Tuesday 2 May 2017

Immortality in Words

<Audio>

Where are the words of immortality?
That unbidden stir the heart.
So many are called,
but few survive the winnow.
Chaff says the golden poet,
the words must be just so and so.
So deceptively simple to garner,
to lay in an easy row,
this sequence of sequins,
and all just so and so.

But when you pin a butterfly,
the next one has to be,
similarly coloured, complementary.
Or a contrast battling beauty for
one’s eye on a museum display.
One that calls: Look! Look at this one!
Look, look! See?

A pair of butterflies dance a jig,
tied in a secret grove,
at once resplendent in a drove,
they take a sunbeam's breath away,
and there in another grove,
another thrumming arose.
This sets the scene,
words in consanguinity.
Here where the sea lavender
prickles amethyst,
shy under the sky.

In a whirlwind romance,
where words court words,
and couples couplet,
and verses, averse to loneliness,
cohabit in a stanza, when …
Abracadabra!

A train of thought,
an express mail train,
is snatching satchels of words
to be sorted in the night,
and delivered by first light
on the day of saying,
and addressed to so and so.

Unfurl the fans of lace
into a peacock's tail,
where the beauty surely
proclaims the watchmaker’s face.

But the bards they bartered,
didn't they?
Bet for the bequest of forever,
in a monument of words,
where souls in rage,
upon the page,
burnt to the end of days.

So, start another poem,
here, I've netted a butterfly.
Send it soaring in a story,
with another one,
tinkling from the sky.
Atoms in a molecule,
a crystal poem on the nib,
all poised to say.
See how I chose the words?

It is you who hold the gavel,
in this immortal deal.
So old! You hammer.
Sold another bard
to the Golden Treasury,
and laid to rest,
I do attest,
that in his or her words
they will live forever
and a day.

No comments:

Post a Comment