Today was better,
These rules came to me,
In a different order, longer
Originally, but I carved
Them down, to be
Universal, like Moses,
On the Met line to Watford,
Clear now, about how
Miracles occur.
coping
Jimi Hendrix, 80 today
Jimi, are there harps in heaven.
For your ears, hearing, making, breathing
Rhythm round the planes of colour like
Light itself, the frequency is that high.
James Marshall Hendricks
Born 27th November 1942.
Ageing
You avoid the sun
Etching lines on
Your skin. You are
The artist, not the sun.
Pain’s sweet tooth, remembered
Back in this place again
This place of doom and gloom
Bloated stomach passing for womb
Once I was well and pain
Was something felt from a
Prick of thorn or cut of steel
Not as now when it grows
From a live seed
Planted deep, sown down
In furrows, virulent its saplings writhe
For supremacy, squealing for
Sugar and coffee and tea
Cake and wine and syrup and cream,
Drops will not do, bring
Buckets for bowls, Life must
Be strained and stretched to
Feed Pain’s sweet tooth.
Notes on the poem
I wrote this 14 years ago, when I was struggling with a pituitary tumour and acromegaly.
I’m starting to include poems from this period of my life, from my first site : creativecoping.wordpress.com.
I think the past, in all its forms, memory, history, monument, is useful to the present.
By resurfacing these poems, I hope to remember the lessons life gave me then.
Human hair
The trees show their skins
Without shame, to the cold
They glare back, when we
Hide.
A shedding of hair is akin to
A shedding of complacency
When it was there, we noted
It not, when it is gone, weep
We it’s going, alone, without
A cover for our head, our
Bidding chip for love and more.
Should I keep a lock of it in a
Tin in the Watford soil, a relic
Of my time on this earth past?
Home safe, at last
The omphalos – the navel
This is my place of healing
This is my life in my
Navelbowl. I must not
Let it spill empty, I must
Keep it full, the seat of
My whole, the connection
That birthed me from
Ancestors, I tried
To exist without it,
It is the door to the
Home that is me, I
Was locked out and
Now I am in, I am
My body, at last.
Eat, Sleep, Work, Repeat
These feel like the end days
Of life. The sun, the moon,
The clouds that move, the
Train that stops at every stop
And then goes back again.
The cyclists in the queue
At the traffic lights, leading
South. How long it feels, this
March to death, this mess of
Locks and wheels and limbs
That we call civilisation. How
Vile the stench of sweating
Plastic and half-eaten sandwiches
Discarded in the wrong section
Of the bin, into general rubbish
Claustrophobia
What do we do when there
Is no space to breathe?
When our lungs can’t hold
The water in our eyes
And it comes rushing
Out amongst these
Crocodiles that bite
Us. There’s no such thing
As love, our limbs think,
As our blood cracks back,
Retreats into our heart,
For home, but the door
Is locked and the ventricles
Glare back, blank
Windows harbouring the
Eternity of Death
That lurks behind
Every breath. Ready
To pounce out like
a cat released to go
Hunting in the bird-
Filled night that
Quacks around us in
A cacophony of quarks
We can’t decipher as
Our hands go numb
With stress and our
Hips contract around
Our basal strength
As it pours out
Uncontrollably and
Meanwhile where is
The chair? We haven’t
Sat down for so long
We can’t remember
What rest means.
Be still, remember
It is always there
However far away
It seems, if we
Just stop to reclaim
The space around each breath.
Savasana
Let the rude earth warm me
Let me peace shake,
Let my time here spend
Centimeters above.
I can hear pulses,
Below jaw, above voice,
Behind knees to feet that speak
To the ground, for fear
of troubling the hands with the full weight of the sky.
Quantum Faith
As sure as fire is hot,
Moons move. The thing I am now will
Swap places with another
All is equal at the sun atomic level.
No questioning reality,
Expect it of anything
Time is constant, possibly.
Some stars have made it to our eyes in
An everlasting instant
Being Every Day 