FOR NOW
We caught our breath between the seasons, clasped
The dark the balm, the cold the calm before
The coming climbing death of dying, stones
All sinking back to mantle, creeping frost
Of blazing loss, each shock of black time-tide
At once; no breaks. And breathe. It’s fine. For now.
It’s autumn, bleak, then winter, sort of; spring
For now, holds ground, wet graceful bursts of safe
And trusted cycles stall the surge, for now.
We thaw and freeze, live as we please for now
Half-turned by dread but not so sold to flinch
At bliss. The sun, in June. Like this. This, love.
It lasts too long, but still, feels rich, feels strong.
The bloom, the blue. Only …the wasps are gone.
The blighted pests, the never blessed, till now,
Have flown their last, and so, unstung, we bask
Askance, dismiss, for now, the glimpse of drought
And pestilence ahead. How far? Not now.
Imagination fails – it must, I guess.
En masse, we pass, just rage in fits and starts
At arsonists as master racists, set
On laughing off the glaring truth, intent
On what? There must be something, mustn’t there?
A cause? There never was. Just carelessness,
Our common thread, our way to understand
How slow we were. We let the brambles grow.
We let the bastards in. How slow we’ve been.
Just carelessness – and inexactitude.
A narrow focus with a broad ideal,
The layers which never should be borne, erased.
We dig for what we want and keep on saying
We’ve found it, little Schliemanns razing Troy
Like savage Agamemnon never could,
Or lucky Olafs craving summer sun,
The kind of luck that’s not for everyone.
But let’s not let that lesson spoil our fun.
I practice stopping time. It works, I find,
To my surprise, once in a while, when art
Takes hold and sends me back and forth; and through
the prose, I’m past my conscious constant woes -
and worse - and via the verse, I’ve learnt some poise,
some stolen threads of consolatory joy.
I recommend it – find your way to toy
With time’s appearance of intransigence,
Not quite so strict as it has us believe.
Find loopholes! There are billionaires, right now,
Who’re paying folk to prey on broken laws
And systems for their distant hideaways
In high retreat from what they caused and what
They still deny – they cheat, and they’ll succeed,
Why lie, but you can trade with time as well,
Find loopholes! Each their own. It’s not too late
To hold each day aloft, untouched by fear
And flood. It’s not too late to stop it yet
Perhaps… or not. I caught myself just then, beset
with hope, ignorant hope. I hold my breath
and minutes tick away. My trick … won’t stick.
I shut my eyes and suddenly I see
That Peter Crouch was stuck in Stoke for eight
Whole years. How can that be? A sleight of time …
Tricking me back. I thought I had some grasp
On that, but, whoosh, it’s gone, we’re through and past
The tipping points I marked with parker pen
Back then … still distant, not explicit, not
quite fixed, while now, though not quite imminent,
(I pray) it looms and prowls and marks the days
It haunts the news, diverts the dreams. I shut
My eyes and feel the tide, and lie I’m fine
Like Donald Crowhurst, beached and counting down.
I’m winning, here’s the data, here’s the chart
That shows I’m winning, don’t look closely, here’s
Our victory, end of history, end of times.
Oh God, I got the blues, the blue sky blues,
I got the blue sea blues, my God, my God,
We got the bluest blues we choose, oh God.
I cleared the pile of dirt behind the shed.
I dodged the slugs and slowworms on the grass.
I caught my breath before the summer came.
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