All 14 entries tagged Poetry

Darren in Darien

Like stout Cortez

He will not fall

On Darien’s high peaks and hills

In valleys he will walk until

He hears the sound of Scotland’s call

No more will he hear Big Ben toll

Out on the land where workers toil

In run-down houses and degraded soil

In vain for fifty years or more

Under iron fists and broken laws

By the Thames they shout and squeal

And promise there’ll be no more meals

They bang their fists and shake their heads

But he wrings his hands; he’s made his bed

“They’re only ever words of fear

In time they’ll fade and disappear

So raise your hands and drink your beer

Our sweetest-hearts and mother’s dear

Are the only ones who have our ears

It may be true, our day is here,

Though frightening; it may appear

The chance is there for us to seize

We’ll ride our luck, as Ulysses

Made his own way on stormy seas

The sun is out and the lilac’s blooming

The shadow of the past is brooding

Phantom-like in darkened corners

Lets rid the past of would-be mourners!”

His shout cries out but all alone

He finds himself on rugged stone

Volcanic lava that once was molten

Dead as granite, and only frozen

He stands a shadow on barren crag,

A dim sea beside him as feeling lags

That he’s still to seek that name he lacks

With no place to sleep and his bedrooms taxed

His health is weak and the wind is strong

It knocks the breath from weakened lungs

The voice they carry, lost in the throng

Of fearful waves against the rock

That beat in time with London’s clock

– A city t’would be painted gold

If only it weren’t already sold

At vast expense, they had been told

But no one dare to speak out bold

And question: with that great expense

Could they bring back some common sense?

“Greatest hopes that had been placed

Now drift away as the margin fades

Men fight fire with only fire,

Though the need is great and warnings dire

To do much else just leaves them tired”

The tide turns as his mother chides him

She nods his head when he says ‘they’re lying’,

They often do, those men in power

They smoke cigars in phallic towers

And compensate for small endowments

“Our chance can come again,” she said,

“Not on ballot paper, but in our heads,

And in our minds; so if you please

Go live your life to the lees

They cannot take what they cannot see.”

Samuel Dodson : 17 Sep 2014 20:17 |  Tags: Darien England Independence Keats Poem Poetry Scotland Scottish Ulysees |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Stars

Loosely jacketed against the frost bite

In the air, tight on the skin and in the strands

Of hair follicles. Beneath the swarming stars

On the dais of the earth, circling in the dark,

No light falling on them but only around them,

On a high prairie, chalk stone on the horizon,

They heard horses, jaunty, in the distance,

Though coming to that place finding no trace

That a herd ever had crossed it. And thinking the

Light from those stars may have carried them up

And borne them from the dark earth,

The electricity of night about them and

Walking through a myriad of different

Celestial pathways

They came at once to an ancient orchard

Where the fruit was of their own making.

Though it was cold, they stole like thieves

Loosed from a chain-gang and stumbling

Upon a treasure trove of different worlds

Ten thousand universes and futures ahead of them

And infinite possibility abounding like the swarming stars

There and always there for their choosing

Though until this night always just out of reach.

Samuel Dodson : 21 Aug 2014 16:39 |  Tags: Poem Poetry Stars |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Spider Bites

Studying the prickling heat on his skin,

Imagining each spot of pain to be spider bites,

Pricking flesh and spilling not quite blood

but a liquid coloured at the edge of it.

He felt no appetite, for there were no apples

Like those apples he tasted that afternoon,

He had never tasted apples like those.

Not before nor since.

There were never apples like that again

And the sun beats down on his forgetfulness

And memory seems shattered:

The smell of rain, fresh on the stone

Of paving slabs and steps beside the lawn

Where he ran on the wet grass and fell:

He fell more than he should

but it did not matter.

Samuel Dodson : 02 Jul 2014 12:52 |  Tags: Poem Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Saturn.

Dear God,

I wasn’t breast fed. And

Most of my conversations with men, seem

Stifling. Revolving around hip size and

You probably didn’t kiss Mary when you knocked her up.

Seconds are secular, minutes, minute and

The scales of dead fish from oil slicks

Are echoes from the parties which took place

Inside Egyptian tombs and pyramids.

