Tuesday Poem: "Frozen Waists"

In an identity crisis bar

they perform their sad, complicated dance.

She is mutton masquerading,

hanging out in all the wrong places,

laughing over-heartily with a cigarette rattle

while drinking her spirit away.

He is a paunchy, mid-life Lothario

with one too many mortgages

and an off night on the telly,

a car yard jackal lazy for lust.

They stare meaningfully at the real logs

in the artificial fire,

past the over-effected sounds of the solo entertainer

placed on a corner stage as thin as his presence.

No animation evident,

small thoughts veneered by boredom become small talk.

As closing time approaches,

the couple negotiates a venue

for their sweaty, tired imitation of sex.

After they have no use for each other they part company,

scared to admit that they have no use for themselves.

POET'S NOTE: I suppose it is somewhat perverse of me to post a poem like this on the eve of Valentine's Day. But sadly, in the dance of love, sometimes the hearts and flowers wither and die.

Tuesday Poem: "Dreamspinner"

I fill my children’s heads with dreams

because there will be those

who fill their minds with doubt.

At night, together, we colour their aspirations,

battling the monochrome assault of daylight,

resisting those who chain realism to two tones.

I encourage foolishness

because play and wisdom are

twin tributaries of discovery.

Nothing is too big to grasp

when you see how far we have come

with our opposable thumbs.

I am their mute Daedalus,

willing them to fly as high

as their hearts beckon.

POET'S NOTE: And so we begin - another wonderful year of Tuesday Poems. I hope everyone, readers and poets, had a relaxing and energising break.

Tuesday Poem: "Fall of the Empire"

Caesar bows his wine-stained head

to the will of the people.

He remembers the day he crossed the Volga,

his cult of personality so powerful

that the Senate acquiesced

and made him Emperor.

But now his bullish demeanour has given way

to a tired uncertainty.

He failed to heed his loyal lieutenant's warning:

“Beware the Ides of August.”

Though sworn to uphold perestroika,

the Praetorian Guard rose in mutiny,

but were swept aside by citizens

tired of circuses without the bread.

Its idealism soured,

the Empire disintegrates like a rotten fruit

as Caesar gasps: “Et tu, Boris.”

POET'S NOTE: This poem was written in the post-euphoric state ushered in by Mikhail Gorbachev when the totalitarian state gave way to a more liberated way of life for the Soviet Bloc. Sadly, the pure ideals of Marx's vision of Communism were never realised and Orwell's vision became the truth. Then Gorbachev softened the hardline and people had to accept the failed and flawed version of Capitalism. Only Jesus could encapsulate the true and pure form of Communism. Us fatally flawed, egotistical, hierarchy-obsessed human beings could never realise the purity of a True Communism. More is the pity.

Tuesday Poem: "Entrusted to Love"

The key is love

but you were born to a family

with too little love to go around.

To be whole is a crime

in a kingdom of cripples

so they sought to maim you

with violence and neglect.

The key is love

but you could not find the lock

to open up the house of light.

So you smashed all the windows

with the cudgel of anger

but the light and warmth fled

from the darkness you unleashed.

The key is love

but you tried to buy it with pain

and the price kept rising.

One more organisation whose best intentions

were handcuffed to a shrinking purse,

one more hostel where the bullies

made you too scared to be scared.

The key is love

but now you must seek it from strangers

whose heads get in the way of their hearts.

You drag me into your bitter self-hatred,

pushing me to lose sight of love

but it is my beacon on this quest

to discover you by discovering myself.

POET'S NOTE: For my sins, I once worked as a live-in Cottage Parent for an Anglican-run residential  home based on a semi-rural property. We looked after children who had been removed from their parents by Social Services because they had been maltreated in some way. Naturally, it was a very challenging job and our job was to try to "normalise" the children so they could be placed in Foster care or, if at all possible, returned to their families. To "normalise" the children, we just had to treat them the way their parents should have, with love and respect and kindness.

Tuesday Poem: "Winning God's Lottery"

Freewheeling down the Port Hills

after a morning with you,

I feel the fetters fall away.

Nothing can impede my jouissance

as I overtake a cautious braker,

passing effortlessly around metaphors,

indicators dancing in the dappled daylight.

My world has become ripe with promise,

fat with the flowering of a future fantastic.

I feel a rightness deep in my core,

deeper than any intellect can dive.

POET'S NOTE: The poet wishes to acknowledge The Press in whose pages this poem first appeared.

Tuesday Poem: "The Last Fluke"

The sea was once lover to the land,

caressing it with kisses

or biting it with passion.

The sea seeded us upon the land,

its siren song forever tattooed upon our genome.

From its deep heart it created malachite sculptures,

chiselled by reef and wind

and sacrificed in shards of white

to the beaches of the world.

And from these depths our cetacean siblings

sang to us, but we had

forgotten their lyric language.

Yet their forgiveness never waned

even as the last giant tail fluke

farewelled us as it sank

into the cauldron of poison we had created.