Truth poems
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Sordello: Book the Third
© Robert Browning
Whereat he rose.
The level wind carried above the firs
Clouds, the irrevocable travellers,
Onward.
portland views
© Rg Gregory
wherever there's a tear in the fabric
around weymouth - portland appearsfrom abbotsbury hill it's just a long
thin line humped at one endcloser (from chesil beach) a head-on
massive lump of rock gnashed by the seaif you stand at sandsfoot castle
two south coast poems (a) this morning i came within sound of the sea
© Rg Gregory
for a man whose eyes till now were a bed of rock
whose hands were drier than deserts
the sea's voice drove fear up through the valley
the tributaries meandering inside me longing for outlet
shrivelled even as their own courses became straight
elusive wisdom
© Rg Gregory
thoth (who became hermes who became mercury)
who was both moon and wisdom to the egyptians
manifested himself mainly as an ibis - a watery bird
a restless creature that could not stop searching
through marshy ground with its sickle-shaped beak
the eyes that haunt me
© Rg Gregory
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
eight roundels
© Rg Gregory
(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)
Witch Burning
© Sylvia Plath
In the marketplace they are piling the dry sticks.
A thicket of shadows is a poor coat. I inhabit
The wax image of myself, a doll's body.
Sickness begins here: I am the dartboard for witches.
Only the devil can eat the devil out.
In the month of red leaves I climb to a bed of fire.
penelope
© Rg Gregory
name meaning thread weaver or duck
(these may be guesses from obscurity)
ten-year faithful wife whilst her husband
was gallivanting round the islands
(filtered)
© Rg Gregory
a nearby field provides the plants
sometimes with a wild profusion
(organisation seems a long way off)
The Relic
© John Greenleaf Whittier
TOKEN Of friendship true and tried,
From one whose fiery heart of youth
With mine has beaten, side by side,
For Liberty and Truth;
bluefish
© Rg Gregory
the bluefish was surprised
i was there to greet itthis world it said is mine
it feeds on bluenessfor the first time in my life
i felt i'd found my truthbluefish i cried in joy
the buddhas tooth
© Rg Gregory
(for matt 15)in the first seven years you choose your howdah
having by then bare inklings of a journey
but where or why - confusion there to cloud a
judgement no more ready than a sore knee
as the snow fell
© Rg Gregory
the children played games
getting from here
to where the truth was
without touching a flake
absinthe and stained glass
© Rg Gregory
stained glass (you think) must be bystander
its leaded eyes seek far not near
the day's bleak dirt it learns to shrug off
A Story Of Doom: Book VI.
© Jean Ingelow
"Now to-day
One cometh, yea, an harmless man, a fool,
Who boasts he hath a message from our God,
And lest that you, for bravery of heart
And stoutness, being angered with his prate,
Should lift a hand, and kill him, I am here."
convolvulus-age
© Rg Gregory
up the ladder and round the bend
age spirals like a convolvulus
its bells break into the light
catching breath with their beauty
but how in the sightless earth
its roots work to a wise agenda
that precise moment
© Rg Gregory
however foul the times or difficult the ways are
through those personal morasses this change of age
wont let a single being (rich or poor) be free from
come spring the trees get on with their blossoming
youd think they didnt read the newspapers
snail and spiral
© Rg Gregory
i take my property with me says the snail
slow-moving (yes) but packed with sublime thought
the house upon its back some kind of grail
vulnerable to brute boot - and wisdom bought
from imperfect Eden
© Rg Gregory
(1)
and off to scott's (the dockers' restaurant)
burly men packed in round solid tables
but what the helle (drowned in hellespont)
from the Ansty Experience
© Rg Gregory
(a)
they seek to celebrate the word
not to bring their knives out on a poem
dissecting it to find a heart
