The final invitation

No one invites me to parties any more.

I am no longer hip or cool.

I have no part in hit parade.

I’m long in tooth and short of hair

except on chin and arms and ears.

No one invites me to parties any more.

The trend has past me by.

I have no part in cabaret.

My face don’t fit, my ideas ain’t right;

except for grins and cool disdain.

No one invites me to parties any more.

The ocean’s swell is calm.

I have no part in any crew,

nor role on any stage or board;

except the last: to quit this coil.

No one invites me to parties any more;

but one awaits: my call

away to part this shadow life,

and face the charge and fiery fateⁱ

excepting none: to wake anew.

i“Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss : but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”
[1Cor 3:13-15 KJV]

Henry's demons

Part the first:

I sit in my car,

secure before my interview,

listening to the whispering voices

of my radio.

I hear a father telling falteringly

of his son:

a boy called Henry.

My whole attention’s won.

I am stunned

as the gentle man says how

Henry once took hash

and mislaid his sense.

From that time on

he was troubled of mind;

pursued by demons

none else could see.

He was put away.

Institutions became

his unhomely home:

no place of nurture.

Escape was his constant

cunning endeavour;

but success in this business,

presaged failure elsewhere.

Once out in the world

he had no sense of self;

no idea of what was real,

of what was good or ill.

He was overwhelmed,

fragile, incompetent;

not knowing whom to trust,

or what to do for best.

Drugs gave a peace

beyond all understanding;

but loss of understanding

was too high a price.

The destruction of self,

is no rational sacrifice.

All drugs do is pacify,

not make one whole.

Eventually, love won

and Henry was drawn back

into the light of reason,

and found true peace.

He was re-united

with his worried Father and

close family and friends:

a sort of resurrection.

Part the second:

I feel I have a choice:

one won through pain and love;

a choice unwelcome,

though offered of benign intent.

I ken a solid semblance

of what I heard the man relate

could become real for me

– but at a woesome price.

A dilemma, richly dark,

is for me now proposed:

either to accept the present pain,

as for the best;

or else allow a higher cost,

and so to have returned

what I have loved and lost

and still do sadly grieve.

The choice seems clear:

but I am well forewarned

that no glad good

will come of such desired renewal;

but only further, deeper pain

and greater suffering.

It is not possible that I should help:

but only hurt.

Symposium

Socrates stands silent, without the house.

He sways to and fro;

though there is no breeze.

His daemon speaks,

in words of tantalising uncertainty;

warning of danger, urging on with cue.

Within, the revellers laugh,

intent to entertain

themselves with wine and song and jest.

They miss his presence,

await his profile at the door.

Hopeful of his words, yet fearful too.

The seer breaks his pose;

returning to this world of doubt.

Regaining his will and purpose,

he looks about.

He shrugs and enters into its flimsy reality.

It is most unsatisfactory,

but will have to do.

His eyes peer into shadows

which lie all about him.

They reveal their remote origins

to his mind

as they obscure their immediate

intentions from his eyes.

He knows at last his will,

with doubt he’s through.

He wishes to advance;

move forward in this place;

join his friends within;

enjoy their fellowship.

He wishes much more.

To pass beyond this place

to enter into a richness

which few subdue.

Socrates bows his head

and enters the festive hall.

His presence fills the room,

the party song falls silent.

Let us speak of love,

dear friends, he says.

Let us praise the source

of all life new.

Account is made of Eros, ancient of days;

wisest and most beneficent,

yet maddener of men;

neither spirit nor matter

– but interlocutor between –

carrying precious gifts

reconciliation to pursue.

Socrates is silent. Then he frowns

and shakes his head.

What truth was spoke

was not spoke true enough;

weighed down by quest for earthly ease.

Such phantasms, he knows,

he must eschew.

He recalls an aged seeress,

Diotima she was named.

She once instructed him in love;

when he was young

and brash and wilful

and fully self-assured.

She cut him down a peg:

her words he will review.

Love is desire for beauty

with good outcome;

life leading to life and on to eternity.

Beauty is next to Good,

and supplies the defect

of sight to restore

what wisdom once knew.

The end of love is fellowship of being;

union with the source of life and hope,

attainment of clear sight

and understanding

sure knowledge of beauty

and justice true.

All love and beauty

in this world is perilous;

an intimation of

what lies beyond the veil,

an incentive to kindness

and spur to courage

but also a nagging distraction

from these two.

Then in storms Alcibiades,

apple of the sage’s eye;

yet rotten to the core.

Traitor both to tutor and to State.

Sure of himself, overflowing with hubris,

ravishing in countenance and thew.

He berates his erstwhile lover,

speaking of deceit,

how he promised much, but gave nothing;

not tenderness, nor comfort of embrace,

but by cultured neglect all passion slew.

He accuses the silent Socrates

of inhumanity,

of spiritual conceit and direst pride

being impossible to live with or without:

his friendship he does most sorely rue!

A tear wells in the seer’s face;

but he turns away

from what he has loved,

and always will love,

in this world: knowing that the warning,

once heard, he can never misconstrue.

This spoiled man, he knows,

exemplifies full well

(but without spark of intent

or glimmer of awareness)

the power of love to pervert and corrupt,

when divorced from its object due.

Priest and Altar

The old priest clings
     fast
and with fearful fingers
     to the altar slab
     that
     long has stood
in this faithful place
     this place of filial hope.
His heart is now
    quite cold
    dead as the stone
    his hands tight hold:
    cold as its silent speech.
His soul is withered
    as autumnal leaves
    which fall from stricken trees
to dampen, darken
and decay
– or else to burn
on bonfire bright
to briefly lighten up the night
and end their feeble, futile span
no sooner than by them began.

