The Suddenly Separate Spider Sentry
STILLNESS is
the space between movements
the crack in the universe
the gloved hand
with the art
to pull apart
two thin life stitches
and let a stab of nothing in.
An eye
with sky behind
for mind,
a face blind,
a sunflower petal falling
stamen to earth;
or bird-song-bird calling
either side of the path.
No eye to meet your eye.
FACES are petals falling
(bird-song-bird) ,
[...] Read more
poem by Brian Taylor
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Mirrors Of Our Time
THE ECONOMY is a hose.
The Government collects water from the people
and pours it into the top of the hose
and gives it back to the people.
Near the top of the hose is a hole.
A lot of the water pours out of this into a tank
marked Government which is always empty.
The rest flows down towards the people.
It passes other holes marked
Government Agencies
Government buildings
Government contingencies
Government perks
There are also holes marked
Lawyers
Accountants
Criminals.
The Government is always trying
to stop these last three holes.
Finally what is left of the water
[...] Read more
poem by Brian Taylor
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Walk On
Walking On
is not just a matter
of feet
measuring out
the streets
of this world;
or the clatter
of railway tracks
dwindling to a point
in the far-off, backward-looking,
which has now become the past.
Nor is it the Ocean Liner
slipping out of port,
pushing through waves
which break
and form again
in its wake
and become the past.
[...] Read more
poem by Brian Taylor
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Survivors And Inheritors
Caves, like palaces,
hotels, churches
(and shoes) ,
outlive their tenants.
Tigers came and filled the caves
with snarling and roaring.
After the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima,
more than a hundred Japanese soldiers retreated here.
Most fell on their swords in accordance with custom,
grasping the hilts with both hands,
pulling and falling into an exploding sphere of pain.
The rest cut open their stomachs
and died more slowly, but just as surely.
Their flesh was eaten by tigers and dogs,
their bones mingled with those of prehistoric men
and the residue of earlier tiger feasts.
Thirty five years later, Buddhist monks came,
Japanese, Thai and Chinese,
and chanted mantras
[...] Read more
poem by Brian Taylor
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Armistice Day
‘Died some pro patria non dulce non et decor.'
So Ezra Pound adapted Horace's lines
for those whose sufferings for their nation
had bred a dull, dark, painful generation
with gloria cauterised from their minds.
In the calendar their deaths are still recorded.
Poppies and medals and uniforms are worn.
Services are held and sacrifices lauded.
Public concern and private grief are borne.
On a cold November day.
In a cold November wind.
In Oxford 1993,
in remembrance of their sufferings and trials,
cars are towed untidily from St. Giles
and scattered without symmetry in surrounding streets.
To protect old rememberers
from new bombs.
[...] Read more
poem by Brian Taylor
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Oxford: Armistice Day
‘Died some pro patria non dulce non et decor.’
So Ezra Pound adapted Horace’s lines
for those whose sufferings for their nation
had bred a dull, dark, painful generation
with gloria cauterised from their minds.
In the calendar their deaths are still recorded.
Poppies and medals and uniforms are worn.
Services are held and sacrifices lauded.
Public concern and private grief are borne.
On a cold November day.
In a cold November wind.
In Oxford 1993,
in remembrance of their sufferings and trials,
cars are towed untidily from St. Giles
and scattered without symmetry in surrounding streets.
To protect old rememberers
from new bombs.
[...] Read more
poem by Brian Taylor
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Rosetta Stone
To the British Museum in W3
in very different company.
To an Egyptian archaeological mortuary;
dismembered torsos and massive heads,
disjointed arms and shattered legs;
imitations of flesh and bone
in granite, sandstone,
marble and obsidian.
Mirrors of souls buried in oblivion.
There,
the many who swarmed along the Nile
and lived and loved among a
host of enemies, stare
with dead eyes and frozen smile
with a rich, dark hunger
to reawaken in the sun.
Broken friezes, unhinged doors,
fragmented pediments, mosaic floors,
[...] Read more
poem by Brian Taylor
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Listen
What is that sound?
Like the trailing of a fan
through a silent anteroom?
It is the murmur of air
ruffling leaves.
It is the herald of the whirlwind
which will strip those leaves from their trees
and wrench the trees from the hillside
and blast the soil from the rocks beneath,
leaving the skeleton of the earth
to bleach and crumble.
And what is that sound?
Like a cascade of pearls
on a silver salver?
It is the rushing of the waterfall
in the Italian garden.
[...] Read more
poem by Brian Taylor
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Midwinter's Day in the Botanic Gardens
Hippophae
with clusters of orange berries
on spiky twigs.
Set in this ancient, yellowstone wall,
which separates the formal walks
from the marsh garden to the south,
is the gateway (with gate long gone) .
At its base, nerines – all mauves and reds –
spill over on straight, green stalks.
Topping the pillars sit carved capitals
from which grin down and stare
weathered, lifeless heads,
green-grey
like the day.
The sandstone rockery is winter-bare,
the benches empty, paths sodden with trampled leaves;
the gunmetal surface of the rounded pool
dimpled with bedraggled water lilies.
[...] Read more
poem by Brian Taylor
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
January 23 2005
“King’s House. Tuesday.3.45.”
An appointment she will never keep
with doctor, therapist, social worker
and next of kin
who try to keep her spirit in,
who are trying to keep her alive.
Saturday night from a subsiding peace,
too shallow to bring heart’s release,
uncoils harshness and anger:
at senses that will not cease
and will not obey her:
at a mind that will always and ever betray her.
Nurses
in her private room
who care for her
are now a source of despair for her;
gaolers
[...] Read more
poem by Brian Taylor
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!