PART TWO
Hogan Games
My life has been a distraction from death.
But if I wasn’t born, I would have missed out on
the satisfaction of swatting flies. Think nothing
of it, says my demon. Killing makes you feel good.
But the squabble of children’s voices next door
reinventing games in the vegetable patch
brings me joy. Thoughts of being and nothingness
are a dead end. Games are a way to live.
The Clear Out
Now I must do everything alone
what’s beyond me will not get done,
and unfinished business has grown.
So, the throwing out has begun.
I have cleared what is on the shelf:
the put-aside on the off-chance
I’ll need them. Last, will be myself
But not before doing a dance
to stamp out the best forgotten.
I hope to leave behind nothing
save pipe smoke. All documents in
my cloud storage I am cutting
from cyberspace. I’ll strip the net.
My clothes too. Thus, naked I’ll die
as I was born. And with a breath,
out not in. There won’t be a cry.
Quartet
(Word sonnet)
I used to play
Bach’s concerto
for two violins
by myself.
having
four hands.
To be made a saint you must be a martyr.
I’d rather be a sinner and live my span.
Nobody will pray to me, or ought to.
I wouldn’t answer their requests. Unless they ran
with my vague hope of a paradise comes true.
But that would mean some devil or divine barter,
if either exist. I can hear the laughter
of dead souls as the anesthetic starts to take.
Is that, fool, where right reason has brought you?
Take a deep breath and enter the hereafter…
My last shout will be ‘ye gods give me a break’.
Epitaph 12
‘You are not a priority’.
I am told. Still not a deadbeat.
I’ll be allowed, an afterthought.
on passing. Say, an RIP.
So, not forgotten completely,
my grave won’t be deemed obsolete
and dug up to be rebought.
Charles, Fred and Me
‘It is death that consoles’, says Baudelaire,
‘As it’s the only certainty that’s there’.
But ‘It’s certitude not doubt drives one mad’
opines Nietzsche. ‘For once you’re sure, you had
no need to think about it. The unknown
keeps us sane’. I’m learning to sleep on it. Going
with the console: death will come in a dream
I won’t wake up from. I am in between
Chas and Fred, there won’t be a come-back then.
Not giving it a thought means peace amen.
A Watering
While sitting snoozing by the sea,
kids poured a bucket over me.
It was an accident. But yet
my best suit of clothes got wet.
Next door
While the neighbours and the builders are in dispute,
the garden returns to nature, and the upshoot
is the fennel-grass runs wild, choking the fig-tree.
It’s dead on the leave. The plot harbours a family
of hedgehogs which are seen venturing, in remote
control of their destiny, grace of their barbed coat,
along the street, so fast on their monkish feet,
having in the small hours a rendez-vous to keep
with the feral cats in the converted parking space,
now my jardin sauvage. There they sit face to face,
curious and curiouser. Everything’s as it should,
peace in the natural world. Pellets of cat-food
shared, they fleet back to their lot in a stately row.
Their home will soon be entombed by a bungalow.
Hogan Games
My life has been a distraction from death.
But if I wasn’t born, I would have missed out on
the satisfaction of swatting flies. Think nothing
of it, says my demon. Killing makes you feel good.
But the squabble of children’s voices next door
reinventing games in the vegetable patch
brings me joy. Thoughts of being and nothingness
are a dead end. Games are a way to live.
The Clear Out
Now I must do everything alone
what’s beyond me will not get done,
and unfinished business has grown.
So, the throwing out has begun.
I have cleared what is on the shelf:
the put-aside on the off-chance
I’ll need them. Last, will be myself
But not before doing a dance
to stamp out the best forgotten.
I hope to leave behind nothing
save pipe smoke. All documents in
my cloud storage I am cutting
from cyberspace. I’ll strip the net.
My clothes too. Thus, naked I’ll die
as I was born. And with a breath,
out not in. There won’t be a cry.
Quartet
(Word sonnet)
I used to play
Bach’s concerto
for two violins
by myself.
having
four hands.
To be made a saint you must be a martyr.
I’d rather be a sinner and live my span.
Nobody will pray to me, or ought to.
I wouldn’t answer their requests. Unless they ran
with my vague hope of a paradise comes true.
But that would mean some devil or divine barter,
if either exist. I can hear the laughter
of dead souls as the anesthetic starts to take.
Is that, fool, where right reason has brought you?
Take a deep breath and enter the hereafter…
My last shout will be ‘ye gods give me a break’.
Epitaph 12
‘You are not a priority’.
I am told. Still not a deadbeat.
I’ll be allowed, an afterthought.
on passing. Say, an RIP.
So, not forgotten completely,
my grave won’t be deemed obsolete
and dug up to be rebought.
Charles, Fred and Me
‘It is death that consoles’, says Baudelaire,
‘As it’s the only certainty that’s there’.
But ‘It’s certitude not doubt drives one mad’
opines Nietzsche. ‘For once you’re sure, you had
no need to think about it. The unknown
keeps us sane’. I’m learning to sleep on it. Going
with the console: death will come in a dream
I won’t wake up from. I am in between
Chas and Fred, there won’t be a come-back then.
Not giving it a thought means peace amen.
A Watering
While sitting snoozing by the sea,
kids poured a bucket over me.
It was an accident. But yet
my best suit of clothes got wet.
Next door
While the neighbours and the builders are in dispute,
the garden returns to nature, and the upshoot
is the fennel-grass runs wild, choking the fig-tree.
It’s dead on the leave. The plot harbours a family
of hedgehogs which are seen venturing, in remote
control of their destiny, grace of their barbed coat,
along the street, so fast on their monkish feet,
having in the small hours a rendez-vous to keep
with the feral cats in the converted parking space,
now my jardin sauvage. There they sit face to face,
curious and curiouser. Everything’s as it should,
peace in the natural world. Pellets of cat-food
shared, they fleet back to their lot in a stately row.
Their home will soon be entombed by a bungalow.