The factor is me,

Pictured;

Standing next to a photograph of a portrait of

Abraham Lincoln, Beneath the surface of our purpose

Lies rumours of ancient rain,

Different moments in time's continuum has allowed history to

catch up with

The present.

Unravel our eyelids so that we may ingest the clouds

Which have descended and are descending

Over Washington.

London sits in what would be its shadow

Had the lack of light not meant casting shadows

Is now purely metaphorical.

Depending on how you look naked,

Stripped of demeanor,

Is hereafter how one shall judge the state of the economy

Our anatomy, large, small, slim, spot covered,

Is a far more accurate representation of what’s going on

Behind closed doors in canary wharf,

But I’ve seen David Cameron naked when we were at Eaton together,

And then again at Oxbridge,

And from experience I can assure you he looks absolutely gorgeous

Which means that we’ll be fine.

We’ll be standing alongside the bankers,

Who are currently letting the sun soak their skin

On high board Haitian holidays,

In no time at all.

Though we are small compared to rain drops,

As they fall in our mouths we may conjure silver,

The slivers that fall, scraps, from the high table,

There, Jesus sits, tired from talk, and

Full of spite for you, God.

That you have overshadowed the name of mortal men.

Lightning is crashing over me and through me as I wait outside,

Looking into the last supper through a slat in the window.

They boast and mutilate food and laugh

At the foolish lamb spinning round the base of a tree which

Grows from the floor of the room.

The lack of natural sun has stunted the growth of its leaves.

There are ice cubes lodged in my naval.

Meanwhile a woman, enclosed by a thatched litter pulled

By slaves, sits in the lotus position. Her eyes are shrouded

Behind a silk scarf. A pendant hangs from a necklace

I can comprehend its value but not its meaning.

I slept, once. Framed by the skulls of my grandparents.

We do not remember dreams, only nightmares,

Werewolves hunt in mountain ranges, slipping

Across the edge of ancient glacier lakes,

They have neglected the travails of their hearts,

Blood has been washed from their mouths,

They dance in worship of Saturn, a planet fringed by a rainbow,

For they know only believers in death, die.

They would sing, yet their lips have been sown together,

And their tongues sit in the back of their throats,

My darling Saturn.

You are not mine to own, nor mine to satiate,

Ride the tide towards divinity,

Senses; now finely tuned instruments,

Damned indecision,

Follow the voice of children, dancing for the devil.

Sincerely yours.

Samuel Dodson : 24 Aug 2011 21:15 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

These days.

This is the silence that comes from paying back debt,

I’m indebted to you, we’re all in this together, One for all

And one for each other, Well I’ve slept long enough in this

Facade of a dream world in this real world where my feet crunch

Over dollar bills on cobbled streets where rivers meet,

Stirred by sleet they rise and swell against these

Bastian walls, only time will tell etcetera

cliched phrase, etcetera

Well we were part of this star trek generation which assumed

Beings from all nations and across the universe spoke Anglais.

Now I’m afraid if we were ever speaking from the same language;

The same page, then we’ve underestimated how poor we are at

Understanding this riskier business they call banking

But seems more like a free for all, an unregulated brawl

In a tavern where the landlord sits and takes tabs.

Sometimes I wake as if I've fallen through the looking glass,

Found myself in wonderland, a never, never land,

Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, mere commodities to sell,

And those who found themselves here, deviated course and

Now live, underrated making pornographic films, in

These dust bowl cities, circling those cataclysms of foreclosure

Where catastrophe is creeping into the streets, sleeping

Next to those whose homes were on the edge of the bubble,

The trouble is this watermarked catastrophe has crawled into bed

And is snoring next to the government, Ignoring the

Sub-prime by watching prime-time television soap operas.

If they put onus on home ownership why won’t they own up

Like grown ups won’t own up to their kids when they make mistakes.

Now I haven’t been to Baltimore, but I’m sure if I did,

I’d feel bad for having grown up in a home

That wasn’t threatened with repossession,

And that my parent’s divorce was the closest I came to ever feeling remorse,

Well that might not be true of course but true apology is hard to come by these days.

Samuel Dodson : 17 Jul 2011 21:49 |  Tags: Poem Poetry |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

When I am old and still the same inside.

I’ve buried you.

