Poetry – Page 2 – MichaelAitken

People

God can bring them back
For look, look at the universe,
The spiral galaxies, the black holes,
The never ending existence of space.

Tell me why only flesh and blood could exist out there
Explain to me why you hate the idea of spirits
The truth is you cannot, you have no excuse
You are a product of ignorance.

For look, look up there and see
There’s nothing that cannot exist
And there’s all the time and space
To ensure that it does.

And the God, is a master of His environment
And the God is a creator of His environment
Just like we are masters of ours (young as we are)
Just like we are creators of ours (young as we are)

But God is patient he lets destruction alone
Until it forms its end;
But we are impatient we are in destruction
And our end is formed.

But God can bring it back
Like relighting a candle-flame
The whole universe is his laboratory
And we are his creation.

2002

Song: Neglected Boy

The neglected boy

He really doesn’t know
Is there
Love across the ocean
Love across the sea
Doesn’t seem to be waiting
Anywhere near me

You really don’t know
What you’re doing
Do you?
I mean
You’ve got your orders
You’ve got your papers
To complete

But after spending
All day at your desk
You get out into the street
And there’s something
In the sunshine
That overwhelms you

The neglected boy

Love
It has no north or south
No sun or moon
Love
It has no eyes or mouth
And it thinks outside
Of its balloon

That’s all you know

Neglected boy

AN UNFINISHED VERSION 1

A partial Music sheet in PDF
Neglected Boy 1

AN UNFINISHED VERSION 2

A partial music sheet in PDF
Neglected Boy 2

Here I am staring,
At Honesty,
Purses full of seeds.
Some people say
She escapes from gardens,
But I found her alone
By the canal-side
Half a mile from anywhere
One plant growing
On miles of towpath
Soft serrated pear-shaped leaves
Four purple petals
Like butterfly wings
Looking from the hedge-growth
So I picked her and brought her home
And put her in a jar of water
And as evening falls
I stare into the face of honesty
Her flowers
Pretty and vivacious,
Gentle and bright
Have gone and now
She’s turned silver with age
And I’ve fallen into a sad mood
Wishing I knew a girl
Like Honesty

Through the glass top of my coffee table

Looking through the glass top of my coffee table
I see the people in Canary Wharf

Adam and Eve were ashamed of their nakedness
But maybe they were more ashamed of what they were thinking
The tree of knowledge had started to infiltrate their minds
An alien life form had begun its life

What is this class under this glass? What is class?
Those with the intelligence to use the knowledge of the world
Swarm here under the glass of my coffee table
Through the shopping centre
Up and down the escalators
A world lost in a lost world

Smart, clean, sharing the same determinations
Escalator man and escalator woman
Each wanting a bite of the fruit
What else is there to life?

Why was God angry
Why was knowledge so bad?
Looking down through the glass of my coffee table
The tree is covered in stinking ivy; dead bodies are now its fruit
Knowledge is a whirlpool in the sand
A hollow tree trunk, aged and rotten

The internet has it all
All the knowledge of the world, both good and bad
And in this an empty centre, a hollowness

Something was left behind a long time ago
Fear of falling, clinging onto the knowledge of the world
What was Adam and Eve supposed to be?
How did this knowledge change them?
What did it replace in their minds?

Slaves, all of us!

Slaves, all of us!
Pulling the World along the road
Like a giant block of stone

Without the world you would have freedom
Why haven’t you got freedom?
Because you lack love

Once upon a time a man thought he could build a world
With flesh, muscle, bloodletting
But he failed to finish it – he died!

He was a typical man
He believed it weak to understand the heart
He preferred war

Ever since we have laboured to finish what he started
Ever since we have been dying and leaving it unfinished

England, your needs bear down on me

England, your needs bear down on me like the wall of a museum.
I gave you a trickle of gold,
You forged it into an idol and asked for a new religion.
I made a road of smooth green tarmac in the wooded hills of my soul
You bulldozed it over and asked for Monopoly
I had a city in my childish heart,
You wanted dead sharks in glass cases.

England, must I first prove my relationship with your god
Before I can sleep in peace?
Your god who melts like a muddy idol in a fast flowing spring filled mountain stream
And then becomes a famous city.
I wanted to be Walter Raleigh exploring the fabulous new world,
You wanted to fill your coffers with treasures.
I wanted to be Vincent Van Gogh in a fabulous voyage of paint,
You wanted a filing cabinet of application forms.

England, how much taller can you get now
Scraping the earth of its glory yet afraid of its light.
I wanted to be a native of that earth following the track of a strange new bird
To discover its name carved in the rock walls of time.
You beat me and made me walk into origami mazes,
You took my dreams and turned them into digital code,
Then you buried them under Parliament
Strangely you scream at me like a furious church gargoyle.

