scarecrow poetics/essays

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Bards and Vicars?...

Like a reverend yet irreverent as such
Satire more noir than a rockabilly’s comb
The man ordained a thinker and a messenger
Delivers the sermon from the good book
Bound and flogged by conscience
Guided by voices who never give reason
Excuses made for the path chosen
Only at night when the angels turn out the lights ...
Can the desires that lay in the hearts of men
Be drawn out of the cave where they dwell
Under the duress of a higher power
They lie dormant yet pulsating
Congregations shiver subconsciously
At the thought of bearing witness
To a terra firma saint who walks alone
With only the rules once written
To aid his time and prophetic rhetoric
The collar that he wears is stiff
His lip that he curls is soft
His delivery ... Right arm fast ... With spin
Grasping the written word that lives in ragged pages
He steps to the lectern swift, a predator
The congregation hushed, anticipating venom
The poet prepares to strike ...

Stephen Monaghan © 2005.

posted by scarecrow # 11:57 AM

Monday, September 05, 2005

Your Cushion

I never wanted anything from your house
Except that cushion.

Take something to remind you…

Nothing here does.

The associations of others are wasted on me.

I feel hawkish intruding upon your jewellery
And half-full bottles of perfume (many the same).
I never noticed you were glamorous,
Though you were known for it.

Mum referred to you as Flossy during her speech.
I’d never heard her call you that before,
But I smiled with the laughter of others
Who attended memories before mine.

The cushion was my steering wheel
As I burned around your house in my socks.
In the car after each visit I was ashamed
To be discontented, even a little angry:

You were so generous,
And I was your grandson,
Yet you hadn’t given me the cushion.

She would have said ‘but of course…’
If you’d asked.

posted by scarecrow # 1:01 PM

A Family Breakfast

We found mushroom flocks
Above our campsite. Hunched against the snivel
Of winter’s Wales, your morning desolation,
We strummed with creamy fingers
Until our box was clogged.

You begged us not to eat them -
A school lesson had made you wary
Of mushrooms. You blubbed
On tip-toe by the rustling pan,
Seeing withered irises.

Unwilling to be left alone,
You confided in us by eating them
That you were committing suicide,
And each mouthful was new courage
To die happy.

Merrick Palmer © 2005.

posted by scarecrow # 12:59 PM

Outside The Window

Pavement chat grew louder, then
The carnival exploded
With a billion silver dancers.

But heads went down
And shields went up -
I realised with sadness

It was a riot-swarm breaking out,
Like a bombardment of bees:
One sting per bee and they died.

Merrick Palmer © 2005.

posted by scarecrow # 12:56 PM