Conversation

Reposted from long ago.

Ben Naga

CONVERSATION

Unacknowledged this hawk-eyed underlife;
unseen, hovering soundlessly above,
observes our attempts to communicate.
Bars and then spaces, spaces and then bars;
words and then spaces, spaces and then words.
Music, conversation in the early dawn.

My words cut glass, a trigonometry.
Yours a slice of reality TV.
Cutting edge music this, fraught with discord.
Words enfold mirrored worlds; space echoes space.
Uncharted, the space within the worlds;
chimeric, the worlds within the spaces.

You twitter from inside, captive songbird.
I twitter from outside, locked out, exiled,
feeding this bonfire of words to keep warm,
maybe finding among these words refuge,
sanctuary, a hiding place. And then
some note peeps deep within that melody,

tingles in my ear, tiptoes warily
into the light: the song of the phoenix;
lightning bolt sending a shiver up the spine.
The unwatched cauldron at last boils over
revealing us to be understudies,
stand-ins while…

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Nature

Decided to repost this ancient poem. It seems sadly as relevant as ever. 😦

Ben Naga

NATURE

Could be someone
Designated a “world leader”
Or a “captain of industry”
Or just some unwitting contributor
To one in a million on line forums

But on a sudden
That within me throbs and swells
And lifts its eyes to heaven
And bursts its banks
And flows down untrammelled

To see how they draw pleasure
From the chance to cause another pain
With their stiff necks
Their red eyes
And the rightness alcohol lends

And again I am drawn to reflect
And ponder
Where boundaries can ever be meaningfully drawn
To notions like “nature”
Or “human”

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The Magical Act

THE MAGICAL ACT

Teaching is love
Which is to give
…..the space to breathe
To feed
…..asking nothing in return

Teach me
Love me
Teach me to love
…..and teach in my turn
Paying back to the spirit of man

In His Cups

IN HIS CUPS

A sip of wine
A hint of melody …
Hallowed foundations
Shift ungoverned

Melt into lavaflows
Unleash unadmitted yearnings
Challenge this paltry masquerade
Yelled from minaret or pulpit

Hounded by fatwa and heresy
Across the centuries, this dented I
Which has, for all of that brouhaha
Such shallow roots

Must be why they ban
These dangerous demons
Intoxication, music,
Dancing, sex

While we for our part
Fight tooth and nail
To retain or else regain
These royal roads

Home

Weather Or Know

WEATHER OR KNOW

Hard rains sweep by
Rinse soiled streets clean
Brief respite though
Hark, the next deluge
Of turbid effluence
Generously gifted
By the thoughtless

Slumbering in simplicity
No fearful encounters
In radiant solitude
Wherein to acknowledge
Realisation’s spiky burdens
And consoling gifts
Onward, onward, comrades

To oblivion
And no beyond
Hooves strike faster now
Valley of death looms
Engorging black hole
Rolling thunder clap
Hard rains sweep by

No encore

Dare Devils (Reposted)

DARE DEVILS

Sly peeps from a foxhole I spy
Which of you though I wonder
Is the least untrustworthy one?
Variations on you taking turns
Flash past the slits of my eyes
Each taking their best shots

Taking their own sweet time
While I too take mine slowly
Ploughing through mugshots
Of women both lost and found
Tacitly playing judge and jury
Accuser and accused alike

Oh don’t make me lie to you
Let’s drop stubborn opinions
Let me lie with you instead
See us gratefully transported
To some other place far away
Yet together here all the time

The Daily Grind (Reposted)

THE DAILY GRIND

morning well wicked early still
when alarm bell rings

unglue gummy eyes
peer through foetid gloom
grope around to kill it
sniff up last night’s stale breath
puke worthy – and you expected?

quick shower, squirt and spray
baited hooks set – and dreams
“I swear (s)he fancies me”
a hopeful phone trills – eyes gleam
and stick it in your ear – “hi”

now on your mark, get set
and go, raging or else uncomplaining
by crammed tube or heaving bus
or through poison-pumping gridlock
noxious hell whichever option

a compliant commuter – a clone – a costumed clown
stuck up the back end of a pantomime horse
blindly galloping into thunderous oblivion
holding your snotty nose to the grindstone
scrounging shekels to fuel your shakey schemes

yes, here’s the life you were schooled for
to be laid on the butcher’s chopping block
to hang ripe for the black reaper’s picking
next to our attempts to heal our broken hearts
keeping food on the table is their sharpest weapon

but pity the overseers in their turn
the restless scuttling tinker men
well heeled tepid heartless overlords
with their eternal fear of the rank and vile
whose oversensitivity is such a bore

do they lie in the dark wakeful
awaiting the day their own alarm bells ring?

Reconditioning

Reblogged on WordPress.com

Source: Reconditioning

Meeting Point (Reposted)

MEETING POINT

Mythmakers all we are
And so meeting
Compare our mythologies
(Like so many have before)
Inner fire and heirlooms
Bounced cheques and littered highways
Dream rivers that disappear into the sand
Heartflow that stops and starts
And the long work of reconstruction

Artists all we are
And so meeting
Compare our artistry
Plain talk with rich recesses
Nuances to old questions
The curl of the cry
At the wellsprings of voice

Hunter at bay
The poet crawls and capers
Across the carnival and charnel-house of life
Fractious fragment of the Creator
Who hath made all things well
Adolescent loneliness
Adult uncertainty
Menopausal anxiety
And senile decay

Actors all we are
Though no spectator views us
And so meeting
Compare our pasts and futures
As all our heres and nows come down to one

Too Paranoid (Republished)

TOO PARANOID

He started whispering to me one night
From the wall beside my bed
Said he needed my help

That the secret police
Were controlling his thoughts
With microwave radiation

So that he wrote poems
Which they could use if they ever needed
Evidence of his insanity

And this is one of them
Which he was too paranoid to write down
So he got me to do it for him

After all, he says
I live in a democracy
And it’s quite safe here