taunts, as my hard goad.

Mapping the route downhill

The road is never simple, yet it’s straight 

uphill and down, hard on my aching feet,

it’s governed only by the laws of fate,

and you know always that the rules will grate 

upon the mind. It is no common street:

The road is never simple, yet it’s straight 

as are the scissors that define life’s rate

with length of cord, direct and always neat

it’s governed only by the laws of fate 

and the immense, and ever painful, freight

born by the traveler; whether slow or fleet,

the road is never simple, yet it’s straight.

It never matters if you’re small or great,

when at the place where all the people meet 

it’s governed only by the laws of fate.

This is the outcome of each human state:

You understand, and it cannot be sweet,

the road is never simple, yet it’s straight: 

It’s governed only by the laws of fate 

With honest voice (in memory of John Hearne)

We knew the day he rode the final sea,

the five with every reason to lament 

his absence, but we knew no plea

could bring his words back, nor his sharp dissent 

from the dark rules that governed our hard past.

He could remember all, and he stood fast 

defending past and future with firm word.

When he began he understood the heart 

of ordinary folk, and his own was stirred 

to urgent language. That was the hard part 

for one who felt, and knew as the years passed 

he could remember all, and he stood fast.

He gave his last man a heroic fate:

Killed by a cutlass while proclaiming peace

hoping to build a free and honest state 

but finding that old rages never cease.

For every second, between first and last,

he could remember all, and he stood fast.

He showed us a new island as our own

familiar place, from the firmest stance 

that gave a way to comprehend the known,

and taught new steps in our slow, painful, dance.

He saw the failures, yet was not downcast:

He could remember all and he stood fast.

He made us passengers on the last ship 

that hauled our parents’ bodies over sea,

showing that he still knew just how to grip

the normal mind, and how to set us free 

to come to terms with our disturbing past.

He could remember all, and he stood fast.

He told me everything he could recall

of changing world, and how he saw things pass,

rise up in hope, and then to darkness fall.

The failure of the rich, and the poor mass,

to weigh the anchor, raise sails on the mast;

he could remember all, and he stood fast.

He saw the sunshine, heard the thunder blast:

He could remember all, and he stood fast 

Out of a nightmare

 A horrid monster crawls out of the fog,

with swollen face, and dead wires for its hair,

it rises from a noisome, evil, bog

stinking as foully as a shit-soaked dog

and unbound by a single thought of care.

A horrid monster crawls out of the fog

dragging its carcass like a rotting log,

as radiating venom through the air,

it rises from a noisome, evil, bog

announced by nasty croaking of a frog,

as it emerges from some putrid lair:

A horrid monster crawls out of the fog

its rat-like squeak alarming every dog,

unleashing rage, not the expected fear.

It rises from a noisome, evil, bog

all unexpected, yet still it must slog

towards its end by arrow, sword, and spear.

A horrid monster crawls out of the fog,

it rises from a noisome, evil, bog:

What follows from hard rain

When the rain comes not one of us will laugh,

the only one won’t drown is the giraffe:

It laughs at us, its long spotted neck

above the flood, we’re each a fucking wreck,

instead it grins, and drinks from our carafe.

As we lose we learn

 I’m not amused as much as I am shocked 

by the dishonesty of sober folk,

I am, instead, most pleased when they are mocked.

It’s alway those who feel they are well-stocked 

who weep most loudly when hope turns to smoke;

I’m not amused as much as I am shocked

when I discover that the door’s been locked

against my joy. I can’t laugh at the joke,

I am, instead, most pleased when they are mocked

by every human whose heart has been rocked 

almost to failure, which their pains evoke.

I’m not amused as much as I am shocked 

to see that not a single soul has knocked 

on the one door beyond which all souls choke.

I am, instead, most pleased when they are mocked 

by young and old. Instead I am deadlocked 

between sad laughter and bearing the yoke:

I’m not amused as much as I am shocked,

I am, instead, most pleased when they are mocked.

The day’s not green, it’s lowering red

 It’s getting dark, the time’s below sub-par,

the air is broken by a monstrous yell

but, unlike Stevens, I’ve no blue guitar 

to answer the hard notes that serve to mar

both sky and sea. Now, under evil spell,

it’s getting dark, the time’s below sub-par,

so I’m now silent. Dragged behind fast car

there’s a black corpse, whose story I should tell,

but, unlike Stevens, I’ve no blue guitar.

If had simply traveled just as far

as the moon journeys, I’d some wisdom sell.

It’s getting dark, the time’s below sub-par,

so, in deep silence, I refight the war

I could not win, the foe I didn’t repel,

but, unlike Stevens, I’ve no blue guitar 

to break this nightfall, and sing down a star

that will illuminate escape from hell.

It’s getting dark, the time’s below sub-par,

but, unlike Stevens, I’ve no blue guitar.

All fails, all goes, all breaks

 Music holds meaning long after it’s made,

far past the life of each one who creates 

each lasting sound. The player simply states

what’s in their hearts, and then we see their trade 

of truth for silver, none of them will fade

until their voice is silenced by the fates

that comes for all, as each poet relates,

when their sails come in sight of the last straits

before the long, dark, sea. The final pause 

turning to silence after many years,

as, at long last, the final echoes die

and all must cease, obeying the hard laws

that ignore each creator’s saddest tears

until new stars shine clear above new skies.

Plato may just have got it right

 If we pass into the Platonic cave

there’s no good chance they’ll want to hear a word.

Each denizen would rather be a slave

than ever recognize just how absurd 

is gazing at reflections on the wall;

instead they remain blindly in the herd

uncaring about what might then befall

to each chained inmate of that obscure hell,

for no place outside means a thing at all.

What message, be it loud as a church bell,

could penetrate as deep, or just as far,

to open their hard ears, or even spell

true wisdom? Their minds are at war

with every honest vision beneath star.

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.

my mother died this year at eighty-eight

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my mother died this year at eighty-eight

this was not unexpected she was old

year after year had laid on her their freight

none of us were certain our words had no weight

all of our feelings open uncontrolled

my mother died this year at eighty-eight

her life was a true cycle and her fate

a journey ended where justly foretold

year after year had laid on her their freight

my only choice here is to celebrate

the tales of who she was and those she told

my mother died this year at eighty-eight

the wonder is we rise to the estate

of adult human but cannot say bold

year after year  had laid on her their freight

the tears well up the flow of them is great

but living folk must bear up under cold

my mother died this year at eighty-eight

year after year had laid on her their freight