TO A DESCENDANT READING MY POEMS

Looking for me?

I posed for posterity.

I used words to cover my tracks.

Did my sincerity

sufficiently conceal my truth?

Can you deduce what I was then

from idiosyncratic verses

and a few ambiguous titles?

Can you deduce what I am now

from what you have deduced from then?

Is that too much like sifting ancient light

to find a long-gone distant star?

Then, I was X (I marked my spot)

modified by youth and age and vanity

and love and suffering and indifference.

Now, I am X modified by my purposes,

as you are Y trapped in your own contexts.

Where X equals Pure Me,

and Y equals Pure You,

there is nothing stands between us,

only time.

Finding The Join

If
You can't,
You won't.

But if
you are curious
about what happens
between
twenty-three-sixty
and
treble-oh-oh,

or
what goes into
the crack separating
the last of May
from
the first of June,

then
you are in for
a lifetime of
sideroads and
alleyways
and strange people
and stranger
experiences and

finally,
perhaps after you die,
it will all
become clear and

you
will
understand.

1984

woil

My War So Long Ago

image from the Peace Pledge Union www.ppu.org.uk 

My station built,
So many round me leading
And I not led.

My living spilt,
So many round me bleeding
And I unbled.

My sorrow's quilt,
So many round me crying,
My tears unshed.

My touch of guilt,
So many round me dying
And I not dead.

For Robin Oliphant 1933 - 2015

Today we say goodbye to Robin Oliphant, Artist (and Grandpa's wee brother) who died on Sunday 8th March at the age of 81.

The Magic Door

Step lightly through the magic door to friends,
Nor yet regret the room you are to leave.
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Though going, and your imprint's loss offends,
And you ever reluctant to bereave,
Step lightly through the magic door to friends.

And if the blanket of the past descends,
Seduces you to sorrow and to grieve,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Those old men cashing wisdom's dividends,
Recalling what a foreguard can achieve,
Step lightly through the magic door to friends.

And, seeing with perception that transcends
The images myopic eyes perceive,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Consider then, as your last pace impends,
The greetings you are likely to receive.
Step lightly through the magic door to friends,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Forgiveness

I have just returned from a visit to the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz- Birkenau. I blog about it here and include this poem.  
It seems appropriate to post the poem again here too. Jude x






A curtain corner raised,
I witnessed Jews,
enlightened since their passage
through the Auschwitz ovens,
rescuing former camp guards
from the stinking pits
remorse had dug for them.

I bring it to your attention
you bombers, you famine makers,
you adjusters of populations.
These children you kill
might learn, by this light,
a love which, brought to bear,
could drive you screaming mad.

Funeral In Lewis

We lowered the coffin ourselves into

the grave and threw the cords on top.

Sea-wind, gentle for Lewis, stroked

my face. The poem sounded right

and I consigned John's body to

the raw, cleansing earth and commended

his spirit to the love of our

ancestors. Amen. Nor was that

pretentious. I could have accepted

his saying the same over me.

We did the filling-in ourselves

and left the old grave-keeping man

treading the turfs across the scar,

stooped, deliberate, at home

among the random headstones.

Crossing The Minch, and on that long

car journey south from Ullapool

I thought about the funeral.

I thought it was an honest one.

I think it was an honest one.

Are You Listening?

Paying attention
one to another
lights us up
blows the breath of life
up our noses.

Being dead
doesn't mean
we've gone away.
It merely means
we're paying attention
to something else.

Forgiveness

Seems apt to post this again...upon the death of Margaret Thatcher

A curtain corner raised,
I witnessed Jews,
enlightened since their passage
through the Auschwitz ovens,
rescuing former camp guards
from the stinking pits
remorse had dug for them.

I bring it to your attention
you bombers, you famine makers,
you adjusters of populations.
These children you kill
might learn, by this light,
a love which, brought to bear,
could drive you screaming mad.

Forgiveness

A curtain corner raised,
I witnessed Jews,
enlightened since their passage
through the Auschwitz ovens,
rescuing former camp guards
from the stinking pits
remorse had dug for them.

I bring it to your attention
you bombers, you famine makers,
you adjusters of populations.
These children you kill
might learn, by this light,
a love which, brought to bear,
could drive you screaming mad.

