Harbinger of Spring
A perfect beauty, lover of sunshine
Casting her brilliance, a warm golden glow
Pride of my patch Winter Jasmine sublime
Drawing the eye with her fantastic show
Bright blossom blooming on branches so bare
Greeting the season, the dawning of spring
This glorious vine, though no scent to share
has a colourful zest, makes your eyes zing
Burgeoning plant sprawling over a wall
Disguising old brickwork coated in lime
Shortened and shaped away back in the fall
but no holding back now, this is her time
Of all the flowers the garden blessed
The Winter Jasmine is one of the best
the found map led me to an
asymmetrical doorway, created by an artesian
I wondered at the builder as I approached
the boards were placed diagonally
skillset many carpenters have not mastered
I knew now I was dealing with a professional
the knocker was a bit off-kilter, which amused me.
the brickwork looked a bit random also.
who created this wall? This door?
the paint was not fresh, there were bits of ivy.
A quaint shabby chic look.
I could not wait to meet the occupant.
If I was a house I’d be detached
Secure in my walls, untouched
My roof angled against the rain
My windows, tightly shut, secure
My front garden neat, the back
Garden uncut, scruffy, untidy
My brickwork would be red
My front door council blue
My childhood had yellow doors
We never got the blue or green
My driveway would be long
Keeping the world outside
The gates would have a chain
Wooden panels attached to
The side walls, a gate cut
To enter the garden, via a path
A satellite dish juts from the wall
The signal welcome, the world not.
Because, if I was a house, I’d be detached.
David Cox 02/08/22
the still life paints in water colour as moments dissect the day
an autumn leave falls quietly in tangible peace of the quiet soul
a tranquil hand brushes a humble canvass serene and at peace
memories from summer springs wait for winter and fire place
a gracious log rest on its grate and gathers ashes of yesteryear
ember and glowing desire transcend an amber and transient hue
like a squirrel collecting acorns a poet inks lush pots of gold
an oak tree watches through a window of sash and dark wood
rain showers droplets onto the pane dissolves pain and sorrow
weaves an intricate pattern and frames time season and glimmer
hope enters through a crack in the mantle-piece flickers reflection
onto brickwork and tiles that have survived the test of past times
shadow play suggests a pantomime on picture rails and stucco
imprints harvest and garnering solitude where light parts darkness
it seems to encourage to take a leaf out of nature and offer thanks
to life change ambient eternal growth and impermanent worship
of nature and one day the foliage will be ever so green once again
18th October 2020
I have nothing against bricks,
Until you use them in place of concrete and asphalt,
Then the cursing begins.
What have councils and governments got against,
Those with rubber tipped walking sticks,
Those with crook hips,
Those with worn shoe soles,
Not to mention the slow and the old,
In other words, the majority, of the population.
One would think the number of accidents due to slippery bricks,
Would give them cause for thought,
But no, it only increases the likelihood of more brickwork at mall entrances,
And outside pharmacies.
A curse on your bricks I say,
Maybe if the housing shortage continues the problem will solve itself,
And I can lift the bricks,
I mean the curse.
I, Lazarus*, have seen the brickwork sky,
Its throne is made of night!
Its salt and lime are drying to the eye,
My wandering…
a sound! a rumble, and a flash of light!
HHHHHHH! How sweet first breath!
That tasting life had tasted only death!
And what is THIS, that thuds against my tomb?
Awaken, Heart! And greet thy new-found groom!
Who is HE, that speaks with sudden waking,
As though forgotten dawn was newly breaking?
I cannot know, though memory tells me so,
I am a Man, and not a man of dough!
O bright the door that leads me back to life!
But, bidden! I must change my sleep for strife!
Thank you, heart-friend!
I thought that you’d forgot!
Who made me breathe, ‘I AM!’ when I was not.
Forgive! I cannot hear, my head’s like snow,
AH! That’s it, ‘loose the man, and let him go!'
1/31/2017
__________
*Lazarus was a friend of Jesus Christ, who raised him from the dead
Freight trains thunder through the empty station
Hauling a load to a far off destination
Unseen by many an eye, it speeds on it’s way
Making a noisy and smoky proclamation
Sounds resonating off the brickwork
Roosting birds fly scared off into the night sky
Signals set to go, green light illuminated
This mechanical behemoth powers on by
Throttles wide open, a magnificent sight
A vision of presence and power
It’s old and considered by some to be ugly
But the driver’s enthusiasm will not sour-
Hundreds of tons pulled into the night
The cargo of an fearful population
The lifeblood of many an industrial process
Running through the iron veins of the nation
travelling to my never was,
my yearly time in the yard
spring time back to cold Ohio
gripped in nonsense and melancholy
I travel to old town
misted by the cuyahoga
surprised yet not I find
they tore down the tottered house
tar paper and clapboard
hoary hand pump out front
jutting out of upturned earth
like an oxidized finger accusing
at broken chimney
collapsed walls
19th century brickwork sharded
toppeled into fetid basins
the neighborhood's harshbitten scar
open wounded by the treelawn
old man who once lived there
trapped in darkness and exile
haunts it no longer
memory freed
by oiled machinery and progress
rooftop split
like broken amphora
scattered on the seabed
and so floats my enmity
thermal up and away
updraft and ashes
drift'n bulldozed and scaffold
dissipating on warmer breezes
as if it never was...