Give us the last razor blades off your tree and cut your throat and bleed and give us the blood to display in a whitewashed gallery.
But as you are rising up on your house of cards over a flame of anger the phoenix flies to freedom.

2004

Song: Alone in What You Feel

Alone in what you feel

PDF Alone in what you feel

Please see the audio and lead sheet of this song if you wish.

This is the poem I wrote. I thought it might be an interesting song. It struggled with it, the main problems were with verses 4 and five. Verse 4 became a middle eight and verse 5 a somewhat variation on verse 1. A favorite Russian Poet Marina Tsveteava (speeliing mine) seemed to think there are in life, non people, who have no heart. She should know, she was driven to suicide by poverty and heartbreak by the communists of her time.

Poem: Alone in what you feel

Alone in what you feel
It’s the third meal of the day
Maybe take a drink
You can sing, you can pray
Alone anyway

Some do not see feelings
As worthy of respect
With the strength of Hercules
They make a point to reject
How you bleed

Alone in what you feel
It’s the first hill to climb
But your mind can’t reach the top
To see what’s left behind
Alone anyway

Talking with psychology
Really isn’t the same
As taking pain to task
Her multiplication tables
Will answer before you even ask
How you bleed

Alone in what you feel
Why is the whole world seen
Through the lens of a shattered dream
And making love is purely mechanical
Alone anyway

I Got Home Late That Night To Find

I got home late that night to find
That you’d misbehaved behind the T.V.
Why you did that I don’t know,
Was it something to do with me?

For the first time in your life
I locked you out for the night.
You spent the night on the doormat
Until the morning light.

I awoke up to a nice sunny morning
The sky had that early spring blue
As it shone in through the window
I was wondering what should I do.

I’ll let you in, in a moment,
Let me clean my teeth first.
You must be feeling hungry,
I’ll make sure your food is dispersed.

Then I heard a terrible growling,
Then a scuffling in the hallway outside.
I flung the front door wide open,
And I couldn’t believe my eyes.

A hound from hell had got you,
Was shaking you in his jaws.
There was hissing, screaming and panic,
As I tried to get you indoors.

I tried to scare him off you
But he dragged you out to the yard.
He shook you, like you’d shake a sparrow.
To get him to stop was hard

His owner finally called to him
After minutes of life and death tussle
He left your legs dragging behind you
As you crawled off out of trouble.

The hound from hell bounced away
Like a puppy who’d pleased his master.
As I tried to pick you up
To avoid any more disaster.

You hissed at me hopelessly
And got tangled up in a fence.
You stuck your claws in my soaking socks
It wasn’t making much sense.

I took off my socks and retrieved you,
Took you barefoot back inside.
Badly wounded , unable to walk.
It just brought tears to my eyes.

Sunday morning terror.
Sunday morning grief.
Someone’s hound had damaged you
So bad it’s beyond belief.

The emergency service was closing.
I had to wait ’til next day.
I nursed you with anxiety.
I don’t know what to say.

Fifty pence was the bus fare
Down to the P.D.S.A.
They said you would have to be put down.
It sure was a tragic day.

My constant companion for 10 years
So loyal, my best friend.
Today I’ve got to phone up to find out
If today your poor life will end.

Tues Feb 25th 96

The Laughter of Candle-smoke

The soft wax of red candles in glass vases
Spread dancing lights between three people

She moaned with her belly-swollen grief
In the flickering shoal of shadows

In the tent of candlelight the revelation of eyes
Took my breath away to the city of stars

Softened childlike faces were bobbing about
A womb child spoke to a frightened lonely mother

The laughter of candle smoke an unseen devil
The hissing cobra of dream dust writhing

She swapped roles with you through pockets of darkness
Emerging into light with love and anger

Your breath of memory calmed her wintry seafronts
Her thorns of silence buried in denial

She drew heart from the friendship of your imagination
A uterus of ocean in her storm of self hatred

She ran into the streets possessed by regrets
Hades followed the blame of her misery

You turned the lights on with weary forgetfulness
To tidy up the supper things and wish me goodnight

But cats take no notice of this

You wave your arms in the air
You sway from side to side
You scrunge up the nose on your face
You make yourself go cross eyed
But cats take no notice of this
You may as well face the truth
They just sit there and grin
They sit there looking aloof

Your settee is torn to pieces
Your carpets have holes three feet deep
Your doors have nights and crosses
From the little claw sharpening creep

You say, here nice pussy, pussy
Time for your favorite bite
Or you want to give them medicine
Or show them off to someone’s wife
But the cats take no notice of this
They sense something in your eye
They just sit there and grin
Then arch their backs and fly

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AN UNFINISHED VERSION 1

AN UNFINISHED VERSION 2

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Poem: Alone in what you feel

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