Rg Gregory

when the dog began to sing
the people ran amok
a man shinned up a flagpole
...

the children played games
getting from here
to where the truth was
...

i want to hold the horse's string
cried the girl (three) stamping her foot
told by adults she was much too young
...

do you think an old heart can't sing
do you think an old heart can't dance
with a love that belongs to spring -
...

we say blame the teachers
don't we send our young to school
to be taught the simple rules
...

(from a painting by hugo simberg)

those who bear the wounded angel
are they honoured or destroyed
far beyond their comprehension
...

yesterday the man was pleased
the sun sat in the tree and all
upon the land held to the harmony
...

snow is a thousand flowers
the chinese probably said
hundreds and thousands this morning
...

schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
had a song
wound up inside her

she'd had it taped
on a silken spool
this was the song
she sang as a rule

o little fly
come be my friend
i have fly's gold
for you to spend

i'll wrap you in silks
to make you pretty
if you refuse
then more's the pity

the silk-voice warbled
through the wood
the best bird-song
didn't seem so good

but no flies came
they were too fly
looking through the song
to the web's black eye

o schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
who had a song
wound up inside her

passed through hunger
to the edge of death
the wood stopped growing
and held its breath

one day the silken
web was still
and curious flies
came to find how ill

the spider was â€" but
becoming too daring
many got stuck
in the silken snaring

but schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
who had a song
wound up inside her

presented thus
with a feast of flies
cried weakly in anger
i despise i despise

such dull victims
that have no ear
for the silken song
i keep in here

but when in silence
this web is wrapped
stupid and nosey
they all get trapped

and the web grew slack
in the dying wood
the poor flies wriggled
but it did no good

and schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
who had a song
wrapped up inside her

spun into herself
to disappear
he was lost to the world
for many a year

but whether she meant it
or it was a fearful tangle
she came out one night
in the african jungle

she was in a tree
quite close to the sun
in the topmost branch
her web was spun

its silken strands
in the sun's gold rays
dazzled her neighbours
into fulsome praise

and soon the jungle
was wrapt in a sound
(as the bouncing spider's
song unwound)

whose piercing beauty
brought dew to the eyes
of every creature
but the jungle flies

no one could tell
what the song might mean
the song and the web
made so rare a screen

and schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
who had a song
wound up inside her

wove her sad magic
both day and night
the moon and the sun
never shone so bright

and after the rains
had moistened the jungle
it wore the spider
like a jewelled bangle

the jungle flies though
soon went mad
unable to hear
a song so sad

they buzzed and bashed
uncontrollably
every tree bore signs
of their mortality

it couldn't be guessed
on what the spider fed
no victim was lured
into the sparkling web

yet schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
who had a song
wound up inside her

never stopped singing
and the jungle grows
to this very day
in the song's sad throes

but don't go looking
for the bouncing spider
who has a song
wound up inside her

what you can't see
you can always dream
what's song to one
is another's scream

and each one is born
with a touch of fly
that can't tell beauty
from a spit in the eye

and schnyder schnyder
the bouncing spider
who has a song
wound up inside her

with intolerable sheen
puts the price too high
love me or fear me
be enchanted or die
...

i'm going to give up loving you
i'm going to hate you instead
living's so difficult difficult baby
...

when the old man said
i know everything
the young girl replied
...

(to where the ashes of both
my parents are strewn)
...

for kelly

happiness is the stuff of birthdays
and the coming of sweet things
when they are not expected

happiness is when the moment
catches the sunlight and a giggle
comes out of darkness to take a look

happiness is when the body
rhymes with the heart and the whole
self flows like a mountain stream

happiness is when mischief
dances like stars in the fingers
and adults are nowhere in sight

happiness has its own clock
it comes in short ticks - then
it tocks where no one can find it
...

