Under the Ice
Under the Ice Reputedly, Antarctica is rich in oils And minerals of every kind; sufficient spoils To whet our appetites in raw materials For industries. Constantly rise political Disputes over the ownership of such rare store Under its miles-deep, […]
Venus-Plants
Venus-Plants i. (Dionaea Muscipula) A Venus-flytrap is a vampire-plant – A carnivore – designed so cunningly It seems as innocently generous In free, luxuriant profligacy As any nectar-yielding source could be. How openly it offers-up itself; Its leaves – spread […]
Xiphos
Xiphos Once, over Damocles, it swung Suspended from a slender hair And threatened him with sudden death. Now, over our democracies, The fatal sword of tyranny Is poised to strike. […]
Illusions?
Illusions? Some nights, from out the dark, I seem to see Dim flicker-lights of stars behind thin mists Which veil them from my focussed sight. Is this because I think they’re there, and so permit my brain To turn my thought into apparent fact?. Or is peripheral night-vision more acute?. […]
The Death of Harold
The Death of Harold (14 October 1066) Outnumbered, but undaunted, stood the English king NearHastings, with his close-embattled shield-wall-ring And steadfast axemen, beating […]
Natural Memories
Natural Memories Natural Memories i. Too often, in my life, I found myself Exiled fromEngland– Country of my birth And great sustainer of my dreams; Home of my culture And rare cricket’s poetry – And recollected, in my loneliness, Those absent beauties which had pleasured me […]
Sunlit Waterfalls
Sunlit Waterfalls “Here lies one whose name was writ in water”. [Epitaph: tomb of John Keats atRome]. Though water seems an unsubstantial thing Having no shape that may be called its own, (Unlike some monument of carven stone), […]
Poetry and Music
Poetry and Music “If music and sweet poetry agree As they must needs, the sister and the brother”, Then in our poems music should be found, And in our music should be poetry. The one is inextricably enwound Within the very being of the […]
Composition
Composition Composition (from: A Theory for Art, xix) When I compose my poetry I sense, Within myself, a feeling of unrest: A quiet, self-sustaining turbulence… Control of what I think and write becomes A shared experience – another brain Seems to be integrated with my own And […]
Xanadu
Xanadu (History and Myth) Xanadu, exotic name, Drawing its hypnotic fame From a Coleridge dream-shot fit, (Stirred by Polo’s rare report Of rich Kublai Khan’s resort), Through a drug-induced remit. Xanadu – or Great X’ian – Was the […]