Tuesday, May 3, 2022

Geoffrey Heptonstall - Two Poems

 1. HOMEWARD WE REMEMBER



                                              OTHER LIVES ARE 


out there when we are seeking 

 

WORDS UNWRITTEN     

                                                          

that                                                    may serve to remind readers                                                         of the future.

                                                                                    In other words we may speak 

                                  of picturing the world

                                           in plain sight.


In cool air

Memory speaks

Among the memorials

When spirits rise


the cattle move toward fresh pasture. 

They take their time in diverse tongues before an indifferent world. Something happened here. A voice was heard. In the murmuring of the tomb land came the calming words in anguish against invidia of the hearing denied. 


‘I will be heard.’ is softly spoken. After Babel there is more to be said.


READING IS REMEMBERING                                           lament may come readily to mind

                                                as homeward we think of things.                               WHEN WE IMAGINE THE FALL,

                                                               We had been talking                                                  of that untimely moment

                                                                                                 of the style and the man.                                            WE NAME AS NEVERMORE..

                                                                             His reading of life was restless, heroic,                     so with her otherness, 

                                                                                                     an aesthetic of action.                                                Chatelaine of this fabled world,

                                                                                      writing for her

                                was a prelude to combat…                            

                                            Her song was stilled

when the hope against oblivion.                                                                                                                   accepted  darkness…




OTHER LIVES ARE WORDS UNWRITTEN. READING IS REMEMBERING WHEN WE IMAGINE THE FALL WE NAME AS NEVERMORE






***

2. THE DOG THAT HOWLED ALL NIGHT


What does not change is the will to change Charles Olson




Of a possible election:                                                                      


then in the sight of darkness                                                                          a lantern light

moving to close of day                                                             above all the armadillos                                                                                     


from the vantage tower                                                                        in celestial time chiming…


Of the harvest angel

                                                                                                  scattering our marvels 

at the sight of disaster                                        naming where the stones                                                                                                                                   


keep silence on vacant ground  


when fate may seem indifferent                         though this life is familiar…


Of a lyrical persuasion:                       

invisible in the ruins                                           

too late to save the spirit                                              

that blessed the city opening


to the world’s worst


And in there hearing the dog that howled all night…


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