Friday, July 11, 2014

The New Bohemian



                  The New Bohemian


Bohemian: 2. (often not cap.) a person, esp. an artist or writer, who lives an unconventional life.
[Collins Shorter English Dictionary, 1995]

'A sage is good at doing nothing.' - Chuang Tzu.


Contents

1 The abc’s
2 untitled – Hot Pink!
3 untitled – Ten letters spell
4 Somewhere
5 Looking and Listening
6 Pink Petals
7 Almost
8 Once
9 untitled – a lone blue bicycle
10 untitled – half a heart
11 Morpheus’s maze
12 Lazy Sunday Afternoon
13 Venus de Milo’s Lost Arms
14 Today, today
15 The Atom Car
16 Martian Song
17 The Marketplace
18 Just two
19 Recovery of the Lost
20 The Courts of the King
21 semi undone
22 Intrepid Journeyer
23 untitled – The birds are in their flocks

Bonus material: Time to see it anew, Indigo – the beautiful colour, Miniature 1,
Oh DEAR, The Pink Bubbles.


                                                   The abc’s

                        

                                    And so the alphabet we learned
                                    in forgotten childhood,
                                    and wild peaches we ate
                                    like those in Eden.

                                    Where were the minders? –
                                    we never knew; only that
                                    our joy and delight would end
                                    when they returned.




walking around the block
saw a bush by a wall whose flowers
had petals that shone
HOT PINK!






Ten letters spell
a state too well,
 the first is an L,
the rest follow:
             O, N, E, L, I, N, E, S, S.
       But I didn’t confess.
                            
 
                                                 Somewhere

                                        a crystal shard tumbled;
                                        a clear stream bubbled;
                                        a strange creature took flight;
                                        a desert-dweller took refuge;
                                        a sky gleamed orangey-pink;
                                        a zephyr blew in wyvern valley.

                          Somewhere something wonderful is happening;
                          even though, everywhere is the enchanting.




                                         Looking and Listening

                                    A Barred Spiral galaxy - perfect shape!
                                    A safety pin ingenious
                                    A watch second hand moving in ones around the dial
                                    discordant sounds gardening noises

                                    Things at rest in their various colours
                                    Footsteps and a day's quietness like...

                                    Birds
                                    Cars
                                    motorbikes
                                    Bubbles in a drink
                                    a gentle breeze



 Pink Petals - regrettably this poem is unavailable at present.



                                        Almost


                                                Like a still bonsai
                                                our plant appears
                                                before the window.

                                                So still it is that
                                                Time seems almost of no
                                                consequence.

                                                But the wind blows outside,
                                                forecasting change for everything.




                                                  Once                        
                                   
                              Pendragon, who is Uther named,
                             stayed his barque upon these shores.
                             In no stranger places so untamed
                             the king ever espied such tors.

                             " Surely the griffin here abides,
                             or some creature fiercer still."
                             " Fear not!" said Merlin," no beast here hides,"
                             his cloak pulled 'bout him for the chill.

                             Mists began to curtail their view
                             of the strand and its greenery.
                             Uther's heart soon no fire drew,
                             and all his knights appeared uneager.

 

a lone blue bicycle
against the brick wall
left for the rain to wash.

Next to the tall palm,
on the sand its small
black rubber tyres
circles to convey
cling to the white beach
sand, and only the rain
to fall on the statuary
and make the afternoon
a true gloom.

 


half a heart
a whole tear
half a mind
a whole fear

half a desire
a whole weakness
half of everything
a whole nothing
 





                                 Morpheus’s Maze


            Morpheus lay sleeping, his hair a fountain of curls,
            his face a placid place; while the clock ticked.
            Rude time kept pace with his gentle breaths.

            A moment more, the dream prepares to awaken
            its child to a cold, sombre solitude,
            in a pale moonlight,
            upon a stone throne.

            The child stirs, the lids part; he is awake –
            the world is now his dream,
            and all its ways, a maze.




                                Lazy Sunday Afternoon

             Gleaming,
            tree-leaf with
            tree-leaf catch the
            Sun and the whispers of
            the air move them to and fro.

            The day is almost done,
            (where is the fire of the storm,
            the arrows of light, the gust,
            the gale and the fright? )
            and the song of the
            afternoon is a lullaby.





                                                Venus de Milo's lost arms

                                                The Lost Arms of
                                                Venus de Milo -
                                                will they ever be found?

                                                Other treasures will never be found -
                                                forever lost they are;
                                                in Unknowable Realms perhaps they abide,
                                                more certain it is that:
                                                forever lost are they

                                                What of the treasures of today? -
                                                this day; its weather, and
                                                its birds and a myriad more -
                                                mostly unseen and not seen.

