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Charlie Gregory Poem
TENERIFE
Two lovers by the ragged strand once trod
the sooty sand; slender maid with raven
hair, fisher boy of bronze; the dazzling sun
a gold doubloon, the moon a silver coin.
From rocks, ink-black as witches' cats, they saw
the teeming sea; for Paraiso Beach was
cast for them by Teide's fiery blast, 'neath
Milky Way in wind-blown spray where whale and
dolphin play... Faceless fools from far-off lands
soon found their paradise. "Commercialise
then urbanize, the mountains are for sale.
Bulldoze, landfill, then jerry-build; sewage
on the surf. Roll out roads for traffic roar;
monoxide in the breeze. Machinery tear
at prickly pear and green banana trees.
Throw up bars and apartment blocks; bedim
the stars with flashing lights; fill the nights with
keyboard beat and dancing feet to drown the
ocean's anguished cries ..." Her sculpture scorned, her
flanks defiled, the lady Teide broods - with
hissing sulphur in her breath, inferno
for a heart. Such feelings pent, her rage must
vent to blast the curse and re-create a
silent land, where lizards laze and prey birds
ride the balmy breeze, while a ghostly girl
and fisher lad go gathering wild herbs.
cc CG
Teide = a volcano in Tenerife - rhymes with lady
Copyright © Charlie Gregory | Year Posted 2017
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Charlie Gregory Poem
Bear and the Birds
Vernal equinox comes shining.
Hungry wolves in forest whining.
Mighty bear awakens growling,
time to go on sky’s great prowling.
Chickadee feels night-time falling,
“feed me food” from stomach calling.
Mother bear up sky comes climbing,
fatty flesh with perfect timing.
Sky-bear is big and bird is small
so chickadee puts out a call,
“if all want food then all must hunt.
I’ll bring my pot, who goes in front?”
Cute moosebird cries, “I choose the rear –
to sweep the mess – it’s not from fear.
Cock robin shouts, “I’m in the lead!
My trusty bow will do the deed.”
“I’ll peck her juicy nose and eye
and you can have a meaty thigh,”
cries chickadee, “a-tee-hee-hee,
and moosebird gets a bony knee.”
All summer long they stalk their prey
who hides behind the sun by day
but when the lid goes on at night
they see her there by lunar light.
“It’s Autumn now, let’s slay the beast
then hide our meat for winter feast.”
But bear stands high to make a fight
with paws that strike and teeth that bite.
Moosebird and chickadee fly low
for fear the beast will land a blow
but robin, with a steady eye,
takes aim and lets an arrow fly.
Sharp barb rips into bear’s great chest.
Her spurting blood stains robin’s breast
then covers maple trees in red.
Leaves fall like tears as bear is bled.
The winter fat seeps from her bones
as cold as death as hard as stones
and all the land is covered white
and plunged into a winter’s night.
Her frame still floats in northern sky
but hush belovèd do not cry,
her spirit fled back to the den
so in the spring she’ll rise again.
Then by the light of crescent moon
like starry handle of a spoon
three birds will follow after bear
as close as any hunter dare.
Copyright © Charlie Gregory | Year Posted 2017
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Charlie Gregory Poem
Lost Soul
We’ve gathered here to say goodbye
to yet another boring guy,
kept on yelling for attention
till it gave him hypertension.
Now in the box beneath the shroud
he’s got the eye of all the crowd,
best leading role he ever had,
but no applause and no one’s sad.
Old mourners sprinkle ancient pews,
ill fitting suits and pee-stained trews,
some glasses, dentures, aching backs
with makeup plastered in the cracks.
They kneel for prayers on creaking limbs
then silent lips mouth unknown hymns.
The dead man’s peers in church are few.
Who pays respects where none seem due?
His painted widow in her weeds
now wonders who will sate her needs
with hubby just about to burn
and end up ashes in an urn.
She never grudged the man his health,
content enough to share the wealth,
but pleased this sudden turn of fate
serves up his helping on a plate.
Poor vicar wonders what to say.
about this stiff that’s come his way.
He’s no great speeches in reserve
just... bless a saint and damn a perv.
He settles for the standard rite
then tells the crowd they’ll be all right,
“beyond the stars lie happy lands,
so love your neighbour all shake hands.”
Corpse’ brother sitting cap in hand,
chief mourner in this dismal band,
now ponders on the decent wait
before a widow has a date.
Just wants to get her into bed
but cash and sex means getting wed,
been dodging that since leaving school
concludes that life is Goddamn cruel.
Sister of the spurned cadaver
cannot stand all this palaver.
She didn't like the man in life,
all flashy cars and tarty wife.
Deep down she’s feeling rather chuffed
for all his din he quietly snuffed.
Same cap fits the other brother,
clone of father, not his mother.
This woman weeping by the door
floats back in time to years of yore,
dreams of a lovely friend at school,
so kind and gentle fun and cool,
who shared a secret both held tight
that seemed to change him overnight.
He truly was a super lad
until abused by evil dad.
Copyright © Charlie Gregory | Year Posted 2017
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Charlie Gregory Poem
Wedding Reception
We’ll settle by the bar and watch
the women dance, then split a likely
pair, when we think we stand a chance.