with landbound legs a wish
for the easy flow of a river - not
the clambering up crags to seek
more favour from the sun
(or long-haired moon) harped for
since those sparks of who am i
first clicked through consciousness

how the river sidles round
rocks blocking the painful straight
seems to brush aside
all snags disrupting its ambition
to be sea - certain from its source
downwardness is good - legs don't have
that gift (being boned with doubt)

rivers in their waywardness
become a rattling cage of tigers
when the storm god snarls
legs are happy then
to have hard ground to run away on
legs and rivers you could say
should show compassion for each other

as if legs themselves aren't rivers
when (from hip to toe) the energy
runs down from impulses
the high brain sources - summer's joys
or winter's nobbling aches
make the same ground safe
or fearful - as when the river legs it

legs or rivers - the game's alike
seasons distort the flow
in age the river's more appealing
(legs have a way of silting up)
after the high ground's turmoils
you hope for the sanctity of meadows
a kind of green relief

legs feed on past dreams (now
kick a ball the leg drops off)
rivers are geared to what comes next
even in the sea's maw
hope is on their lips (ever) - legs
rest on their elegiac laurels
with the weight off them they flow best
...

for what my heart held clear
and didn't have the wit to show

for what my path proposed
and got lost in its diversions

for what my beginnings dreamed
and my ends cannot lay hold of

for what promises i made
and have not had the shine to keep to

i ask your understanding

for what i have been
and could not be another

i ask your love
...

shaw had the gift of the crab
how he took the straight idea
and scuttled with it sideways
marking sand and word with sea's
inventions - what shaw perceived
went deeper than the lounger's eye
stripped for entertainment in the sun
shaw's art was nip and prick
sending the red-skinned lounger home
with buzzing brain shocked tongue
and sandstorms stinging in his ears

jung went for niches in the night
believing that the seeds of suns
had tucked themselves away before
the daylight had its uses tamed
and from the furthest midnight-stitch
had control of every tongue
seeping its blossoms into rites
jung saw songs and dreams as coin
for spending in the health shops
sickness was a swallowed laughter
human richness not to be denied

shaw was a man formally dressed
jung a deer with its horns folded
both wrestling with enigmas of
the knotted cell craving for eden
(matings of serpents and apples)
one's wit was in his brain-box
the other's limpid as a crystal ball
they took the ins and outs of life
strove to prime mortality afresh
beyond behaviour - scraped clay
to let creation loose in its re-phrasing
...

the paiute indians had the bird sussed
a humming bird (loaded with seeds) set out
to see beyond the sun - it aimed to be frugal
rationing itself to only one seed a day - even so
it ran out long before it meant to
it gave up (getting nowhere and seeing nothing) -

all of which rings a human bell or two
such an ineffable fool - but look at its skills
able to hover and fly backwards - aztec
and mayan gods associated with the bird
judged to have such harmony and beauty
(a vibration of pure joy) mortals gobsmacked

age stores its humming birds inside
exotic memories hovering in the mind
homages to a sun impossible to reach
sleeplessly-stirred bright feathers parade
their love charms - their essence of a self
not truly sung yet tinged with paradise
...

six...six...why only yesterday
it seems that fist shot out
that one eye winked...and yet
now that this day's arrived
it really is as if six years
have blinked - and you've sprung
through a thousand instant snaps
into this boy whose tongue
can't help but say thought not thinked
who's no longer to be fed
with ideas any more than food
will pick and choose as he wishes
will draw with his fingers inked
will behave as a baby still
when it suits his own deep schemes
whose eyes look out on the world
with a sense that six is wise
and there's nothing that can't be grasped
if time and mood are right
and want and reward are linked

and truth (however grown up)
doesn't do the dirty on instinct
...

