Night-Winds Lap

Night-winds lap

     and there is only

your precious face

     far away, protected by distance

and the waves’ sodden clap

but there is a human storm - a-

     nother deadly raid in Gaza

Ukraine blacked out

     Dubai’s runways flooded

a patchwork quilt of trauma

in the recesses of my head

     I’m with Auden (and Marx before him, on

the four cardinal types of alienation) -

     these are all the mean vicissitudes

of the surplus profit of the dead

what other bits of me are there?

     My heart is a muscle

and a damaged one at that -

     little help to be sought there -

might as well not bother

but night fragrance

     still seeps from drystone walls -

is this the voice of Nepenthe?

     Am I (oh, I do so hope) to be seduced

become one of memory’s vagrants?

The rich get richer, 

     that’s for sure

yet what’s far surer

     is that the poor get poorer

You can bet your money on it, or your life

even if that thought cuts like a knife

      and so who cares

for anemones in drystone walls

     when babies are dying

from lack of basic pills

unless … and here is the gamble:

     unless poetry can get up

to its old craft of refracting

     the will of the people

the hidden ambition of the humble

sometimes that might have meant

     battle-cries, insults, ignominy

paraphernalia of conflict,

     memories and replays of the great flytings

life paralysed into monument

but now perhaps we can have a different kind of rematch

     so that envy becomes sympathy

hatred, brotherly forgiveness

     condemnation, a halo

carelessness, an attentive watch

I am yet to convince -

     but that is not the point

for poetry is an hospitable house

     and all are welcome

to savour, enjoy, enhance

That is not the question -

     are you convinced?

on the lonely eminence of your self

     is there space to share with

doubt, hope, wild suggestion?

I see your precious face

     and I know you have the room

but how to spread this

     how to learn to float?

How to populate this space?

I’m stuck. I want to kill

     the faces of hate, even while

I know that that’s their deadly game

     I am caught, smeared

by computer, pen or quill

While the night-winds lap

     I cannot sing

but I can speak, and say

     bring forth

                   only

                            your hope