Details |
Norman Baines Poem
The clocks upon the wall are stopped,
they haven’t worked for years.
It could be any time in Tokyo,
in London, Paris or New York.
It’s late, and deadlines, met or missed,
are past. The news is done, it’s fixed in print,
though muted televisions flicker out
the incremental day-long cycle.
The running strips across the screens
record trivia and disaster.
Aleppo’s in the news tonight,
A fabled city lies in bloody ruin.
It has been wrecked by earthquake, sacked
by cruel thugs, like Tamerlane the great:
this is not new, and here it’s hardly news,
just death in a far country.
But to Aleppo’s markets once the Silk Road came,
to reeking, fragrant, raucous sukhs and khans.
Imagine the exquisite cloth,
embroidered travellers’ tales
of fabulous ordeals from caravanserai
to citadel, to watchtower, wall and gate,
thin air of mountain passes under snow,
fantastic tales from the Middle Kingdom
whose emperor under heaven knew he was
the centre of the world. Aleppo’s traders knew
their precious wares went out as far as
Rome, Cordoba, Timbuktu and Zanzibar.
Imagine narrow lanes, braised savoury meat,
clothing, fruit and spices on display,
jostling animals and men, the public haggling
and secret treasures: silk, jade and porcelain.
Here the silent markets never stop.
A dumb Bloomberg terminal rolls out
the stocks and currencies all night,
though no-one’s watching.
Aleppo’s markets are in ruin tonight.
Starved people live in blood and rubble,
homes and hospitals destroyed.
I can’t conceive how they survive.
I must drive home now, through quiet streets.
There will be beggars wrapped in blankets
at the traffic lights. Money will change hands.
Bloomberg has no metric and no code for this.
At home there will be food and warmth.
Aleppo’s dying, and people in the street,
begging, on a night so cold, alone, so late,
I can’t conceive how they survive,
and Bloomberg has no metric and no code for this.
[Johannesburg, August 2016]
Copyright © Norman Baines | Year Posted 2016
|
Details |
Norman Baines Poem
There are oceans in the ridges
near our house.
Ripple marks and sand slips
set in stone. The long weathering
of the world exposed them
and eventually will wear them down.
A thought experiment: first, a knife.
The thought precedes the word,
as in the fable god brought his works
to Adam to be named. The thought
empowered by the word sets us apart.
The knife must be steel, dealer of death,
master of armies. It must be sharp.
Man the destroyer – mastery of
death sets us apart.
Take up the knife, carefully.
Observe the delicate grip
of forefinger and thumb.
No other primate can do this.
This clever hand sets us apart.
Now to the hills.
No other creature walks like this.
But we are not
well made for it.
We have to learn it
and in old age our backs ache and fail
from the burden of a lifetime
we are not perfectly adapted for.
At the summit kneel
on rock, the sand
of three-billion-year-old seas.
Take the knife and press down hard.
Try to make a scratch.
Brush away the dust.
Look at the blade:
it’s blunt.
Our experiment is done.
We have made
the brief human expedition through
the landscape of deep time.
Copyright © Norman Baines | Year Posted 2016
|
Details |
Norman Baines Poem
Sun on a chair, an open window, food put down,
small certainties that are the matter of their lives.
If they are capable of expectation it is this:
that everything will stay the same.
So we let in the morning sun
and put down food;
a window open all the time,
and everything remains the same.
We know that there will be a day
of illness, pain and fear
and fear of death
and death.
Within that larger certainty
we take some comfort
from their constant day to day,
sustain small certainties:
sun on a chair, an open window, food put down.
We live in their small certainties,
the larger one deferred.
Copyright © Norman Baines | Year Posted 2016
|