(roundel: variation of the rondeau
consisting of three stanzas of three
lines each, linked together with but
two rhymes and a refrain at the end
of the first and third group)



1.
the blind rose

today's fullness is tomorrow's gone
(the next day after no one knows)
last year's dream now feeds upon
what blindly grows

imagine if you like a rose
on which no likely sun has shone
a darkness chokes it (just suppose)

the die though's cast - a marathon
of hopes endeavours then bestows
dawn's right to spill its colours on
what blindly grows


2.
squeaking

there are so few words left now to grow
green on - my vocabulary's stumped
for a hard-edged phrase to let you know
my truth's not been gazumped

love itself of course is blandly thumped
each time it suits you to imagine no
fruits are guilty for their being scrumped

if you can't be honest with me - better go
if dumped is what you wish then i'll be dumped
excuse me if i go on squeaking though
my truth's not been gazumped


3.
ease of mind

the world spins - today i have migraine
the peace i seek is never less than ill
striving's no answer to the bumptious pain
that is love's overspill

wanting warmth encourages the chill
relaxation breeds its bitter strain
the worst of all crimes is - i love you still

hope itself by nature is inane
i squat in a box dismembered from such will
to let me find the ease of mind again
that is love's overspill


4.
a roundel for ptolemy

the earth is not the system's centre- so ok
heliocentric - well our sun's a midget
spawning galaxies blow our minds away
space then equal to a digit

the mightiest telescope's a widget
science at best hard guessing gone astray
no genius stretch beyond a second's fidget

ptolemy discarded yet may have his say
infinity takes a hologram to bridge it
each shard of us contains the cosmos -
space then equal to a digit


5.
reflection

everything you do is my reflection
the hurts you cause are my pain inside out
blame's no matter for a close inspection
your guilt turns mine about

love itself is many hands of doubt
it cannot be without it breeds rejection
its silences result in one big shout

i am left with nothing but dejection
what's gold in me has nowhere to get out
love's pride is fatal to correction
my guilt turns yours about


6.
the round

the round understands the fluidity of order
how the thing lit up and the shadow can't compete
how the centre is that version of the border
the moment makes complete

notice each face around a space at times replete
with insights given to no one else as warder
but not condemned when those insights retreat

impermanence is eternity's recorder -
with an intricate sense of pattern power can't delete
the round honours those cracks in the divine disorder
the moment makes complete


7.
the actor

acting is not the true self's dissipation
but not its preening either - outside the role
it honours it best fights shy of reputation -
being what prometheus stole
it is a distant spark of that first live coal
a conscious glimpse of human desperation
rekindled as a longing to console

the waning spirit or the shattered dedication
actors are allies of the delphic hole
for good or ill they echo human expectation
being what prometheus stole


8.
roundels in honour of the round

(i)
when energy was born it asked this question
which way dear parents do i go from here
mum fluttered indifferently (i blame exhaustion)
dad pointed with his sexual gear

so energy thrust straight ahead and fostered fear
at once its dreaded source became a bastion
too holy to be doubted - mum flipped a gear

she sought revenge on dad for his lewd suggestion
taking too long of course - things went nuclear
the scale of the damage was too much to ingest when
dad pointed with his sexual gear

(ii)
she sat with her flowing skirt spread out on the earth
and tore the garment into strips from toe to waist
laying them to point around the wide world's girth
my way the truth flows best

dad laughed his head off at the pointless waste
and energy itself was seized by powerful mirth
perhaps mum's petalled skirt was not well placed

in time mishandled plenty breeds its dearth
dad's roisterous one-way-ism was disgraced
energy began to sense what mum was worth
her way the truth flows best
...

there are eyes that refuse to exist
in the fresh air - they are invented
by the lies of paint or make their mark
in a memory that had a truth
to feed on but only by distortion

right now they sell a dream
i'd like to see the back of - they come
with a whole body rippling me apart
disturbing me with echoes of a flesh
so many layers down the light derides it

why can't i grasp it now
this love's reverberation of a sound
that tunes me deeper than my marrow
but runs from me when wanted to be real
(today's a dried pool whispering of an ocean)

the eyes (unreal or not) persist
life is at base such unreality - it stirs
surfaces through pretences who i am
each a wash of wish (its listless traces
the febrile flickings of a tight core's ends)

i'm struggling now for safety
want something from these diadems
this old light scores in me - these eyes
cradling me as i look through them
(won't let me go and i can't let them)

beyond love they cup aloneness
they're your eyes but my at-one-ment
(more to sing of than i can fathom)
sensing them calmly's the ripest pain
these eyes so poignant they daren't exist
...