Category Archives: Life_the Universe_and …

March 1, 2013

the room

By hjs

first door on the left
right up at the top
the doorknob is tarnished

bedstead of brown polished wood
hotplate (two rings)
furred up kettle
tin saucepan

through the window
black fireladders
shadows on brownstone walls
a rusting watertank

stranded
halfway across the floor
a black leather boot
with a big silver buckle

salt in the air and seaweed
gulls circle the ceiling rose

the ocean rolls in from the far side
long lines of breakers
between the overthrown washstand
and the warped dresser

tidemark of debris across the room
broken planks
a smashed barrel of rum
glint of scattered doubloons

thick fine white sand covers the floor

stay
who made those footprints?

hush now
take care
how you go

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February 28, 2013

Going outside

By hjs

“I am just going outside and may be some time.”
Cpt. Titus Oates

He never was the one
to go in search of sunny beaches.
He never took that Caribbean cruise
at Christmas – would rather
stay at home, confined inside
as cold winds rattled windowpanes
and snow fell on the garden.
He didn’t want a tan, the busyness
of southern market places,
the babble of vacation crowds.
He liked the cold, the quiet, night.

On winter evenings
he embarked on polar explorations.
He set his armchair up below decks
on the Erebus, and watched
John Franklin vanish into myth;
returned, a lone survivor,
from the kitchen with a mug of tea,
to strike out for the North Pole
on the Fram. Thwarted by southern drift
he turned the page, and tried his luck
with Shackleton and the Endurance.

He didn’t change much when
the diagnosis was confirmed:
sat still and watched his garden
slowly fill with snow; took up
a book and trudged with Scott
and Oates across the bleak expanse
of endless ice. Just sometimes,
after dark, suspended in his pool of light
behind the glass, he would wonder
if he’d ever find the courage to go out
– or if he’d rather stay some time.

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February 21, 2013

Touch-me-not

By hjs

Someone has found my secret place
and raided the Impatiens Parviflora.

Its pods,
translucent green
with ripeness,
the joyful pregnant bombs
of resurrection –
all spent.

I button up my coat.
The winter will be cold.

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February 21, 2013

still

By hjs

out on the beach
an old man leans into the wind

bends down
picks up a pebble

against the hiss of waves on shingle
he stands motionless

then gently puts it back
among the million others

leans into wind
bends down

seeking perfection
still

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February 5, 2013

Footprints #2

By hjs

I came across this poem called Footprints
in The Nation’s Favourite Twentieth Century Poems
by ANON. (and by God he or she knew why):

an overpowering poem  for sheer mawkishness
and one hundred per cent genuine cringe value –
and I caught myself loving its message.

It’s about this man walking the beach with the LORD
(reliving his life in a dream), and looking back he sees
only one set of prints at the most difficult times,

and he accuses the LORD of deserting him
in his hour of need; whereupon HE replies
then HE was carrying him… I blinked back a tear,

then retraced  their steps in the sand
to measure the depth of those solitary prints.
They were no deeper than when the man walked alone.

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February 5, 2013

An unread book

By hjs

In the middle
of his fifth decade,
all at sea and lost
in office murk,

he strikes out
for the shores
of his favourite bookshop.
Stroking faces and spines,

scanning the shelves
for the one
that will cut through
the fog,

a Companion to Life,
he has no eyes
for the shy assistant’s
sideways glances.

If he knew how to read
and what
they would speak
volumes.

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February 4, 2013

February Nights

By hjs

All through the night the glow of orange snow.
We cannot leave the world to black and white;
someone might reach out to the dark, and go.

Exhausted ski lifts drop their freight, and low
on fading mountains lies departing light.
All through the night the glow of orange snow

battles the deepening shadows; but although
we double-lock our doors we know tonight
someone might reach out to the dark, and go ­–

a ship caught in the Arctic undertow
that’s lost her north and given up the fight.
All through the night the glow of orange snow:

the Northern Lights coldly observe her slow
descent below the ice, and out of sight.
Someone might reach out to the dark, and go –

tune out of life as of a tedious show
he’s watched too long. Too noisy, busy, bright.
All through the night the glow of orange snow…
Someone might reach out to the dark – and go.

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February 3, 2013

A word of advice

By hjs

When continents of
black ice close in

and, pressed against the wall
of your cave, you succumb

to the darkening embrace
of your very own Ice Age:

hibernate.

Hibernate.

Hold on till a ray
of the newborn old sun

slants in at the mouth of the cave
and, like a latter-day Stanley,

shakes your pale hand with a smile
of triumphant exhaustion.

Relief, it will say, is at hand
just around the next berg.

But, hey – watch it
as you stumble half-blind into thin light:

the polar bears are famished
and you don’t know where

beneath that smooth white expanse
the abyss is getting ready

to pounce.

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