I’ve one eye on the bridesmaid, with
the skirt that’s riding high – showing
off the daisies, tattooed upon
her thigh.
The groom is still hung-over;
can’t find the pregnant bride. She dodged
into the box-room – best-man by
her side.
Mothers-in-law are screaming,
‘war,’ handbags all-aflail. Uncle
Jack is on his back. George is green
and frail.
So we’ll linger here and
guzzle beer, till the barman calls
the time. Then make a play for a
pair who sway – join the pantomime...
...Hope you like the big one, with the
bird’s nest in her hair. Because I’m
heading for the bridesmaid, with the
skirt that’s riding high, showing off
the daisies...
Copyright © Charlie Gregory | Year Posted 2017
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Charlie Gregory Poem
Orang Ulu
Pronounced Uloo = Collective name for the
up-river people of Sarawak
Orang Ulu,
loping through mottle-green light of the jungle-track,
lighter than dawn-mist, nimble as wild-cat.
Hunt-hounds around-him are bounding and
wailing a death-hymn or baying for
deer-spoor or fat-ox or wild-boar.
Ulu-agape at the edge of a clearing,
proud ebony, ironwood crashing before him;
din of tree-felling and sawing and logging,
plundering into the land-of-the-lair,
filling the air-of-the-woods with despair.
Animals fleeing; no way of escape.
Earth-mother, naked and bruised by the rape,
bleeds yellow-puss in the pure-running-river
where bones of the forest now rattle down rapids...
Change; flooding the valley,
drowning the nestling, the gibbon and python;
feeding their life-force into the pylon.
Rain; kissing the forest her final goodbyes...
Lonely in grief, tears in his eyes,
Ulu burying dogs in the shade of bamboo.
"Sleeping in nature," the sandalwood sighs,
"dreaming forever of hunting with you."
In 1996 I promised a group of tribesmen that
I would add my voice to those trying to highlight
their plight. No one would heed me. So, as always,
I resorted to poetry.
Copyright © Charlie Gregory | Year Posted 2017
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Charlie Gregory Poem
Leap off a Day
Leap off a day full of struggle and toil.
Pleasure-power fuels freedom's few precious
hours. Head for the cellar where solace is
found. Shoulder a way through the jostling crowd.
The thicket is wild and dense by the bar,
winter-branch arms shedding autumn-leaf notes.
Barmaids flick taught-aloof tails while they flit,
ripping off balls with their sharp little tits.
Machine-gunning speakers spray punters with
rap. Call for ''strong-ale!'' Leave the lager for
louts. Survey, edge away from the wankers
and drunks. She's got mad-eyes. He's pushing tabs.
Ocean of faces polluted by booze.
Snatches of voices wind-torn from the storm.
Crackhead is screaming about his bad hit.
Rodents are filling his skull full of shit.
Rhythm-girls bob up and down to the beat.
The one called Desire has wings on her feet,
legs and white pants like a rose in full bloom.
the one in the crowd who lights up a room.
Shouting and cursing and breaking of glass.
Fun at the bar... stampeding, girls crying,
chairs swinging, fists flying, then Exocet-
bottles-and-boots in an all-out attack.
Faces exploding in fountains of blood.
Shatter-glass windows ice-blue-psychedel;
game-beating police rousing quarry to
flight – any brace cooks-the-books for the night.
Scatter and panic, a jam at the door
as we tear and then pull and then kick and
butt heads, now dash for the street and the sweet
inky-black safety of swallowing night.
Find the fair-maid Desire, cute little sprite
whose ignoble-knight offers Vindaloo-
sauce – plan for scalding her arse and covert-
ovens-of-love as we leap off a day.
Copyright © Charlie Gregory | Year Posted 2017
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Charlie Gregory Poem
The Goat’s Tale... Puck Fair, Killorglin Co. Kerry, where in August
a wild mountain goat is crowned King Puck by a young girl who then becomes Queen of Puck.
The Goat's Tale
"There's magic in the Coolroe-stream, or pucks
weave herb into the browse to make me dream...
In Killorglin town I bowed before a
virgin-queen, who gave a crown to make me
king with vision over everything. Our
match remained unconsummate. For I was hailed
on-high, engaged – though caged – in things of
state. There, phantoms, clad in cap and boot, waved
crooked sticks and mumbled strange in ancient
tongue, then bought and sold the living soul of
sullen ox and horse and colt. And at my
feet, the men danced women down the street, like
spectres borne on haunting notes of lonely
songs that sang of sorrows in the years: how
wanton maids, with torment-eyes, as wild and
green as Lough Lean's isles, and ringlets wrought in
purest gold, like wavelets caught in sunset's
mould, were, by their beauty, thus condemned to
birthing pain and living drudge. While boys, like
bumble bees, beguiled by nectar spilled by
girls, were led along a lane of toil and
grudge...
…Now I wake-up in the glen, running
free of 'Orglin-men, to gambol up the
giddy scree into the cloud where Mother
Earth becomes the sky; and sense a life set
out for me, of butting he and tupping
she. Then see the visions of my dream; hear
the laughing of the stream; and wonder – why?"
