Troubled By Time

To the memory of A. E. Housman.

Born, in the year of Darwin's 'Origin',
Where secret worlds of unrest grow;
His inward lips were tenderly pressed
Over the lines of Juvenal.

His passion: silent - humanity's ache
Under the touch, lies far away...
And in the night, there is no sleep
To stamp over the angles of each day.

Words lived, yet he was dead,
Caught in a season's oblivion.
His sombre thoughts were all but lost
On boys to which the war had won!

Ballad-whistling, yet still no-one,
For he would not stay...
His spy-hole on the liturgy,

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poem by Barry Van Asten
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Resurrection Of The Butterfly

In kamikazic state and crisp,
Steered and wrenched from soft illusion;
Terrible, it's fragile, dust-blown shape
That carried it's fat world within -
A sarcophagus tick, hear it crack
With sunlight spooned upon its back.

A Cinderella slipper; the Cutty Sark
Sailing between the earth and moon.
Precision filled waste - an engine of love,
Clumsily ripped it's world apart.
Nightfall and O how everything's changed:
Nature and dimensions, re-arranged.

But unlike the stink crazed filth obsessed fly,
That celebration of the Gothic:
There are no songs, there are no buzz ballads;
No embarrassing moments and no bad manners,
Which is why the fly finds it difficult to get
Into butterfly circles and butterfly etiquette.

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poem by Barry Van Asten
Added by Poetry Lover
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