All ye who enter here
despairing statues of salted liberty,
merging solidarity with Earth’s poor hunger
to range free falling Victorian bricks
and mal-bourne sticks
to land here with now
with all arrived before you
prepared to grace Earth’s healthy breathing space
and time of BrickWork connecting sacred place,
restructuring minds co-infesting recomposing bodies,
bay to mountain swinging resonant designs
recycling Earth’s health-bourne habitation,
celebration
with all entering good humored here
with bad tumored now
climates of each day’s great dissonant transition.
LifeWork EcoLogic draws history written by our stars.
BrickWorld Cathedrals incarnate Earth’s green musings
sung by sunlight’s empowering designers
of MultiCultural ReGenesis.
Seek within our lower reaches
to resolve with sensory roots
reforming crowns
searching hidden ex cathedra gold,
deep beneath not-so-rushing,
lead headed crushing stone.
Conjoin these bricks
of nature’s rich vocation light,
regenerous
religious enbrightenment
to guide our humbled exodus
until we enter here once more
to sing and dance
among Earth’s ReGenerate Cathedrals.
NEW LAIR
Lestat walked down the street muttering to himself,
eying the tide mark faintly etched on the brickwork
of his once glorious house.
Damn! Katrina really did her job well swamping
my food source. No more food, no more jazz
on the airwaves, no more sultry summer evenings
on the French style streets. Is it worth re-building it again?
Do I leave my water-drenched lair for the more common
uncultured metropolis of New York?
To Hell with it! I need to feed, a victim
I must get more blood in my veins.
Here I go, up into the sky, preternatural powers taking over.
Soon, now, blood will be mine.
SCENES OF A CARELESS BOYHOOD
The sound of water,escaping dams
willows,old rotten planks,slimy
posts,brickwork,old timber props
wet ditches,sedges and silvery nets
towpaths without gates,horses that
tow barges collared with crimson fringe.
Wheat and thatched cottages and cornstacks
grasses in flower,bogrush bulrush and
teazle,so tall.Bindweed,wild carrot,
hemlock in bloom,cow parsley,plantain
bramble in June.
Poppy,thistle mallow
and hop.Purple heath,hills and swift
running streams,true clear freah and
brisk as champagne about to pop.
phrasis form ( From Constable letters to Rev John Fisher)
*A Phrasis is a structured verse where the poet uses selected prose phrases of another writer’s(not a poet) to compile unique poetry therefrom as a tribute thereto,the word phrasis is Greek for phrase.
Listen to me read this phrasis of mine on youtube under the name ichthys
Should you venture home, now,
And see the cobbles gone,
Hear the rattle on steel shutters
As the rain falls on and on,
You might as well be leaving
Just the way that you arrived,
For there’s nothing for you here, now,
Nothing has survived.
Should you tread the streets, now,
Between the alien facades,
And puzzle at the structures
In the cul-de-sacs and yards,
You should do yourself a favour,
And turn away into the rain,
For there’s nothing left for you, now,
Nothing to remain.
Should you reach the house, now,
And fail to recognise,
The brickwork and the curtains
And the car parked on the rise,
You really should be going,
From the freshly painted door,
For there’s nothing of your life, now,
Nothing anymore.
On a path laid as a snake,
Trodden down a winding wake,
Curls and slithers into night,
To thrones of ever-dimming light;
I hold still and gripped with feeling
In a mist that wraps concealing,
And I glimpse her flicker by
From the corner of my eye.
Heartless granite fissures break
At prayers to God of souls to take,
In their vessels bled to white,
Shells of failure and of blight;
It snares and snags as ivy veins,
Upon the brickwork, grasps and strains,
And I catch her ribbons fly
From the corner of my eye.
Set adrift in this domain,
The dead volcanoes that refrain,
Never smoking nor erupt
For the end was sharp, abrupt;
I feel the ether of despair
Envelope skin with frosted air,
I spot the crystals melt and die
From the corner of my eye.
No space for sorrow to explain,
To tell how love was savaged, slain,
The stir of breath can bare disrupt
Or wall of silence interrupt;
A fear of days, in truth, compare
With nights that always hunger there,
Unguarded moments, her I spy
From the corner of my eye.
When I’m smoking outside bars
And the ash falls in the rain,
The alloy wheels of passing cars
Spin blurring down the lane;
It takes no sense of reason,
Still the gutters murmur tales,
Cartons greased of gastric treason
Make their happy trails.
When she smiles down from the screen,
From the plasma on the wall,
The dirty brickwork seems more clean
And light shines on us all;
I find it leaves me pining
For a dream that doesn’t fail,
Gorgeous eyes in dusk defining
Of the fairest nightingale.
Those who argue with sheep,
are condemned to be black,
because controversy needs
an open mind.
Odd innovations,
forward of our time,
are emerging into our
brickwork today,
yet, we stand in yesterday.
In a liberated world,
individuality should be
as novel as vanilla,
instead, it’s as rare,
as a four – leaf – clover.
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