Saturday 11 September 2010

Baptism

So,
I suppose I'd better actually put some of my poetry up.

Here's one I wrote earlier in the Summer, as the heavens opened as I've never seen them do before.




Baptism

“This water droplet, charity of the air…
Which saw the first and earth-centering jewel
Spark upon darkness…” [Ted Hughes]


This ground – bloodied and died for – was
Wrought from angry spews of liquid magma,
Blistered by shields, nails and knives of ice.

We are all atoms when the rain comes
And chariots of cloud plunder and ransom the sun.
Roofs bend, sea-walls cower, drains glug their last, and
The tindered truth is sparked in us:
We are not here at our own discretion, but
Slaves to the freak voracious maw of the
Elements; forever swaying drunkenly
On the sharp of a canine tooth.

The grass was whimpering-scorched, just
Half a full hour past, when we – across the bench –
Felt the earth turn under us,
And I flicked from your cheek the lonely glinting
Tear:

Once a particle of the first-dawn, a dew-drop on the
Fields of formula-tribes; caught in the roots of
Amazonian weeds; may have ricocheted as
Frenzied rain from the peaked dome of St Peter’s,
Or shivered in deathly brunt of missile and cry
Beneath a ghostly-white Paschendale sky.

Our warning was sent in sudden icicle-winds
Gusting from the nostrils of the steeds of Zeus,
And we heard and saw the rumblings of hooves
And steel-capped chariot wheels pummelling and
Scratching the horizon – so we made ourselves scarce.

And as I stand now, beholding this weeping, cascading
Station frame, your train deep-rumbling above, –
Bent against the storm -
I can’t help but feel, a moment fleeting, that
Nature is living this baptismal act for you and for me.
But of course the atomic fact is merely as before…
Surely.
The thunder hollows my lungs.

Atoms are the both of us, but not our all.

And out in the swell I charge, skin slow-luxuriating
In the drench of millennia:
I, the hunter-gatherer, the eagle,
The first torrential flash of the Sun.
The rains of time are rattling my ankles like the
Rapid uncoilings of snapping snakes bouncing from the
Sweating tarmac; but I out-pace them all,
Knees stretching to the sky, flip-flopped heels
Squelching through torrents, fingers erect,
Slicing the wind, my chest ablaze.

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