Assorted Haiku

Late nights and no sleep:
Many years devoted to
Books and one's learning.


No inspiration:
Dig up another's piece while
Composing music.


No clouds and calm skies.
Easy to take for granted.
Hot hours in Spring.


Too often abused.
Cherish always while it lasts:
Your mother's free love.


Abstract emotion:
Another language of tears
Makes music's meaning.


Pay your dues while young -
Treasure stored up in heaven.
Money won't do now.


Try not to bellow
At me. Remember always,
Anger is a sin.


Con-fu-ci-us say,
"This year be year of rat, so
Eat up dog and cat!"


Seagulls through the sky;
Freedom in three dimensions;
Hovering on air.

Jettisoning Polar Barley

You'll never see into my heart,
You silly old fool,
Although all is plain and clear -
All signed, t's crossed, i's dotted,
And written in triplicate.
You make the same mistakes,
Year after year,
As if nothing matters;
Patronising with a broad sweep of the hoe;
Potatoes dug up when they are green,
Dangerously full of solanine -
And left on my doorstep,
As if I've never been fed!
Shed painted just before rain,
And washed away...
At the stroke of twenty pounds.

You, just like the rest,
Spurn, ridicule, belittle,
And burn like hot treacle:
The only reason you'll ever know.
Ripping out bulls in china shops,
Until everything is smashed,
And beyond repair.

The distance between,
Grows day by day,
Hour by hour,
Minute by minute:
You carry on,
Until all lights are extinguished,
All hearts dissected out,
And arranged in childish order -
Just for 'Science',
And the erroneous proofs,
Fed to readers of the Daily Mail!

British Nonsense

My name is Uzziah Uriah Manrael,
I come from London:
Golder's Green to be precise.
I deal in 'Emerald Runes',
Don't you see?
And I am rather partial to Szigeti -
Imported specially by Viennese cousins,
Over yonder in Europe!
I am the local Necromancer:
So just to corral these words
Into the throes of death,
I readied the Ark, the think
And the murder in shoes -
This antediluvian nonsense disaster.

The Ends of the World

Eschatology is not just a question of theology,
Biology is not our fate.
Life goes beyond mere physiology,
And, by the way, it's not too late.
The Messiah will come to press the vine,
And turn our good deeds into wine.

Soteriology is not just a question of philosophy.
Epistemology doesn't do the trick.
The same goes for Scientology -
We all get judged, both dead and quick!
Christ will come from clouds above,
From on high: just like a dove.

Ontology is not a version of cryptography,
To punish all who seek.
We could start with thaumatology,
But, in truth the flesh is weak.
The Anointed One will come just like a lamb,
Tell me now, who gives a damn?

Theosophy does not boil down to our ecology,
Numerology is not the answer.
Abraham's is the true genealogy,
And oncology is just a cure for cancer.
Jesus is coming, like it or not ...
Remember: hell can get a little hot!

Dreaming

He had the light
To run like an obsidian black.
Into the night
And never return.
"Wait for me
On the other side", she said,
"And stay and watch…"
Yet it was him she denied.

He waited for an age and a day
Till the Earth had frozen over.

Tarrying for his lover
But she was gone.

The mist was on the field.
I turned both left and right
But I couldn't see.
Oh, the rolling wheels:
The years refuse to sit lightly on me.

Star Wars Synaesthesia

A long time ago,

In a place quite near here,

There existed a degenerate called Socrates,

Who thought all art was bad.

Later, some time later,

The pious used art to glorify God.

And then came Baumgarten - 

And who is Baumgarten, you might ask?

He 'invented' the word aesthetics.

Later came the Modern era.

Oh, my God, what a load of kitsch!

Maybe someone can sort out this mess.

Too many 'isms, not traditional art,

Artists in ivory towers, articles

For specialists, written by specialists.

Why can't we turn the clock back?

   

A Hardened Advocate

There is a tree on a tall precipice,
Where a headless blackbird lies stiff…
Dead: far from life and Nature's claw,
Given over to strife and blood-red teeth.
This bird is carrion for cat or fox,
Added to daily-murdered stock.
The tree, it stands beyond reproof,
Tested, tried, like a bush alight -
Burning, yet not consumed.
A firedrake, where all has been deflowered.

Next to the tree hangs a crowd,
Shouting noisily as if through soundproofed walls.
Why so angry and hardened?
Why curse this hallowed, immoral graveyard?
Littered too and a disgusting contradiction,
Where fruit would help to nourish the afflicted.
An apple with flesh so delicious,
Beneath a carapace: vile and bilious.

If you were to get beneath this skin,
A core sweet and soft within,
You would meet so agreeable and kind;
No bitter soul you should reveal,
Under this acrid-tasting, gallish rind.
A centre 'neath so pure and clean,
Approachable yet unapproachable…
All: candid, new, pale and noble.