Poetry

Know Your Onions…

humanist55

“Know your onions” is what they say
how can you know something with so many layers.

Pauper’s Hotpot layers sliced onions, potatoes and bits of bacon
My parents gave me The Pauper’s Cookbook when I went to University

University does not teach you to cook onions but you may learn whilst there
recipes always say sweat onions until translucent but not the long care that takes.

Sweating it is the secret to life and the search for transparency
it takes what it takes to get there – a lifetime even…

Many unexpected things come to you in a lifetime
I found an album of Booker T including Green Onions in the middle of Brixton at 3a.m. and loved it ever since

Spring Onions are green and tender – it’s like eating onion babies
other colours are available – purple, white, brown – on the outside.

We grow new outside layers with each new age we reach
To “Know your onions” peel a person to the heart, layer by layer…

This poem was written in response to Melissa LeMay as guest over at the dVerse Poets Pub last night. I was very taken with the previous Poets Pub Challenge to write a Duplex poem – seven couplets where the baton of an idea, a sudden twist in each second line, is passed to the first line of the next couplet and although I have written in similar form here, I have relaxed the strictures of line length and I still can’t shape the form as being bluesy as it’s inventor talks about…
© Andrew Wilson, 2023

Words, Sounds, Voices, Poesy…

humanist55

For poesy you must first find your voice
many poets clamour on social media

The clamour of poems all in English
I could almost write a poem in French

I almost know how to voice in French
above subtitles I hear foreign word sounds

Foreign word sounds do not always translate well
the English mongrel tongue spews many clues

Clues to meanings I roll around my tongue
multilingual knowledge dies with its host

Poems are multilingual cries to each other
our legacy is flying in the ether

For legacy to gain a firm foothold
in poesy you must first find your voice…

Written for dVerse Poets Pub where Merril set us the challenge of writing a Duplex poem…
© Andrew Wilson, 2023

Harem…

humanist55

Plucked from our homes
to populate His harem
we spend our days
in hazy, lazy
pointless conversations
pretending we are not in competition
whilst on and on time runs
nothing to gain and all to lose
because all that matters
at the end of the day
is which of us He, will choose
and with us lay…

Written for dVerse – Poets Pub Ekphrastic poetry challenge.
Posted by Grace in Poetics with help with the images from Melissa Lemay.
© Andrew Wilson, 2023

America (I Would Like to Visit You)

humanist55

America I would like to visit you but
I have a fear of repeatedly feeling
déjà vu having seen
your treasures and tragedies
over and over
on big screens and small
I have come to absorb
through books and films
and blogs – those love-children
of Letter From America
some understanding of your ways.

It is only my personal view
others see you quite differently
from The Land of Opportunity
to The Great Satan.
I also, of course,
know real Americans
both in the flesh
and in the virtual world
and even have relatives
a whole branch of the family.
Since my grandfather’s brother
emigrated before the First World War
he and his descendants
have demonstrated the positives
the opportunity to make good
– it might have been less opportune
if he had not been white.

Now I understand the wealth
of America could not have been so great
without the dispossession
of the previous occupants
or the relocation of millions
of slaves who
even after emancipation
worked a different kind of bondage
in the factories of Chicago.

I cannot preach
we British have no right…
just this week I read a supplement
of The [Manchester] Guardian
on how Manchester’s cotton wealth
was the fruit of slavery
just at one remove
and the Guardian
famously liberal
did little to recognise
even its own failure to comment
until now.

America
so much is squeezed into your great cities
each pressure-cooking a distinct language
which is so much more than mere accent
but in between, the vast wildernesses
still exist free of graffiti
the poor of the cities not banned
but excluded from access nevertheless
by lacking the means to get there

And so
America
you are a land of opposites
of natural beauty and urban ugliness
of obscene wealth and unforgivable poverty
of liberal tolerance and extreme hatred.
Maybe this is true of all countries
but America – You proclaimed yourself
to be the Great and the Good
to be the World’s Policeman
but all your policemen
carry guns
and so therefore do the bad guys
and the poor
and the rich
by inalienable right.

America
Dorothy has
pulled back the curtain
and the little man revealed
does not match up to the rhetoric
or the dream.

But still I would like to visit you
America…

Written in response to “America [superstorm]”
by Kathleen Graber from her collection – The River Twice
© Andrew Wilson, 2023

A Tale of Two Trips…

humanist55

We travelled twice to Crete
once was a holidayof two weeks
once was something different for six months.
The first time we stayed with
my sister-in-law and her partner
who gave up their bed
for her sister and I.