In the sands which washed us,

Fleeting. 

Too full of imagination. 

Closed in by water marks. 

Cut off what I can. 

To take this, solitude. 

You astonish me. 

In every place I’ve been, 

I’ve buried you. 

This, heroic act, 

The denouement of Achilles. 

The sting of rain, 

Embittered and recreated by the

Fingers of the violinist. 

You return, 

Rest in my shaking hands. 

These hands that cannot draw. 

Samuel Dodson : 12 Apr 2011 22:46 |  Tags: Poem Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Instilled Inclinations.

Wasting time procrastinating 

On infinite idealism, Inspiring 

Perspiration from participating in

Unethical debates, bragging

About the bastardization of the State, 

Working in debilitating degrees

Of silence, Insinuating separation

Scaling the charts, though this

Situation is boring me, evaluate

The depth of the sea, 

Analyze your claims to 

Immortality sporadically; 

Stop being so damn fascinating, 

Stay still for a second, satiate and

Acquire your conception of notions. 

Pouring through vodka bottles

Writing lists of demands surrounded

By statistical evaluation of the 

Primordial evolution of devolution. 

Shade in the colour of your wings, 

They aren’t as pure as scientific potions, 

They begin within the winning mentality, 

They begin with that shared second 

Sitting beside each other on children’s 

Swings. Swinging back towards the

Concentric cyclical crevasse of a

Gothic cathedral’s spiraling staircase,

You can be so much more than your pay-grade

You might have read too many books,

Might have heard to many problematic 

Philosophies, but the confines of your mind

Expose you to your instilled inclinations. 

Cry at what you laughed at and laugh at what 

Others refuse to smile at, curled lips and

Exposed teeth are goddam sexy, 

Not quite as much as a short black skirt

And a need to be loved, but pretty close.

Making the most of nights of revelry

Stops making chivalry look worth

Anything. Anything you want isn’t 

Necessary, it’s all part of the contemporary

Wish to be seen. Stop reading lies in

Social commentaries, stop listening

To rhymes which are totally nonsensical

Whether they are clerical or not, 

Stop speaking aloud to fill silence

Let the silence fill you and engage with it,

Segregate and annihilate your dispositions 

to be disposed to particular theisms and theologies

Which can be laughed at when you understand

Analogies to bland aspects of life like 

Cheese. 

Samuel Dodson : 02 Apr 2011 13:33 |  Tags: Cheese Poetry Slam |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Cheese.

Things are, alright. 

Satisfactory, you might say. 

You might say things here are 

Maybe a little on the dull side

Or just slightly too static. 

I would say, that things are a bit like cheese. 

Cheddar cheese, in fact. 

There are lots of cheeses I could use

But Edam is too classy for this analogy 

And as for those blue cheeses well

They’re too much of a fad. 

Not that I don’t like blue cheese. 

It’s what cheese would taste like 

If it were a colour. I just think

Blue cheese lacks substance. 

It might be popular and a little eccentric

But eventually it will lose it’s popular basis

And fall. 

Unlike Mozzarella. There’s a cheese

With a fine tradition at its foundation. 

It would take a huge scandal for Mozzarella

To tumble. Because of this fact unfortunately

That rules Mozzarella out of the equation too. 

Because the thing with Cheddar, is that

It will do. 

It’s alright. 

It’s satisfactory. 

You can melt it onto most things and they will taste fine

But you wouldn’t take it over mozzarella on Pizza or over 

Blue cheese and crackers. 

That would be ridiculous. 

But you’d take it over not having cheese. 

That goes without saying

So before you being to think where am I going with this

I’m going to talk about life and death. 

And how cheddar, is a little bit better than

Terrible. 

You see, we don’t have it bad. 

We don’t have it great and because of that

We get pissed off; since we know we could have it great. 

But we’re not hungry, 

We’re warm and listening to poetry. 

I’m even a little bit drunk

Which is more than you can say for 

People who aren’t warm, listening to poetry

And who don’t have access to a cheap bar. 

You see I’d take a cheap bar over no bar, 

Poetry over silence, warmth over cold. 

Just as I would take Cheddar cheese over no

Cheese at all. 

