You

You
Cry rivers,
Rage rapids,
Croon the deep dark loch's
Eternal mystery.

You
Move and are
Like a glacier,
inexorable.

I
Am waist-deep
In you,
Heart-deep.

I
Drown gladly
In your discharges.

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.

Our Love

Not for nothing
did the love that we have known
last all these years.
It is no small thing -
though we be small -
the force that flashed between us
and went on.

Unattenuated by the law
of the inverse square
which gutters light
and is the quenching maw
of the magnetic spectrum,
our little fondnesses
which modulate love's carrier wave
are taken in an instant,
with no reference to velocity,
outwards in quantum leaps
to the very rim of time.

Any lovers anywhere
could tap and live our love
with just a prayer,
a suitable antenna,
and perhaps a flair
for frequency.

No!
It is no small thing,
our love,
our spiralling,
eternal
love.

Remembrance Day

is not

about remembering.

It is being seen

remembering,

which is not the same,

especially when

formality sets in,

and ceremony rates

the display more

important than

the remembering.

I and my dead

remember

mutually

at odd times

and anniversaries,

place a flower

occasionally upon

the heart's mantelpiece

and go about our lives.

This public wallow

is for politicians

and their like,

a hoarding for

advertisement,

lying for gain.

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.

(Happy Birthday Grandpa xxx)

Jump

Logic leads to paradox,
And only intuition
Leaps that wall
Leaving the paradoxes
Strewn about the floor while it
Gulps fresher air.

Not To Be Outdone

Outstep the deadly dominance dance,
Outplay the power game,
Outstare the calculating glance,
Outspan the fingered fame.

Outspan the fingered hand of fame,
Outbid the random chance,
Outburn the double candle flame,
Outstep the dominance dance.

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.

Forward

The poet's own introduction to a volume he titled "Poet In A Hurry" - a chronological collection of his poems.

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.

Two Trees

Two trees in the garden,
rowan side by side with oak.

They have grown together,
roots inextricably twined,
branches so interlaced
the proper season seems to produce

the berried oak,
the acorned rowan,

the shield each other from the wind
and share the rain. At a lost limb
the phantom fingers of the amputee
still feel the itch of the other's
shivering proximity.

His rising sap inflames
her bright capillaries.

She sheds her crimson benison
around his feet. He feeds her acorns.

Each brings the other to perfection-
perfect spirit of tree
which occupies the space of both,
oakrowan, rowanoak.

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.

Flu

The small sad noise within my bed, I found,

Was breath exhaled against the chest's congestion,

Like a baby wailing in the distant darkness;

Baby-wail among the great cetaceans

Playing, flying, gliding the Arctic deeps,

Laying the grids of their geographies,

Suckling their calves upon the wing, and singing.

Some of the predators above, who probe

The heaving waters with their tracking ears,

Think it a sad song. They should know, who are

Of the virus that has made this teardrop earth

The saddest jewel in the galaxy.

And I, back to my sullen sheets, back to

The feral, viral homunculus fastened,

Battening on my back,

And the baby weeping in the my breast. 

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.

Lover's Moon

For National Poetry Day 2012

I thought that, when at last
men walked upon the moon
and radiated back
the arid data stream,
poetic lovers everywhere
would lose love's potent symbol.

In the event, pragmatic men
looked back across the void
to earth and saw
raw poetry.

26 September- Happy Birthday Grandpa

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.

Archives

This is the first non poetry post of this blog.

It has been my intention to include posts besides poetry. To share stories, memories, pictures and thoughts about the work. In the first couple of months I have been allowing the poems to speak for themselves. At first I was posting a poem every day. This has waned somewhat. Partly because I have been busy doing other things. Partly because I was beginning to run out of poetry! Not because there isn't a lot more where that came from, but because I have been working from the few books I have had in my possession.

However, at the weekend, all that changed. My Uncle  - also William Oliphant (son of poet!) brought me two enormous boxes of my Grandfather's archives that have been in his loft. It was always my Uncle's intention to do something with them but I think he is quite happy for me to do this for the family. As was Grandpa' style I am now in possession of numerous folders, carefully arranged into topics. I am very, very excited.