The Real Romeo

 

 

 

 

 

‘lt is the East,’ soliloquy by Romeo, act 2, scene 2, ‘Romeo and Juliet’

‘But soft!’ Yeah, right! It’s effing cold, not soft,
out now, waiting for dawn and Jooles to wake
then kill the moon because its loitering’s useless;
she’s draped like a fool in sickly pale green.
The sun will always rise and we need heat
down here, but there goes Jooles, with stars that might
replace her eyeballs though they’d lengthen night.
(Who penned this illogical tripe?) As for shining
cheeks out-brightening stars so that birds
would hail them as the morning light, no hope
of that, and if she leans her cheek on her hand,
what’s that supposed to signify? She’s never
mentioned me once, so I’m done with freezing here,
am off to nosh and suck up hot spiced beer.
 

I Am Not

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                          I Am Not

amused, my Muse. You’re always having a go
at me – when you’re around, which isn’t awf’lly
often, y’know. My plot’s for you to sow,
but you won’t sew your shift, let alone put lively
seed to soil. Putting in the boot
is more your scene than gently greening dreams
of damsels, dragons and other such dufferish toot
some plunging poets expect. You’re out on your beams
if you can’t shake up at least a vision or three
linked in layers appropriate for my age:
even your rags are dropping in tatters, my crone-y
friend. More, your splatter is rank on my page,
    so off you trot, you untucked, dribbling phoney;
    I’m sour enough without your spluttering rage.

More Practice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now our rooms resonate
with the warmth of chords
three centuries old.
I feel your bow firm
through shared air between us,
drawn over strings
tight on the cello’s belly,
repeating waiting phrases
to perfection sounding sure.

The year over shivers closer,
music locked in its case,

draught searching for discord.

Bless

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blessed are the wrongdoers, for they are our teachers -
the proud, the triumphant, the forceful, the unrighteous,
the cruel, the impure, the warmongers, the persecutors.

They harm, they vilify, they hate, they oppress, they kill,
so who would be like them in thought? Not us, the blessed.

Beware, lest your praised deeds are turned to greater ill.

Earth, Water, Air, Fire

 

 

 

 

 

Another wriggling form to struggle with for days
and fanny up an epic theme in thirty lines,
my life! So life it is, Creation through to graves,

for what that’s worth: we’ve end times and withered vines
ahead. Who trod the grapes of wrath’ll have few to squash,
their gelt-grab land-snatch flung to dust, while covert whines

from suited overlords and sharks under the tosh
and lies will dribble on throughout each ghosted land,
lost whispers in a wind that whips the world. Gosh,

Isaiah had the right of it! So has the prophet band
scrying fire across crisp woods, but blanked, ignored,
until the burned earth is deemed out-of-hand.

Out-of...? Only when the ghouls up top were floored
by hail as big as their balls and hammered heads were split
did they admit that ‘something’ needed ‘doing,’ then stored

up more muck in watered words that wobbled on, unfit
to stem tsunamic seas drowning half of humanity
on frantic shores; the last half’ll fall to the Pit

via scorch and blast and choke. We’ll suffer more inanity
before all’s done and all are sifted fine as silt
across the martyred world; it’s much too late for sanity. 

We’ll be left to weep and fail at the globe’s tilt,
its magnet lurching as its crust upheaves to drop
where most life’s out, where ruins carry our death-guilt.

We were warned. Our Jeremiahs called out, “Stop!”
for fifty years, “Block the greed; you mow what you sow.”
Unheeding, civilisation’s due to bottom its top.

No pretty form will temper Creation’s end; the blow
will leave us gone, no life here to cry out, “Woe!"