Over The Top

His serial-numbered shell

Took out the whole platoon,

Bayonets and pipes and kilts and all.

The stifled battle-cry,

Vaguely Gaelic, burning

With the aftertaste of rum,

Voiced the ancient barbarity

Regimentally nurtured

In the 'Ladies From Hell.'

The shrieking axe bit deep,

Hacked the post-death sentience

To a sliver of awareness.

The clenched discarnate soul

Focused a consciousness

Frozen in mid-leap.

A cry of ritual aggression

Silently screaming

Down eternity.

A Confusion of Dead Friends

Since it is Samhain - and our friends are closer than usual

All my friends are dead.
No, no that's badly put.
I don't mean all my friends
are dead, I mean
I don't mean all the friends
I had are dead,
have died, I mean,
I mean my friends
are dead, were dead
before they were
my friends.

I'm sorry to confuse you,
but they'll know
what I mean,
I think.

The Magic Door

Step lightly through the magic door to friends,
Nor yet regret the room you are to leave.
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Though going, and your imprint's loss offends,
And you ever reluctant to bereave,
Step lightly through the magic door to friends.

And if the blanket of the past descends,
Seduces you to sorrow and to grieve,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Those old men cashing wisdom's dividends,
Recalling what a foreguard can achieve,
Step lightly through the magic door to friends.

And, seeing with perception that transcends
The images myopic eyes perceive,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Consider then, as your last pace impends,
The greetings you are likely to receive.
Step lightly through the magic door to friends,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

A Confusion of Dead Friends

All my friends are dead.
No, no that's badly put.
I don't mean all my friends
are dead, I mean
I don't mean all the friends
I had are dead,
have died, I mean,
I mean my friends
are dead, were dead
before they were
my friends.

I'm sorry to confuse you,
but they'll know
what I mean,
I think.

Walking By

I was a quiet man, not long retired
from a quiet job, and glad to be above
Contention, out of the race
where electronic timers digitise
a micro-second's worth of failure,
and mark your credit rating down.

I was no threat to anyone,
and was astonished when the bottle hit
my head and knocked me out, and when
the jagged stump, thrust at my face,
severed the jugular as I went down
and emptied out my life into the sheugh.

It was a frightened little boy,
machoed by booze to flaunt his adulthood
who flailed and justifed his 18 years.
"Wisnae ma fault" he told the sarge,
"Fur ahwis bevvied oot ma skull,
n this auld bastard jis' walked by."

I shall die in this old Scottish house... (untitled)

I shall die in this old Scottish house
And may be privileged to meet
The one who walks on soundless feet,
Ghost lady in the crimson blouse.

Perhaps she will invite me to
Her astral equivalent of tea,
A mutual, frank telepathy,
A quiet interchange of view,

From which I shall emerge to face
And balance roundabouts and swings,
And keep a guardian eye on things,
Ancestral spirit of the place.

The gardener or the architect
Who took no chances with the fates
And planted rowans at the gates
Did well to keep the evils checked;

Whilst I, whom History designates,
Will house and home and you protect.

The Magic Door

Step lightly through the magic door to friends,
Nor yet regret the room you are to leave.
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Though going, and your imprint's loss offends,
And you ever reluctant to bereave,
Step lightly through the magic door to friends.

And if the blanket of the past descends,
Seduces you to sorrow and to grieve,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Those old men cashing wisdom's dividends,
Recalling what a foreguard can achieve,
Step lightly through the magic door to friends.

And, seeing with perception that transcends
The images myopic eyes perceive,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Consider then, as your last pace impends,
The greetings you are likely to receive.
Step lightly through the magic door to friends,
Dream more of new beginnings than of ends.

Child

If you, child, hurt,
I, compassion, bleed,
My arms enfold.

If you, child, hunger,
I, provider, feed,
My bread your gold.

If you, child, sicken,
I, physician, heed,
Your fever hold.

If you, child, die,
I, Death, intercede,
My cloak your fold.

Ophelia OD (spoken in the poet's own voice)

Final Communication

I swore that
when I died
I'd move the halls
of heaven and hell
to struggle back
and tell my loved ones
how I'd fared.

I hadn't bargained
on being changed
so much by freedom
especially
freedom from
the self.

If I went back,
who would I say
I was?