Taking Stock

I was that full-formed itinerant
That entered this world
Eight pounds, four ounces
Of skin and bone, muscle and blood
Body and soul, heart and mind

Was I born a socialist
When did I learn to despise the Tories
What is your view on nature versus nurture
Are you brazen enough to think
That you truly do have a choice

At the centre; my kernel, my core
The givens, the lineage
Parents, grand-parents, further back
The inescapable, non-transferable
Immutable, family tree

On the outside
Birdsong, chimney stacks
The ever-flowing stream
And the glorious wonder of friendship

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Poltergeist (Diluted)

I had a thought, or rather a feeling
I was laid on the settee
Watching a Scandi-Noir TV film
Projected onto the fireplace wall

Other than this light
The room was in total darkness
I wanted to ask you
How you imagined the story would pan out

It was then that I realised
That earlier in the day you had set off
To visit your friend in the city
You would be away for four or five days

So I was alone in the room
Alone with my broken knee

Again I had the thought, or rather the feeling
You were indeed sat in your favourite chair
But by now I knew, for I had observed
That I was entirely and most certainly alone

I did not tell you, before you set off
About my falling down the stairs
I did not want you to worry
On a day when you should be happy

So I was alone in the room
Alone with my broken knee

The Noir plot line was pretty straightforward
Already the murderer has been revealed
And the side-stream narratives
Are also quite obvious in nature

And so I was alone in the room
Alone with my broken knee

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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

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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

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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

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Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works