Quarterly Rant

Why do I feel so angry
When I open the Poetry Review
Is this a seriously strange strain of jealousy
Which chooses to overwhelm me

Does this show the futility
Of my fight against the establishment
That old names are laid beside new faces
Yet all seem intellectually academic in style

Why don’t I trust myself enough
To enter any of their competitions
Is my lack of self-belief raised
To stand me back on my unicycle pedestal

I don’t want to say anymore
I am already tied in knots of my own making
I didn’t leave school with any qualifications
Neither did I get a full-time university degree

So I wade in puddles of envy
I wallow in mires and mires of self-pity
I know there is no enforced duty
Except to Emerson College’s Poetry Otherwise

Which as you might see, calms me
Almost instantaneously gives me the time
To settle into a poem, to settle with a poem
Yet not with the Scottish mathematician

Whose self-indulgent dirge
Is so so similar to my own work
But hey, I am not published, nor never will be
Not by the hierarchy of establishment that is

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Developments

There is an independent pleasure
To drinking iced carbonated water
In a public house full of drinkers
Of stronger ales and spirits

Not to be supercilious I might add
But for the goodness of one’s health
Keen to work out how to remember
The detailed memories of the night before

That I can maintain the non-indulgence
For days, and weeks, and months
Says something of my spirited make up
Also my fear of an accelerated decline

And so today I shaved off my facial hair
Which, for sure, did make me look older
Now I sit, in the high bright sunlight
As the young man I once was might have done

That I did this in my own time, at my discretion
May say something accurate, or articulate
About a somewhat obstinate, stubborn being
Which nature and nurture have gifted to me

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Connectivities

I know nothing of Greek mythology
Yet smile as I read of Ortygia
And the ground she led him to

I guess the writing was queer
For there is talk of homosexuality
And friends dying of aids

It is not criminology
Which takes me to such books
Or to the authors who write then

Indeed it is a trail of coincidences
Piled as high as logs for bonfire night
With gaps for readers to pinch a way through

No one reads or believes the stories
However often they unfold
The books remain virgin, seriously unsold

This one was from a public library
Some town named Fond du Lac
And numbered 821.914

I know nothing of social anthropology
Yet smile as I understand
His leaving of England for America

I guess the writer was gay
For I have heard of that artistic type
Through charities and emotional TV appeals

It is not though missing biology
Which takes me to his mathematics
Rather there is progression to his thoughts

Calculations of my very own
Piled as high as Pythagoras’ theorem
With mistakes which invite the reader's truths

No one reads or believes the poems
Whether typed in fine or bold
The poetry, my offerings, remain severely cold

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Country Music

How many broken-hearted love songs
Can this broken-hearted man dignify
How many last drinks on the highway
Can this one cowboy ever hope to try

To be on the fly, flying solo
With eyes for me oh my
Reading those books of Rollo
How deep is love to philosophy

How many torn-apart troubles
Can this torn-apart man signify
How many silent nights of silence
Can this soulmate ever hope to cry

To be on the fly, flying solo
With eyes for me oh my
Reading those books of Rollo
How deep is love to philosophy

How many double-back riffs
Can this double-back man magnify
How many sails, upon the stormy seas
Before the swells of love are there to glide

To be fly flying solo
With eyes for me oh my
Reading those books of Rollo
How deep is love to philosophy

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Ramp Up

Walk slowly, breathe slowly
Today I want you to join me
As together we tread carefully
Mindfully, towards the light

Step gently, breathe lightly
It is a day for love
As we make our way side by side
Into the gradually emerging silence

Skip playfully, breathe happily
Let arms link in arms
As no longer alone we move forwards
To rediscover the joy of ourselves

As you step out of your step out shoes
The blue-silver streak is twice reflected
As you give out you give out good news
The guidances of space are thus detected

As you step in to your step out shoes
The vapour trails are reconnected
As you shake out the shaved in truths
The commentaries of feast are infected

Do we know who we reach out for
Do we know who we reach out to
And when we find solace my friend
Do we know whose eyes
We are looking through

I go there to go nowhere
I go there to explore the wherewithal
Others say that I seek to be elsewhere
I say that I cannot help how you make the call

And I do remember calling
At nighttime, later, towards the fall
Stretch out words into the lateness rolling
Inviting you, just you, to the New Year ball

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
of his Collected Works