We hired a car
and left him to his work
and her to hers
rescuing cats
thankless by Cretans
and we travelled that corner of Crete
the lofty coast road south to Sitia
great banks of flowering shrubs
in their pomp
painting our way
giving glimpses of the empty sea
blue below.
Returning, the sunset meal
above a dizzying drop
down to the sea
and opposite the entrance
the coolest water flowing silently
into a trough
out of the heart of the mountain.
We gazed in awe at the Ha Gorge
where only younger people
in wetsuits might slide down
from pool to pool
and then not without risk
to life and limb.

In the year of the pandemic
in September, the disease settling in
for the long haul and we
periodically locked down
made an escape before borders
clanged firmly shut
at the sister-in-law’s suggestion
because Crete had no cases
and the winter would be warmer
than that in England
and we could keep company
installed in a winter vacant flat next door.
Two weeks in
Crete locked down
with a decisive severity
at odds with England’s ‘s Boris led
shilly-shallying silliness
even though Crete was almost Covid free
and England certainly was not!

The winter, as promised
as warm as an English summer
as befits a country
a mere stone’s throw from Africa
with only the occasional storm
thundering around the many mountains.
Oh! We had a grandstand view
from our apartment in Elounda
the sun bursting up across the bay
the evening light rendering
the mountains purple and gold
so crisply shadowed
you felt you could reach out
across twenty miles
and touch their roughness
where they fought
a losing battle against the elements
solid slabs descending into slopes of scree.

But when all was said and done
we were trapped in a gilded cage
on a short leash at best
allowed to local shops
suitably masked and sidestepping
others in a semblance of social distancing
but longer trips forbidden
more living but less sightseeing.

And yet…
on my solitary exercise walks
down to the two town supermarkets
I watched the tiny Cretan olives
ripen to purple-blackish bloom
the family bubbles
spread the nets beneath the trees
and mechanically flail
the harvest to the ground
afterward – pruning-burning bonfires
raising columns of smoke
all over the island
and eventually I saw
the tiny olive flowers
blossom to make next year’s crop
sights you wouldn’t see
on a two-week holiday.

My reward when I reach the town
a masked conversation
with the supermarket’s owner
at her checkout
an unexpected Pink Floyd superfan
telling of a last ticket
last minute flight
to see the group play
an ancient Athens amphitheatre
whilst I exchange a treasured memory
of the week I worked for the group
in the run-up to the premiere of The Wall
my bucket list never saw that coming!
I add the memories
and many photos
to my store.

We do not look back on it
as a holiday
more time served
under lockdown
albeit in a beautiful cell
and though we can say
we lived in Crete for six months
it was not life as we know it…

Posted for dVerse Poets Pub to the prompt Vacation. We don’t use the word vacation so much as holiday if I may be permitted…
© Andrew Wilson 2023

Baggage(This is What it Means to Share a Life…)

humanist55

A life together
does not begin with a clean slate
There is baggage.

The amount of baggage
is not measured by
how many pieces of furniture
or the number of bags and boxes
you each bring
on moving in
together day.

The amount of baggage
is not a direct correlation
to how old either of you are
a short life can contain
as much trauma
as a longer one
not that trauma is
the only kind of baggage
Past loves and joys
form a special category of baggage
and never forget that guiding light
“Comparisons are Odious”

If you have not gone through
the dating phase
of looking deep
into each other’s eyes
swapping life stories
comparing notes
whilst spilling the beans
rest assured it will happen
and unpacking baggage
the literal kind
will turn up who knows what…

A negotiation will take place
as to what goes where
what is precious
too precious to risk being out in
in the breakage zone
what is distasteful
to the other
and which they would
rather you hid away
if indeed
in extremis
it must not actually
be thrown away.

Getting rid of the literal baggage
does not even begin to alter
The inner baggage
which may or may not
be lying around
like still unpacked
boxes and bags
more or less waiting
to be tripped over
not even labelled
with their contents
sometimes it will be years
before this baggage
gives up its secrets

Framed photos will be hung
and you may recognise
your new partner
at a younger age
and with a cast
of other players
yet to be introduced
but don’t mistake recognition
for comprehension
– that will be a long time coming
however much you think
you already know

If you are just a couple
you are lucky to bring
only your own set of baggage
just imagine when
children are to be blended
into a household
hopefully a family
More baggage
external and internal
a metaphorical minefield
of boxes and their contents
to trip over
many of them marked fragile
for all the good that does

And so
at the end of the first day
with the most important
most obvious and bulky baggage
provisionally assigned
a place in the scheme of things
to bed

It will take weeks more
to finally unpack
that literal baggage
but then the real work
and the fun begins
to know the other
inside out
if possible
and to learn
what it means to share a life…

© Andrew Wilson, 2023

Written to a line from “Savior Machine” from Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith

Spies

humanist55

What is a spy if not a cursed liar
Who for love puts hand in fiercest fire
But not the love given to a sweet woman
The love of country is inhuman.