Copyright © Charlie Gregory | Year Posted 2017
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Charlie Gregory Poem
Memories
White mist on a mountain,
grey mist on the sea.
Vapours of the time-mist
are the men I long to see.
Just the knowing of them
made a better man of me.
Spring is in my song today,
fields beside the sea.
Robin, from the tractor,
waves a hand at me.
Gulls, churning like a sea-wake,
follow on the plough.
Donald, trudging homewards,
after milking of the cow.
Peter, in the neap field,
leans upon the hoe,
dreaming of a girl he loved
many years ago.
Geordie’s in the seiner,
butting up the bay,
heading for the haddie grounds
over Orkney way.
Summer feeds the fields of hay
moist winds from the west.
God is in a summer day,
men and land are blessed.
Comes along a bonnie lass,
children at her knee,
breathing nectar in the glass,
giving love to me.
Copyright © Charlie Gregory | Year Posted 2017
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Charlie Gregory Poem
Moscow 1990s. The Soviet Union has collapsed, bare shelves in the shops, no wages - nothing. People line the streets trying to sell what few possessions they have. Natasha is one such citizen. Like many other respectable women, she turned to prostitution.
Natasha
She descends from en-suite and the balcony-shops,
sways down the stairway, leather-mini concealing,
sometimes revealing, lace stocking-tops;
carries her bruises where nobody sees.
In the hub of the foyer the faces are probing,
sharp as the glare of the night-patrol's lamps,
as she sprinkles a vapour of perfume around them.
Where has she been? What has she seen?
Edge ever nearer, want her but fear her.
From the shelters and hides of their devalued lives
the other girls know what she carries inside,
science degree, career that tumbled when the
foundations supporting the Motherland crumbled.
The Westerner sits and weighs up the scene,
wealthy vibrations of pleasure and ease.
''Are you looking for fun?'' almost a prayer,
crouching before him, hands on his knees;
smouldering eyes hide the pleading inside;
bleak deserts of poverty stretching before her,
murk of the tenement, queuing and crying,
pauper-line selling, pauper-line buying.
''How much?'' he demands. Heart skips a beat, will he
be the one to be swept off his feet? Will he
whisk her away? New York maybe? Somewhere D.C.?
''Two-hundred,'' she blurts, ''American-bills...''
She suddenly chills. Pitiless tips of cruel
icebergs drift-in from the Muscovite mist
to rip-off the fees she must squeeze from
the floating unfaithful who crawl through her knees.
''Too dear,'' he waves her away.
‘It's me!’ She's crying inside. ‘It's me – every-
man's bride.’ “What am I worth?" she wonders aloud.
"Seventy-five," he replies, "one of the crowd."
She rises before him, standing head bowed,
defeated, not cowed. The girls turn away,
back to their chat. At the bar, double
Scotch-on-the-rocks is served to a rat.
Copyright © Charlie Gregory | Year Posted 2017
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Charlie Gregory Poem
Birdman
Bold Dewi Jones would leave his home
first thing every morning,
and trot him down to Towy Wood
just as day was dawning,
and there he filled his Tesco bag,
five pence from any store,
with chickweed celandine and seed
and other weeds galore.
Then he fed them to his finches
to peck at in the cage,
while he ate his Kellog Cornflakes
and read the sporting page.
When Dewi was a kid at school
he hadn’t many toys,
and on the farm out in the sticks
there were no other boys,
so the woods became his playground,
a bird his childhood friend,
and he played a game with finches
he prayed would never end.
Their songs were short machinegun bursts
that echoed through the wood,
and Dewi, in green camouflage,
would stalk like Robin Hood.
A grown-up now, he made a frame
that lay beneath a net,
and then with trails of wild bird seed
a crafty trap he set.
That’s how he caught his lovely birds,
cunning if not clever,
and neighbours came along to praise
Dewi-boys endeavour.
Yet we all Knew that in the wood,
birds sang like heaven’s choir,
while, in the confines of the cage,
finches were much shyer.
Now Dewi’s wife, religious was,
chapel every morning,
in Aberystwyth born and bred,
should have been a warning.
Though pleasant to the roving eye,
pretty as a flower,
like milk upon a summer’s day
she curdled and went sour.
“It’s wings God gave,” his wife would scream,
“so birds can rise and fly;
and nature gave them songs to praise
the wonders of the sky.”
One day while on his morning rounds
bold-Dewi had a stroke.
“An awful thing,” the village said,
“for such a lovely bloke.”
No muscle could the birdman move,
eyelids would not flutter.
The voice that once trilled, “Sosban Fach,”
not a word could utter.
We don’t know why God struck him down,
spite – or was it pleasure?
What e’er the Lord was dishing out,
Dewi got full measure.
Now Dewi’s sitting in a chair,
just staring into space,
and carers who come twice a day,
pour soup into his face.
His wife just up and left him,
no fuss or angry words,
just said, “I hate to see you there,
caged up like your birds.”
Copyright © Charlie Gregory | Year Posted 2017
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