The APPLE and the KNIFE
Question not
fresh russet fruit
For I, this blade
Would pierce
Your tender skin
Letting your juices
run to air
or even lie wet
upon the ground.
Profanities may assail
from the family tree
But what cares I
For am I
not a blade, sharp
well honed?
And you
A fruit
well spun
lying in the shade
for collection?
Come leap dear
We need no Vicar!
© 1982 MRL
THE ARTS LIVE
The arts live
for
such are the pulses of life
that
Words flow to create a body
whose
Veins throb with colour
in
Rhythm to a melody
born of
A
mathematical
expression
Composed
by the Creator.
MRL 1980 ©
*********
An answer to a question
from Albert Van Eyken.
If I am a happy man
if this is so.....
I am deaf
to the cries of the hungry.
I am blind
to the sight of disabled.
Speechless
In support of the lost
and feel not the passion
or
taste the smell of pain.
©MRL1981
The Song of Dawn
Have you heard the song of Dawn
Penetrating a smoke filled sky
Majestic to a new day born
A hypnotic and sacred cry.
MRL 1980 ©
An Impoverished World
An impoverished material world
thirsts unquenchable
For composers dreams to interpret
The unseen living world
To manifest in a ballet
Movements of whispering spirits
That transmit visual geometrics
individually as symbols
To express a mystic realism.
Stirring chords spin beyond the literary
expressions pursuing Natures dream
An ensemble lost in deep passion
Pirouettes across the stage
Their energies raised flow as one
Movement and music jointly enflamed
Open minds will experience vibrant visions
Rainbow coloured twisting chords
That ripple a interlocking weave
Pliable resilient delicately strong
Perfumed strands of light
Float minds out of matter
To impregnate and align
The chosen few
© MRL 1982
A Literary Waterfall
A literary waterfall
tumbles words
to splash on paper
and flow
amongst punctuation
Each line of word
amuses the eye
to ripple
iridescently
on the width
of a page
and merge
to the
sensitivity
of a
verse
.
© MRL 1982
Where there is light
there is love
Even the darkest night
is never so devoid
to be without Love
© MRL 1982
A DREAM
A dream,
Is an early morning tide
Softly gentle waves caress
the slopes of a slumbering mind
As rolling pebbles call
memories ashore.
©MRL 1984
THE MOUNTAIN.
I climbed, but not on foot
and wearied an ancient path.
Steadfast through brambled grass
Belaboured by rambling thoughts
Mindful of a high peak.
Mindful of a high peak
Beyond the verbiage, where
Silence enfolds it’s own memory
Peace in blue-still air
Cascaded as rain
On the foot of my mind.
On the foot of my mind
I trod it’s tranquil waters
To a fountain of new wine
Transmuted by Love’s seed and fruit
Triumphant over mortal mass
In spirit cleansed by incense pure.
In spirit cleansed by incense pure
I bathed refreshed, relaxed
At the spring of new awakening
To glimpse the foothills of Nirvana
A oneness, in perfection of duality
©1984 MRL
BRISTOL 1
In the city one wants to burst
concrete towers
Whose empty soulless eyes
bombard
thoroughfares with aggression
Digesting a populace
through intestinal subways
Flowing to the bowels
via sunken islands
discharging
human automatons.
© MRL 1984
BRISTOL 2
What civic knight bestowed
on you dear town
a
malpractice surgeon
to tear your heart
From its ancient breast
and in exchange
transplanted
John Wesley’s ways
for
Satanic
commercialism?
© MRL1984
BRISTOL 3
(thoughts and observations)
That Place.
That place Glastonbury
has put it’s stamp on me.
I feel it well
When in Bristol
out of place
among Punks
don’t fit
with
city slickers
only in subways
among Buskers
I feel at home.
© MRL 1981
Bristol 4
The Firm
We work here unknown
in emptiness
a living hell
our dreams unfused
lest
they explode
Damage or Destroy
a
publisher’s plagiarism
©MRL 1981
Bristol 5
The Lift
I step inside
to push a button
close my eyes
so to think
“ If this machine
does not stop”
my thoughts
will penetrate
the
Roof”
© MRL 1981 .
Bristol 6
My favourite Pub
My favourite pub stands
gaunt to the street.
Yet alive with vitality
It’s balance of humour
A serious intent.
Not in this pub stand
the pretentious and proudly sober
they drink not at this bar.
