Jonathan Beale- Three Poems

Blind date

The vision somehow tangible.

The tangent - invisible elephants;

And not yet – there were spiders in

Each corner, each crevice Invades.

The visions metallic ring.

Blurred as acid running

Down - blurring bringing down.

The scene dripping: down… down….

The outside image. 

Retained – the accidental

Viewers know and can’t care

The now stained view

There is future here told

Bearing the caustic scold.

Yeats’ torrid dream

What should or can l do with this absurdity

From your romantic ancestry? 

A new or another nation’s voice: sung briefly;

…and then heard shrieking into anarchy.

Bewildering, seen through the crystal dream.

The resonance of poetry becomes untamed -

Untrue - and why?  Forced by the stubborn passion

Of a blind passion…

…and by freedom; unleashing nature’s own son.

Then that dark menace of your voice

Through the poetry untamed & released.

Running free.  A voice of brooding -

and from that passion is born a fire

…and through their passion is born in fire.

From voices ancestral to today’s strange forge.

Why bother?  (After all, poetry is just in the blood),

It does nothing to the mind or body.

And of any just cause or value.  So why bother?

Why bother William?  So why not just use your words

for seduction to sate your base wanton passions

like any other.  Why? 

The black and wire crossing.

Of the historic and politic.

Sleeps sweat is shattered.

Now, with exhaustion.

The muse tease   

Earth receiving receiving

And beholden to the sod.  The sod

And what of life that’s peeling

Shows an idea but never the true God

Of the metre in which you write

So strangely, so strangely

It’s on to keep the sacraments out of sight

As you are so ungainly.

And why does the north wind blow so cold

And the time of man so short

Is all that glitters not gold?

Or is it not as we thought

…And then.  The day light is due.  The dawn.  The dawn

Why did the troglodyte come out?

To shop, celebrate, or mourn

Cordially chatting above a whisper or a shout

And then, like a mother recognised the time

To pass and to take the exit required

Time had passed eroded as if in lime

And left spent cold and hard only to be admired