                                                An ancient sage has taught,
                                                and many of the same thought,
                                                say the greatest treasure lies
                                                in the human heart.

                        "Benares is in the East and Mecca in the West;
                        but look into your own heart, for there is Rama and Allah."





Today, today

 

Today, today,
I want to say
that I am sad
but want to play.

A child whose joy
remains unknown and
yet is there to feel.
I wish I were no little
child but in my heart yet be.

Today, today will
go away and did my
joy but breathe.

The pain and dark
will melt away,
I believe I will it see.

The sun, the sun
its golden touch
bears farewell to all.
I see: the ground,
the grass, the wall,
the tree, and other things too.

I wait,
I remain,
I am, now
for thee.
 



The Atom Car


I was driving in my atom car,
when all of a sudden from afar,
I saw a girl all forlorn, her spirit torn.

So I steered my tiny car
in her direction, along the tar.

I stopped and smiled at her and waved;
and she looked at me: a puzzled look;
my smile was lost, my heart had caved.

I had to leave her at the kerb;
a backward glance I took,
and forever closed that book.

                                                 


Martian Song

 The cruel toy of a
swift , swift bomb, it’s
gliding mechanism a narrow alien
thing of chrome

launched – a silent silver egg,
a biolaser, an entity, a silver photon
of unknown impulses, a magnetic being
whose lucid sequence in the green air
above the sea recalls a solitary thought:
a miniature caveman.

gliding
the wind about the rocket
abducts from the air an astral secret:
a being is but a song.

a sound :
a martian song -
conquest by soft photons.

                                        This poem was composed with help from the poem-maker program.



  The Marketplace

 
The marketplace is no
real place for me;
neither is the monastery.

O, for a table round
and brave knights around
me to sit at a noble
gathering.

O, for a gentle and beautiful
maiden – someone kind
yet not an angel; just a
good mortal woman.

O, to be free of the
shackles of humanity,
yet not disdaining this
poor world.

Where is my life, my energy?
I spend my days in sleeping,
whilst others are weeping.


 
                                                           
                                                           
                       
Just
two


golden-orange
flowers
just two
more
lonely
hours
just three
golden minutes
JUST FIVE
MORE SECONDS
just ten
more minutes
just twenty years later
just forced
just done
just undone
just finished
just plain lonely
justice
just time
to go
just time,
that's all
it's just it
just just
just just
the end


 

Recovery of the Lost



to say nothing more
to see; to know
or at least to think one knows
to contemplate unproudly
to smile or laugh truly
to feel the frustration and inadequacy of words and one's limited abilities to convey with them
to realise the value of words
and when to stop with them
to trust in the recovery of the lost
to long for the woman of your dreams
to long for the man of your desires
not to sit alone
not to be alone
not that
please not that

be alone sit alone
the truth sits with you
the fulfillment of your deep longings
is at hand; is being born invisibly

for you a love beyond all knowing
just for you
and me



The Courts of the King

 

Summer’s playtime, Spring’s young time

all the wizards wend a way to Camelot
In the mist a spire! A turret, ho!
Hearts gladden and footsteps quicken.
Thither and to no other place are we bound.

O’er field and green glade
the small company of friends glide.
A long journey, Tom? Aye, Frederick, long
and not wearisome for the company.

The mages smile – soon to be in the courts of the King –
and to sing and take of merry wine, the delights of sweetmeats,
venison and even humble potato.

Knightly banners cleave the morning mists.
They play games now: that’s Sir Ector’s, I’ll be bound;
no, ‘tis tipped in red, the pennant is not his.

A knight in silver armour clad and upon a steed, both
finely arrayed; perhaps the King’s own party camps near
in the gardens of blessed Camelot?

Breaking free of the ancient trees
a splendid sight as of a firmament of stars
bids them hold the perfect vision and
trusting in truer and greater magicks than their own
write the wonder and joy of heavenly beings and times and places
somewhere in every beautiful scene of nature.




semi undone


looking, is there nothing more than that?
seeing, is there no more than that?
bounded by the four horizons
is there no more than that?

leap out of my skin
tumble through the colourful nebula or defy the abominable black hole,
its gargantuan gravity more crushing than a billion tears

but nothing!
then let it be Nothing
Nothing Forever
I care no longer

the forge is split
the tiger is & may devour
may yet devour
the fearful.
that children who are at the mercy of the strong
are more powerful than all

my unshakespearian prose like smelly flowers
but let me not care
it matters not in the end
for it will all be of no great consequence
let this moment
let this moment be the end
be the end




Intrepid Journeyer

This is my moonshot; this is Genesis.
This is a lot of hooey!

All art is useless Oscar Wilde hath said
and his opinion is with me not dead.