So you see, I think I’ve done it,
I think I’ve won the bet

That I made with my friend Jason, 

That I couldn’t make an allegorical comparison

Between the state of humankind

And cheese. 

Samuel Dodson : 02 Apr 2011 13:30 |  Tags: Cheese Poetry Slam |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Recycling

Recycling

Eat your dinner silently as

you stare at each other without seeing 

what you saw in each other. 

scrape your leftovers into the red bin

Oh shit you’re supposed to put food in the blue bin!

Now she’s gonna be mad. Maybe if you

get that kitchen towel and scrape it 

from one bin to the other? 

too late she’s in the room she’s seen 

what you’ve done and she’s

screaming again but she’s not

screaming with anger she’s just 

screaming because you’ve both forgotten how you 

used 

to be able to talk to each other softly after making love, 

lying in your cramped single bed with the

light’s on after shagging each other with your clothes on. 

You take out the green bin. The green bin is safe. 

can’t go wrong with a bit of recycling

eco-friendly dave, that’s you, conscientious you

care about whales and lions and even krill cos 

even though it’s not documented, krill have a rough time of it too. 

Out in the yard outside the front of the house you 

knew was just a temporary thing before you 

got your big break

then came matrimony and lying and fucking your secretary soon became 

making love to your secretary 

and soon you were standing under moonlight in Paris

and the moon was dripping down your back

and Mary was crying after the meal

and you didn’t put your arm around her. 

Glass bottles for bottling your liquid aggression 

and cans full of corporate thought

you look over at the neighbours bins and their

recycling bin is empty, 

why is it empty? are they on holiday?

Their audiis are outside, both of them, one green and one red.

You look to your left and your right and there’s

no one in sight so you leap as a fox

an urban fox in the dark

over their stone wall barrier

and you open their black garbage bin

and tear open the bin liner and out spills

cardboard

aluminum

glass

aluminum

glass

cardboard

glass

aluminum

cardboard

Arseholes fucking arseholes man they’re killing the world their killing the environment

fuck them fuck them fuck them fuck them

Don’t they know there are starving children in Ethiopia?

This is the end of the line

you’re tired of letting people slide into this middle class individualism

selfish selfish selfish selfish

Let them eat fire

let them eat petrol

let them drink their fill of smoke

who knew that rags and fuel could fuel a vendetta against the riches

the fire crackles behind the glass

glorious recyclable glass

do they know their house is on fire? 

let them sleep in the fire

let them warm their hearts

oh shit man there was a dog inside and the dog

man it’s going fucking mental it won’t stop barking

it won’t stop barking

it won’t stop barking

head back inside to the cupboard by the stairs

take the extinguisher out. She

watches you but she doesn’t say anything she just

watches you leave with the red extinguisher

you’ve never used one before so she’s going to

watch you struggle

watch as you try to stop the flames

fuck man this is a carbon dioxide extinguisher! 

you’re fueling global warming you idiot

but the dog won’t stop barking

maybe you can get to the shops and buy a new water extinguisher?

shops probably sell extinguishers. 

now their’s this

screaming. Is it her? Is it one of the neighbours? This

screaming is getting closer and louder and it’s filling your brain with

screaming man it won’t go away. 

and there are blue lights in your eyes and the red of the fire 

is melting into your retinas 

blue, red and green...

...and the grey of the police cell.

Will Mary remember to sort out the recycling? 

Samuel Dodson : 10 Feb 2011 16:16 |  Tags: Environmental Poem Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Time

Watch shadows dissolve the day,

Dead hearts in soul’s oblivion, 

Wash away sins, yearning years,

Forget the fleeing panic of the sky’s 

Vanishing pavilion. 

Listen to what those preachers say, 

Take heed with no salvation, 

Remove your rings, dispel your fears, 

Watch the lord control the flies

And then destroy the nation. 

Speak soft sonnets on the way, 

Dear Danger feed my hesitation, 

Hear those who win, mourning tears, 

Break the selfish idle ties

That halt your inclinations. 

These damnable traces are etching 

Thoughtless examples of freedom

Which wake me, searching, retching, 

From a sleepless serfdom, 

Deep pollution fills the seas,

Love this revolution. 

Samuel Dodson : 03 Jan 2011 23:31 |  Tags: Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem