English Poems From Giraffe

Wishes I wish for a good death I wish I could heal those I have wounded most I wish for the hurt earth to be nursed to wellness I wish for all four winds of the world to be purified I wish for the seas of the earth to be cleansed I wish that peace will visit me at my going I wish that after, I'll meet my beloved dead Beetroot Fields of beetroot under the sun Bellies swollen, pregnant, fat Row on row and each one planned Each one wearing her green-leaf hat Millions of sisters in the night Each plant driven to upwards grow Millions of sisters, a fecund sight Millions of sisters in moonlight's glow Some will be boiled, dried, pickled, canned Roasted, juiced, or in salad, sliced Celtic women used it for rouge Polish chefs use it grated, diced Raised in dust and steeped in mud Ends as Borscht where peasants dine Found in the Talmud, Chakras, too Crimson heart of fermented wine Here's the names of its cultivars Action, Albino, Bull's Blood, Pablo Crosby Egyptian, Cylindar Wodan, Rubidus, Forono Round beets tip from one small pot Blood pressure lowers, brain health rises Anti cancer properties, aphrodisiac The beetroot plant holds such surprises! Hippocrates used the leaves for dressings Norse god's plant of inspiration Greeks and Romans chewed the leaves Beetroot: a food for each occasion The Precentor I never met my grandsire, Farmer, precentor In his wedding photograph He is looking out, unsmiling Eleven years senior to his pretty wife I never heard him sing Striking his tuning fork in the kirk His voice echoing round the stones of the field His likeness gathers dust in a stuffed drawer When I die he'll be bundled off to the skip I cannot picture him as a suitor. I know that they were virgins when they wed That neither enjoyed the initial conjugal relations But granny said with practise they grew to enjoy them I can imagine him in his Sabbath clothes A father who thrashed his son for laughing As he read out the Scriptures over dinner I cannot imagine his sung voice Though it must have been firm, been true I can imagine the congregation all too well The farmers' fingers, gnarled and clasped in prayer Their wives in fox furs smelling of mints and moth balls I can see him stand, important in his suit His shoes, buffed to a sheen, his hair slicked down I can hear him strike the tuning fork Its vibration, like the thrum of a singing bowl In a far off Buddhist temple I can hear the congregation rise to sing Ye gates lift up your heads on high; ye doors that last for aye, be lifted up, that so the King of glory enter may… Joining him in their crowded, narrow pews What is even stranger, is that this singer of psalms So harsh in discipline, so strict with rules Would lie in his stable all night long with a mare in foal Would topsy-turvy his well-ordered life to help an animal For that alone, he would be worth the knowing The Giraffe There once was a baby giraffe Who trampoline-jumped for a laugh Bit he flew up so high That he shot through the sky And he shattered a rainbow in half Left Behind The dead wren left behind a whisper The dead fridge left behind a freeze The dead clock left behind a face The dead wood left behind a breeze The dead stone left behind a beach The dead wave left behind an ocean The dead star left behind a light The dead lie quiet, beyond emotion Inside Inside the cow's cud: green blood Inside the robin's eye: winter sky Inside the loch's deep: salmon leap Inside the flames' hiss: death's kiss Portrait of a Teacher Madame X bristled her way through lessons Like a wild boar cornered by barbarians Under fluorescent light, her choice of poems Was a wire-flowered- basket stuffed with blousy plants Trout lipped, her face was hirsute Long fair hairs cascading down the canyons of her wrinkles The prow of her meagre breasts cleaved the stale classroom air. Her waspish words stung all of us to silence Her smile was as sharp as a steel fish knife Her cheeks, the colour of powdered sticking plasters Her perfume, an old maid's nosegay of dried rue She drifted between the aisles like Banquo's ghost Quoting La Belle Dame Sans Merci Very like a woman, vampire sucked To within an ounce of blood Her eyes, two jelly balls, lidded with blue mascara Ever on the look out for insurrection Later, I heard she travelled to Japan, Became a Zen nun. Now, who would guessed She kept that self of her selves close to her chest Addict Again and again the addict rejects All admonitions Which don't even touch the sides of his despair Who bayoneted his early bird of hope? Who fire-bombed his future? Who called time gentleman please In his stalling life? Music swam from his mouth Until the hourglass broke All of us wear cracks Most of us keep them hidden