I think art is dust
it will all be swept away
and yet what else to do

Am I merely impatient?
The end is not nigh enough for me.

yet the world goes on
and we must live in it

O munificent magnanimous one
empyrean, sublime, supernal and a little ethereal too

diatoms upon diatoms in the ancient seas
the piteous trilobites extinct
Sad – and yet: so what. It makes no difference
to our day.

I knew a girl – she’s gone
out of my life
I knew another girl – she’s gone too.
In fact, many have come and gone;
and I have come and gone as well, have I not?

In the church upon the pew
sat a one lonely as you

With a great roar and a rush
the heavens folded upon the earth

It happened - oh, yes, indeed; and I will not question it.
What’s the point of asking questions there aren’t any answers to?

Am I cribbing you, Robert Frost?
I hope not. This is another waste of time like all
poetry. Wouldn’t you agree?

Action. Action, say I.
Take action. Act.
Will you do it or no?
But there is no more to be done
and everything to be done.

Sometimes . . ..
sometimes silence
sometimes saying nothing is best
nothing to point the way to nothing
the zen of this and that
it seems passé now, zen is no longer in vogue
What is it now, I wonder?


The bell is tolling
do you hear the pealing?
the workers’ time to depart and travel
to their homes and families
but not all: some, nay many do not work, do not travel home
and some, perhaps many do not have family or a friend – not even a friend!

What!
He’s putting in overtime, sir.
Make sure he gets paid a fair wage, what’s right.
(Isn’t that the way it should be?)

He made his move on the chessboard of the world
amid the billions of other pawns he made his bid.
Is he the player or the played?


 ---


The birds are in their flocks,
and the sun is low. I am a lazy
wretch unlike these foragers
unending.

Oh, for some great endeavour
the counterpoint of such a
peaceful afternoon.

Is life merely this prosaicness?
Am I not a knight of the Table Round?
In my heart I am. Am I indeed
brave, noble and true? Or would I
fail in this too? Such an ugly word:
failure. But this is not to be.
My lot, my destiny, is to fly with angels.

Bonus material:

Time to see it anew

long the day since dawn
time has slowed to a crawl
the afternoon threatens rain
walk your dogs, lonely man.
walk your man, lonely dogs.

They say time goes by so slowly and that
time can do so much – she’s definitely not yours anymore.

But right now that’s ok

Plan 9
Plan 9 all the way

up and down the mountain
down and up a fountain
down and out in Paris
out and down in Hout Bay




Indigo – the beautiful

colour

computer indigo
ultramarine in real life?

O, that from your deeps
a sound may come –
a call from the beyond
to this mortal desolation.



miniature #1:
 
Fog slowly, smokily, like a low white cloud, engulfed the mountain.



Oh DEAR

Oh, for a job as a POET,
to sing all day and never KNOW IT.

Not so much TROUBLE
As a TROUBADOUR.

If wishes were horses beggars might FLY;
If everyone were a poet we’d all lay down and DIE!


The Pink Bubbles

Bubbles, from the miniscule to the whale-like, resembling familiar soap bubbles apart from their colour, began to pour down in their trillions on every spot on Earth. It was a miraculous gentle round pink floating rain and the world was abuzz with the phenomenon. On every news channel it was the same story being covered. An astounded yet delighted world populace all had first-hand experience of it and even though radios and TVs were blaring from every house and car and school and shopping mall and in every neighbourhood on Earth there really was no need to inform anyone of the stupendous event. Scientists were baffled. An isolated case, let’s say covering London with bubbles would be astounding enough but the whole world!

Translucent pink bubbles surrounded one on every side and wafted in huge clouds. The effect on all was a kind of mild alarm mingled with child-like fascination and joy. Children, especially were shrieking everywhere in a din of delight and mirth.

My personal encounter with a one and a half metre diameter sphere occurred that Friday afternoon when I was cycling home from the shops. It engulfed my bike as I rode into it. It burst but there was only a brief sensation of moisture on my face and through my clothing and then nothing. Needless to say I stopped like everyone else to appreciate the wonder. There were smiling faces everywhere, and I was smiling too.

But all good and even strange things must come to an end, and after eight hours there were no bubbles to be found anywhere, not even the circular wet patches of their collisions with hard objects. The fun had come and gone. The cosmic Santa Claus had put away his bubble-blowing apparatus.

                                                                          Fin
  

‘The New Bohemian’ is copyright © Reality Wedge, 2014

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons or institutions living or dead is purely coincidental.





 





 



 
































   




























2 comments:

  1. Some real gems, RW.
    Hot pink!
    Looking and listening.
    Lazy Sunday afternoon.
    And, the pink bubbles was superb!

    ReplyDelete