They exist stoned, cold
Beyond their fronts
With hand held can
and
Hypocrisy for company
In this bar
Faded winter flowers
Open deep their centres
Bright blemishes lie honest
naked, bare to the sky
Avoiding not the quick glances
Nor to ask for dispensation
For here drink labourers, pimps
lags and tired working girls.
©MRL 1982
Bristol 7
In shadow lit street
on dusty pavements
Beaten people sit in
buildings, derelict
wait for
salvation’s soup
or an iron ball
to batter brick.
Many dry tear
welted cheeks
appear
burnt, bruised
their stubborn
chins hold grim
tales
of torment
drowned in
liquid ecstasy.
Who mothered
these ragged men
Who fathered
sunken eyed girls
Who weeps
in silence -unknown
for these lost children
AND
Who cares ?
© MRL 1981
COME SCRIBBLE
Come scribble - you little devils!
For the empty page
Is a blank verse
A burning desert
Fibrous white
Pure as an unborn
Soul
Come scribble - you little devils
Sin on this, enjoy
A pussy cat rhyme
With brush or pen inscribe
Slaughter the virginal white
with your human grime!
© MRL 1983
Epitaph for AXEL FIRSOFF
RIP Nov 1981
We who knew him
Knew him not well;
Not as a husband,
Nor as a Father;
We knew him not as those.
But as a friend,
A scholar, a translator,
A man of colour,
Who sculpted thoughts
On paper,
of winds
Mountains
and laughter.
© 1981 MRL
HOW TRIVIAL
I stood and looked at the Moon
One clear and starry night.
And thought and thought
Of man and his headaches.
I stood on the Moon once
And searched for that spot
Where once I stood on Earth
That place I could not see.
So what of me, of me, of me
Minute......microscopic...?
And those headaches of mankind
So trivial........................trivial.
© mrl1982
For Rosemary Harris R.I.P.
October is golden how?
How near to me
the blemished leaves
That cling dearly to the branch
soon to fade
crumble and die.
Will I like them
Like you?
Run before the great wind
across the comic grass
To gather
in a place called Autumn.
*****
My love is full sad
my eyes wet
And
My tears are of love
from compassions
deep well.
©MRL 1984
I listened
I listened carefully
in silence, still.
With eyes unblinking,
focused inwardly
To the sound
of a muffled drum.
Beating in a cavern
where prayers are born.
Clear, lightly transmitted,
above and beyond
my mortal brain.
Sung from a high altar
echoed a signal
that the
New Age has come!
©1981 MRL
I SUFFER
I suffer the mind imprisoned
engulfed unknown by society
I shout within torment rages
surrounded by invisible walls
My every action timed and judged
no private thought or secret wish
Is for me alone to share
as the pen writes on paper.
The imagination aloud will tell
and so create a public hell.
For I am the hunter, trapped
by good bait - my own poison
And so caught, I must serve on
and on......
©MRL 1984
INDUSTRIAL PROMISE
A slow moving blade rips
smoking blue tinted curls
From a fast spinning disc
to cut an intricate design
As minds in slow tempo
guide a body geared
To the cutting speed
provides a family bonus.
This cathedral muses
a cacophony of sound
spinning gears, cogs, screams
Stinking, burnt rancid water-oil
permeates all within touch
The engineers perfume
a lubricator
of industrial promise
Discarded from the hot lathe
waste and tobacco debris lie
To await the weekly brush
From grime stained windows
in places broken
Filtered light shines, spills
meekly in oily pools
Feint glory to the muck
of mankind.
©MRL 1985
John Lennon
John born Liverpool 1940
ex Beatle and M.B.E.
Departed New York 1980
Cupro-nickle six
Impales vital flesh
Discord rhythm slips
Lennon into death
Amplified sound loses
Earth’s mystic beat
Playing Yoko’s love
with substituted pain.
Songs of love and peace
Will flower forever on
Echoing thro’ the world
In green growing harmony.
©MRL 1980
My Summer
I like to see Rabbits
in the field scampering
And going about their habits.
I like to see the Barn Owl
swooping through the air
A low, slow cream soul.
I like to see the cricket
being played on the green
All in white and all alike.
I like to see the swifts winging
on summer days at dusk
And hear Blackbirds singing
I like to see the mists
rise up from the rheen
To gently surround the trees
I like to see a sunset flood
blue heavens tinted pink
Atop a hill and silhouette a wood.