His eyes flare out with tears:
     precious gems of salty woe.
He mourns mortality
    and loss of love
    and failing hope
and desiccated faith
    which flaunts its false solace
though he, like Faustus his forebear,
    is far beyond
    all scope of grace.

His mouth frames silent syllables
    which if were spoke
    might shrive his soul;
but no words, fair or foul,
    escape his narrow lips
nor e’en inchoate grunt slips
    out: no sacrament of hope.

The old priest slumps
    devoid
    of breath and and word
on the altar slab
    that
    long has stood
in this fateful place
    this place of filial hope.
His heart is now
    quite cold
    dead as the stone
    his hands un-hold:
    cold as its silent speech.
His soul is withered
    as autumnal leaves
    which fall from stricken trees
to dampen, darken
and decay
– or else to burn
on bonfire bright
to briefly lighten up the night
and end their feeble, futile span
no sooner than by them began.

My Waifs

These days, I seem to be collecting waifs

like others collect stamps

or the numbers of trains.

It’s a queer hobby, I know,

and not one I’d recommend!

Unless you have a strong heart

and much time to lend.

They pop up as unknowns

at the foot of my screen,

urgently requesting

my immediate attention.

Sometimes I am glad of the company;

sometimes I am glad to be in demand,

for it gets lonely in my basement study

now that I am home alone,

with time at hand.

Sometimes the request

is an interruption of thought

or a distraction from

one endeavour or another.

Sometimes a moment

of solace is besought,

sometimes advice

as from an elder brother.

Always there is a need,

always a life is fraught.

Always there is pain,

always there is despair.

Generally, they are reticent

and coy at first;

but all it really takes

is an invitation to share

A “how can I help?” or a “how are you?”

and a whole sad life-story out does spew.

Some of death too much have seen,

Some by parent abandoned have been.

Some fear rejection for telling their truth.

Some condemn themselves

for being uncouth.

Some with guilt and self-despite

are burdened.

Some are so angry and

with violence consumed.

Some feel wound up tight

and fit to burst.

Some feel unloved

and for love sorely thirst.

Some have broken hearts

that will not mend.

Some see too clearly of this life the end.

Some feel empty and so, so sad.

Some feel wicked and so, so bad.

Some despair of finding peace.

Some in self-harm seek poor release.

Some seek solace in vodka or rhy.

Some their death themselves do try.

Each bares the scars of despite.

Each one cowers in the night:

frightened of the darkness

that lurks there as a sickness

threatening in its slickness

to overwhelm their soul

and render them unwhole.

I do what little I can to help and mend.

I listen, affirm and tell them I understand

(Because I do understand,

for I have been there.

I have ridden the bucking nightmare.

I have felt the gut-wrenching sorrow,

with no prospect of a dawning morrow.

I have had my full share of strife.

I have at times lost faith with life.)

I try to give them hope,

when faith they do not know.

I tell them they are loved;

that mercy they must show;

and that they must themselves

forgive and loose the guilt

that holds them fast and

has a fortress round them built.

I tell them life can be

a glorious exaltation

something of sturdy

and stalwart stone and ice:

something of fluid

and playful conflagration

varied and multiform,

yet stable and precise:

an intimation and disclosure

of heavenly eternity

thrusting forcefully and surely

into earthly futility.

So much sorrow, so much pain.

So many people lost and forlorn.

So many people in need.

So many souls to feed.

So little that I can do;

but I do what I can, will you?

The Popish Plot

Under the hallowed halls

the noble band had hid

cask on cask of powder

as stalwart Fawkes had bid.

The morn before King James

came to address his Lords

they crept unseen through darkest gloom

most unaware of their fell doom

down narrow ways unto that room

where waited men with swords.

To deeds extreme Fawkes had been led

by agents of the Crown,

who sought full long,

through shire and town,

some hapless man who’d loose his head

when he had carefully been fed

a silly, hopeless plan.

“Alas, we are found out!”

cried Fawkes, full of alarm.

“We are betrayed! Flee if you can!”

as he did spy the harm

that waited in the form of men

intent to thwart his naïve plot

to kill the King, the royal Scott,

and so to end the state’s foul rot

that stank as stagnant fen.

The brave souls were beat down

and trampled under foot

their hands were bound,

their necks were bent

their hope was from them cut.

They were brought forth in day’s sad ray

their love for Pope and slight of King

made plain for all the folk to see:

and they did anthems sing!

Unto a gallows tree

the plotters were soon brought

and they did dangle most merrily

as of the Earth their feet came short.

The people did rejoice

and tell with glee full keen

how good it was that popish plot

had wisely foilèd been.

And now we labour hard

’neath traitors’ iron hand

(of Whiggish temperament

who of their ill will not relent)

and hanker after that good Guy

who would have downcast tyranny

and set fair justice on the seat

so all might have what’s meet.

Hatred

There is a hatred,
reserved and well matured,
fermented long
– and then three times distilled –
that’s set aside for those
that once were loved.
Its bilious hue is intimately known
to all who’ve been betrayed
and who have had heart broken,
all who have been abandoned,
left disgraced – as for dead.


All those who drink this draught
will live to rue the day:
for it transforms the good into the bad,
and changes all affection to despite.
So when this cup is offered thee,
cast it away.
Do not hesitate.
Do not delay.
Remembering what was good,
though it is gone.
Accept the loss,
allow the wounds to heal;
let drop whatever tears must fall
and then pass on.