In Hope

There will be time to take your hand, one day,

time not to talk, not to know urgency.

There will be walking times, watching the sea,

our faces turned towards the wind-borne spray.

Then there will be no need for us to say

is this forever - ours the certainty

of something understood. The he and she

of half-forgotten stories . . .

We have seen war and death. We have seen fire

and tempest. We have seen disease and pain.

These times have tried us hard and may again

crash rude upon our lives. We stand aware,

while through it all our human hearts aspire

to love. We are not blind. We have this power.

The Fatted Porker

I liked the lad. He always had a smile,
a whistle on his lips, and used to wait
and watch us eat. Oh, you can call it swill
but I'm not proud. For if it comes to that
I've cracked the windfall, fresher from the moss
than all your snow-cooled fare. I've savoured shoots
that daylight never blessed. But let it pass -
I liked him. He was generous with the oats.
Not like his brother there, a walking blight
on man and pig alike, his only care
is his inheritance. I saw the hate
spark in his eye. The young one's travelled far
to find cold comfort from his kin. But still
they'll come for me. I know which one I'd kill.

Travellers

No crash, no broken glass, no injury.
A mild derailment, quiet loss of power
or small mechanical catastrophe,
enough to leave us stranded for an hour,
is all I ask. The driver will explain
politely to three hundred fretting souls
how trivial the loss, how rare the gain
in marking time by Mirton-under-Moles,
at which we acquiesce, and one by one
find friends behind each dull commuting stare -
fierce devotees of Guardian and Sun
in temporary comradeship. Aware
of precious company and circumstance,
we talk, we two. There is no room to dance.

voices

our voices know each other in a tongue
we barely understand   words follow words
through turns of everyday   what we have done
what we have said   to whom   things we have heard
ephemeral meanings floated on a stream
like paper galleys   these   the stuff of sense
of caveats   when in a doubting time
we question why and find the answer less
than reason   still   an echo of the sound
prevails   an intertwining of your tone
and mine   your cadences   my counterpoint
our rise and fall   a sweeter music than
we care to name is ours   our voices have
learned to transcend the dull taboos of love

Garden Flower

You shamble through the garden, cast an eye
towards me, and I wonder, have I passed
from vision to perception, or, at last,
from raw perception into memory?
You mull upon me there. You may decide
to contemplate my loveliness, before
my petals curl, and passing bees ignore
my faded perfume's final desperate bid.
Then magnify me. Worship me. Enthrone
me as a goddess in your deathless verse.
Draw parallels and warnings. Intersperse
my colours with the greys you gorge upon.
And some may see, behind your eulogising,
a flower lost in dull philosophising.

Mohammed al Suwaidi's cup of tea

Mohammed al Suwaidi's cup of tea 
has multiple and changing definitions: 
a rainy Sunday, thoughtful company, 
black hansoms, London's Constables and Titians. 
No less diverse, we find, are its negations: 
football, less than gentlemanly manners, 
dirty commuter trains and noisy stations, 
demonstrators shouting, waving banners. 
He learned the phrase in England. Now he tends 
to treat it like a cherished souvenir. 
He dusts it down, displays it to his friends, 
its many facets, clever, coy and queer, 
and milks it for the conversational leverage 
afforded by his yet untasted beverage.

Earthworm Desiderata

Go flaccidly amid the soil and waste,
consuming all, returning all to earth
with conscientious pride. Relinquish haste -
for slow processes you were given birth.
Nor envy those with legs and wings and eyes
whose dissipation brings but scant reward.
Your purity of passion yields a prize
they cannot fathom. Here below the sward
yours is the freedom to descend at will
far from the baleful gaze of sun and moon
where light itself is blind and all is still
save for your smooth insinuations. Soon
the superficial world will pass as dust
into your calm domain, as all things must.

A stone of no importance

There is a stone of no importance. Grey
and warm in sunshine, black and cold at night,
wet in the rain, reddish by evening light,
its properties dependent on the day,
on ambience; volition has no play,
nor will. It does not move, though science might
demur predictably, begin to cite
particulate vibration. Others say
that Life is all-pervasive. This, if true,
negates my first assertion, opens wide
the door to those religions that imbue
the nescient world with consciousness, as tried
through aeons past, by many peoples, who
spoke to the stones, not one of which replied.