I like to sit and dream
on dark winter nights
of summers gone
and of those yet to come.
© MRL1979
NIGHT
In the city
curtained windows stare
at feet in glistening wet
that clump, unhurried
over pavements
neon lit.
Unknown, unseen
are sleepers above
whose parcelled dreams
lie in summer linen
and evolve un-bidden.
While, beyond
the twisting bed
nocturnal cries caress,
weaving shadows.
As night stirs it’s self alive
to merge
with clumping feet.
©1981 MRL
RADISHES
(or a soul’s lament)
O’ Lord I wish I could remember
What I’d meant to say
It was all planed - you see
That I wouldn’t squirm today
Stoutly I would recall
My earthly existence.
Explain away
Those errors of mis-judgement
As being perpetrated by others
Not yet here today
But now, I stand here naked
Stripped of a bodies mind
With naught
But a dirty soul to show
Of my life with mankind
A battered dustbin
Is at my side
Stuffed with dusty records
and the broken dreams of life.
I see Gabriel has a ledger Lord
and shaking his head
Shouting at me
Earth being 1 trillion, 9 hundred billion and 43
O Lord is that really me?
Now he’s pointing down
To hell
At a figure writhing in a bed
Its Me, it’s me
I’m not really Dead
Sorry Lord
it must have been last nights
Radishes
That brought things to ahead!
© MRL 1982
SIMPLE LOVE
A silent single tear
shed at the grave.
--
An act
given unasked.
--
The smile in a new Mother’s eye
--
A gentle touch
--
The sharing of a happy thought
1986
The Night Stroller
Bright light of day. Shine not on me
Roll behind your darkest cloud.
Let me have a starlit cloak
With soft pale shimmering Moon
To be my guide
Along the path and through
The Night.
Let me see the woodlands
In their deep dark majesty
Standing proud, tall, stout, bold
trunks with limbs upheld, branches
Point like craggy old mens fingers,
upwards, whilst wild whispering,
swaying grasses dance.
Let me feel the cool breeze
fanning, murmuring across
A tree filled park, carrying
screeches from perch to perch.
Owl calling an eerie cry to awake
A slumbering towns populace.
Let me be aware of dewy plants
sweet sharp scented, wafts
Through clear night air, breathes
As a gentle breath to disinfect.
The awesome buildings on broken
skyline, disturbing and unplanned
By Eve’s good hand.
©1979 MRL
The Sea She
At night
I hear her call
faintly on the breeze
I taste salted tears
(in memory)
I know her face
is torn
Wretched as she rises
on the tide
near every shore
Forbidden from its land
childless this mother
empty
under the sky
And
hungrily she waits
for you, for me.
Our Mother
the Sea She
©MRL 30-03 1984
THE STORM
A howling chimney wind
Stirs tempers to break
Hum drum shouts monotony
Dogs and women whine
Dust clouds rise coarsely
Bottles clatter, crash, bang.
Doors shut with a slam
No finesse in clamour
The adrenalin feet stamp
Frustration on loose boards
Rooms shrink into cupboards
As minds become claustrophobic.
©MRL 1981
The all inspiring spirits cry
In silence , their beams radiate
And charge pens
To write single lines without ends
Cool pain sits central on the brow
While inspiration burns the mind
Secreted in curious unspoken lines
©MRL 1981 .
This Woman
We do talk of things ......us
and think in unspoken prayer
of things that matter much
We wonder often in surprise
when one speaks
the other’s thoughts Aloud
For she’s the other half of the brain
the bottom lip of the jaw
The smiling eye of weeping tears
that grieves not
For the happy other half
This woman we belong.
©MRL1981 .
Unemployed in England
Months fly in
Interrupted sleep
That awakes the eye
To the sun
and early tea
Long won.
Urgency
lies fallow.
Employment gone
The week has two Sundays,
a Wednesday and
a Giro day.
No pain
or guilt
No - not now
the ‘if’s or ‘buts’
and yet
We wonder
What we spent
The high income on?
or differently
How did we find
the time
to work?
©MRL 1982
Two snippets
More than one..
Is there more than one of me
Inside this head computes
Two answers to a question
So sows a seed of doubt
Who is
writing this now!
©MRL 1983
This my cell five by five
or thereabouts
Where dreams are created
Amid walls half painted white
A workshop, a bench , a vice
a chair, a table
a carpeted floor
A comfortable base from which
to work.
© MRL 1983
