{"id":978,"date":"2016-11-25T18:44:50","date_gmt":"2016-11-25T18:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olioweb.me.uk\/wordpress_marcus\/?p=978"},"modified":"2024-08-19T15:56:28","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T15:56:28","slug":"poems-of-the-month-december-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/?p=978","title":{"rendered":"Poems of the Month, December 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

For NAVID<\/strong>
\nmy young Afghan neighbour
\nnieuwe hoop voor CB <\/em><\/p>\n

I love the Autumn
\nwhen chestnuts fall
\nand Belgian Boys
\nplay bat and Ball.<\/p>\n

Chicago girls
\nare hot and sweet
\nbut Brugean lads
\nare hard to beat.<\/p>\n

I am neither Blue nor Green.
\nI do not fight with oar and clubs
\nbut take my bath on Sunday morn
\nand gaze at Mary’s soft round cubs.<\/p>\n

anoniem<\/p>\n

\n

THANKSGIVING<\/strong>
\nBelgium, November ’16.<\/em>
\n a sample of recent work<\/em>
\n for Jason & Diane’s poetry circle<\/em><\/p>\n

KNOWING I will not pick up
\nan alcoholic drink today
\nfills me with joy and courage
\nto forge ahead undaunted
\nfor another twelve hours.<\/p>\n

I’ve heard the Call at last –
\nblackbirds whistling NAB
\non our garden wall.<\/p>\n

Murphy’s Law is operating:
\nmy keyboard jumps at every opportunity.<\/p>\n

Thank you Amida my Beloved
\nfor bringing DAVID with his whistling ears
\nsafely to Van Volden.<\/p>\n

WAPEN-STILSTAND
\n(a Flemish word for Armistice:
\npermission to stop shooting
\ntill Hitler appears in 39.)
\n‘You must be joking,
\nbut I admit the threat is real.’<\/p>\n

I adore the skirl of bagpipes
\ncharging over the top,
\nsweating and stumbling until we drop.<\/p>\n

Why no lasting peace? Vrede verdomme!
\n‘When will they ever learn,
\nfriends George Vermeersch and Jacques Blomme,
\nthe oldest soldiers in our street
\nstumbling with sticks and tortured feet?’<\/p>\n

Went to the round up after a busy day
\nand heard our Little Mother say
\n(the mascot of our tight-knit group)
\n‘Non voglio whisky, give me soup.’
\nWe saw Saint Peter wash the dishes.<\/p>\n

Many seeds were planted in that Irish bog,
\nundrained in San Francisco fog.
\nWent home to Mary, slept like a blessed log.<\/p>\n

Oh for a king-size bed like yours
\nand travellers snoring on the floors.
\nNine eleven 16. God save the Queen.<\/p>\n

\n

THE AFTERLIFE<\/strong>
\nYear of the Monkey hush-hush<\/em><\/p>\n

Fanny lived to sixty
\nwhile John was picking grapes
\nin the yards of Pennsylvania
\nwith Darwin and the Apes.<\/p>\n

Maria has a GODDESS,
\nher Name is ‘Mother Earth’
\nShe gives us food and clothing
\nand brings us to a birth.<\/p>\n

We’ve built a WALL around our ‘town’
\nto keep the children out –
\non Monday morns in autumn
\nthey love to twist and shout.<\/p>\n

For John, Max and Navid,<\/em>
\n the Johnsons, Misty and Tarika.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

MOUNTAINS VIEWED FROM AFAR<\/strong>
\nSeventeeners written in Connemara 02.09.16<\/em><\/p>\n

The distant mountains seen through a giant window – almost touchable.<\/p>\n

I can imagine Rita finding them eminently climbable.<\/p>\n

Gazing at mountains is good for the soul, but climbing them is better.<\/p>\n

There’s hardly a mountain in the West Rita’s friend Peter hasn’t climbed.<\/p>\n

Wittgenstein and the Prince of Montenegro – both of them settled here.<\/p>\n

Unfailingly Rita leads us to the Apple Pie Shop of Leenaun.<\/p>\n

With mountains of cream and Bramleys from Irish orchards she’s satisfied.<\/p>\n

Facing that Blackberry Caf\u00e9 a fjord and a vertical hillside.<\/p>\n

Nobody knows what spiritual mountains I climbed at the Conference.<\/p>\n

The holy mountain, Croagh Patrick – climb it and you will go to heaven.<\/p>\n

Marcus and Maria only got half way up. They had to climb down.<\/p>\n

Mountains of carrot cake, apple and pear, wolfed in a Bridge Street tearoom.<\/p>\n

From Westport homewards flashes of sunshine and rain – a tree-lined valley.<\/p>\n

More mist-wrapped mountains mid patches of sunlit cloud. Michel keeps driving.<\/p>\n

Loosely scattered all over the green slopes, like rocks in the distance – sheep.<\/p>\n

Lashed by heavy rain, half-hidden mountains everywhere, we cross the bogs.<\/p>\n

Beside the water with its silvery sheen we head towards the west.<\/p>\n

Kylemore Abbey. Michel and Martine took photos. A lonely cyclist.<\/p>\n

An unexpected sun shines in Rita’s eyes – three of us in the back.<\/p>\n

Letterfrack Pier -one dangerous bridge, a few double bends and we’re home.<\/p>\n

Back to the bergen, Martine resembles Kuan Yin with her 18 years.<\/p>\n

Maria dips into a life-transforming book: De-clutter your home.<\/p>\n

Silhouetted sideways, Michel has found comfort in a white chaise-longue.<\/p>\n

Also with her feet up, Rita, relaxed, taps the screen of her tablet.<\/p>\n

Marcus’ notebook records our drive round the north of Connemara.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For NAVID my young Afghan neighbour nieuwe hoop voor CB I love the Autumn when chestnuts fall and Belgian Boys […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","category-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.olioweb.me.uk\/marcus\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}