We watched a French, great tragedy conclude
Where agents of The Bureau were deluded
Believing they could steer their star-crossed fate
Clinging to the happy ending till too late.

For once your life is built on falsehood complex
The web you weave the fates will always vex
And you must pay for secrets stolen, finally
No matter how handlers and bosses rally

The cause of saving hapless agents’ lives
Is hard on lovers, colleagues, friends and wives
All pawns in what is known as the Great Game
The spy is destined for a life without fame

And if their life of infamy be revealed
Be sure the fates no happiness will deal.

© Andrew Wilson, 2023

This poem was written in response to a challenge from Posted by Björn Rudberg (brudberg) in Poetry Forms on dVerse – The Poet’s Pub, to write a Heroic Sonnet in iambic pentameter – you can read about it here.

My partner and I have been binge-watching a five-series drama made by the French company Canal called The Bureau. Since the French are famed for their interest in love, this drama, whilst being a cracking, edge-of-your-seat tale of the life of spies, also examines the philosophical implications for the loves of those who make their living by living a lie – can they find happiness? Since the poem might be spoiler enough, I will say no more…

This is the first time I have attempted a Sonnet in Iambic Pentameter – something I vaguely remember being taught in school but had to resort to Wikpedia for the finer points, including all the exceptions to the rules which make lines memorable – I hope I have done it justice. I guess that we many of us have this poetry form flowing through our veins with so many great poets and playwrights having embraced the form.

A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night

humanist55

When successful singer
and writer of songs
Harry Nilsson
schmoosed his foray
into the Great American Songbook
he little knew
it would ruin his career.

A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night
was a decade before such
sentimental standards
would slip down easily
sumptuously
with the richness
of a cocktail
knowingly too sweet
but too delicious to pass up.

The ninth album
following a trail
of hit songs
embedded in each one
nothing prepared his fans
for this shift in pace
and orchestrations
that out Hollywooded Hollywood.

Frank Sinatra’s arranger
sewed the songs together
slipping seamlessly
from track to track
in a welter of schmaltz
that should make us sick
but succeeds In pulling at
our heartstrings.

All the emotional
tricks of film scores
with swooping glissandos
of silvery strings
dramatic pauses
and sudden quietening
that make way for
heart-rending lyrics.

I can’t recall
When or where
Nilson whispered
pure emotion
in my ears
or the joy of rediscovering
this iced gem
decades after
Nilsson bombed
his career.

Wikipedia
told me the sorry tale
but I was too awash with the joy
of rediscovery
to truly sympathise
and if there is a heaven
then he is surely there
and I hope he hears
my tribute and my
sincere judgement
that this beauty
was simply
ahead of its time…

© Andrew Wilson, 2023

Intro
Lazy Moon
For Me and My Gal
It Had to be You
Always
Makin’ Whoopee
You Made Me Love You
Lullaby in Ragtime
I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now
What’ll I Do
Nevertheless (I’m in Love With You)
This is All I Ask
As Time Goes By
I’m Always Chasing Rainbows
Make Believe
Trust in Me
It’s Only a Paper Moon
Thanks for the Memory
Over the Rainbow
Outro

Written for a musical evening over at dVerse – Poetics – The Poet’s Pub where tonight the theme is Musical Muses, hosted this evening by msjadeli…

Genuinely Distressed Denim

humanist55

Today I am Wearing denim
and a cotton shirt
both are faded naturally
by sun and age and wear

The jeans are now for DIY
the front of the thighs
covered with finger wipe marks
not as many colours
as when I was a signwriter
and other substances too
grittily mixed in

The rips are fashionable
but not fashioned to be so
nevertheless my grandsons
have dibs on their genuine distress!

The grandfather shirt
collarless
also faded with age
to a soft, pale blue
is frayed at the cuffs
and relegated to work
rather than repair
too late to turn
these cuffs

I will walk to the supermarket
and I hope someone
will appreciate my look
like women who dress
their best
though not looking to pull.

© Andrew Wilson, 2023

This poem was not done to any prompt or challenge – I know – unbelievable! However, since I have been exploring AI (see previous posts), I decided to see whether I could produce a suitable image and below is the nearest to what I imagined. The prompt was “a gently smiling late middle age man seen full-length wearing a faded blue collarless shirt with frayed cuffs and faded denim jeans with paint marks and rips down the front shopping in a supermarket –ar 4:6” and I then cropped the image in Photoshop. As you can see, the AI bot didn’t understand collarless, and in this iteration did not make much of the distressing of the jeans. I guess it shows that in this case, a picture is unnecessary since the poem says it all and allows the reader to imagine their own image but I decided to include it as part of my AI exploration. And by the way, it doesn’t look anything like me – far more handsome…