Wednesday 27 February 2013

Who's For Tea?


They pose and pontificate,
assured of their position;
sons of the Fathers
with Right on their side.

No matter the tragedies,
the mayhem, the mourning,
they scorn their detractors
and will have their way.

You and I may fail to see
the attraction or necessity
but who can deny them?
Money talks, and how.

Tuesday 26 February 2013

Eloise - Polyglot poetry

Für Eloise


When she was just a little child and learned to say my name
Eloise would call to me to join her in a game.

"Papa!" she'd say, "Papa! Papa! Allons! Enfin! Vite!"
in so imperious a way, and stamp her little feet.

"Ja, ich komme, Liebling", I'd tell her in reply
and rush to do her bidding, no need to tell you why.

This perfect little creature, so vibrant yet serene
was everything I'd hoped for, the cutest thing I'd seen.

So if I seem enamoured you must forgive me please.
There's nothing I would not have done for my sweet Eloise.




Kommen Sie Hier


"Zu Papa komm, mein Liebling,"
I'd say to my little girl
and she'd come across to where I sat
with a run, a skip and a twirl.

She'd scramble up upon my knee
with a radiant confident smile
and throw her arms around my neck
as time stood still for a while.

"Du bist mein ein und alles".
"Naturellement!" she'd cry
and placing her little nose on mine
she'd look me in the eye.

"Tu me traites avec tendresse,
mon gentil Papa!"
But how could I do anything less?
C'est paternité, n'est-ce pas?


The Fishing Cat


I loved to read to Eloise
I would see the words afresh
and one of her favourite stories
was called Le Chat Qui Pêche.**

It's all about a cat that was
as curious as my daughter
who finally went a bit too far
and fell into the water.

I used it as a warning but
she didn't care for that
and one day learned her lesson
in the same way as the cat.

"Oh, Papa", she said in jest
"Je suis mauvais sujet!"
"Ja, liebling, aber macht nichts!
I love you anyway."



Es ist Wunderbar.


One day when I took Eloise
to see the local zoo
she was extremely taken
with a bounding kangaroo.

Wide eyed she watched, then said, "Papa!
Regard! Cet animal!
C'est vraiment l'animal comique,
il bond de même qu'une balle!"

There was no arguing with that!
I said, "Ja, das ist wahr."
She turned to me and with a grin
said, "Es ist wunderbar!"



Desolée


She dressed up for the party
but no-one came to call;
Eloise stood in her very best dress,
there in the empty hall.

"Oh Papa, je suis desolée,"
she said to me at last;
her body slowly drooping,
her features quite downcast.

"Cherie, cherie, mein Liebling",
I stammered, " Komm zu mir!"
and very gently drew her close
and wiped away a tear.

I held her as she quietly sobbed:
"Pourquoi personne n'arrive?"
For once I had no answers and
could only watch her grieve.



Not Tonight


"Ich liebe dich, I love you "
I often used to say
and she'd reply "Je t'aime, je t'aime,"*
in her own special way
"Wo gehst du hin?"  I'd ask her
- not seriously though -
just to hear her answer;
I didn't need to know.
"Veux-tu danser, cher papa,
en disco avec moi?"
I'd shake my head, return her smile
and answer "Pas ce soir.

'Ave You Seen - A conversation in dialect.

'Ave You Seen?


'Ave you seen the grass grow green?
I 'ave, but long ago.
And is it true the sea were blue?
Blue? Well, yes and no.
I've 'eard it said a rose were red...
That's right, son, red or pink.
And snow were white? The sun were bright?
So bright it made you blink!

And what about the leaves in autumn
were they really gold?
Aye, gold and brown and crimson;
the 'alf were never told.

And were there birds up in the trees?
And did you 'ear them sing?
They trilled a million symphonies,
especially in spring.


And did you ever catch a fish
and tek it to your mother?
And, grandad, do you ever wish
that you could catch another?
I wish I could 'ave seen the earth
when it were young and pretty.
Whatever made the world give birth
to one enormous city?

It were greed that did it, lad,
it all boils down to money;
they spent the world, spent all it had.

Oh, grandad, you are funny!
They spent the silver and the gold,
the copper and the brass,
they spent the oil, they spent the coal,
the trees, the flowers, the grass.


They spent owt that could swim or fly,
they even spent the water,
till all the earth were grey and dry
wi' nowt else left to slaughter.
But worst of all they spent folks' 'earts
and left 'em wi'out beauty.
All that's left when 'ope departs
is one long round of duty.






Christine
© 1990

Along the Seashore

Along the Seashore



Waves, whispering on the sand
slowly encroaching
falling back
move miniscule grains
losses and gains

bring nourishment
to hungry mouths
of crabby crustaceans
wiggling worms and
a multitude of molluscs

not forgetting the hoards and hoards
of hidden, almost invisible, things
who wait with assorted maws and jaws
for what the sea will bring.

Life along the seashore.


 Christine
© 2002

A Land of Contrasts

A Land of Contrasts




Andes, a sprawling dragon, slumbering as it grows,
the length of South America, land of vast diversity:
from Atacama desert sands to snow fields and steaming jungle.
Jagged peaks tower over salt flats and caustic lakes
where a flock of pink flamingoes - feathered, stilted Riverdancers -
move en masse, their dance of love, and never miss a beat.
Torrent ducklings dance with death, plunging into freezing water,
tumbling, racing over rocks, yet somehow they survive.

Plucky little Humboldt penguins run the gauntlet through a horde
of nursing sealions, penguin eaters; bravely elbowing their way,
trampling the recumbent bodies, rushing past the snarling mouths,
risking all to reach the sea for fish to feed their young;
a sea wherein another danger, orca - foe of penguins, glide
and leap, their snapping hungry jaws a harbinger of death.
A sheet of ice, the size of Wales, births a glacier, slowly flowing
ruthlessly, inexorably, into the southern ocean.

On rocky heights, viscachas, tiny fur-robed, rodent monks,
warm themselves, greet the sun, and mutter benedictions.
Zorros, abhorring housework, move their pups from den to den,
chased always by the guanaco who hate them with a passion.
Mists arise, revive the lofty cacti which burst into bloom,
a tasty treat for guanaco; somewhere a bromeliad
flowers once in thirty years, in hope of pollination
by humming birds which seem to thrive in disparate locations.

Flocks of jewel-bright macaws, raucous in their conversation,
fly beneath an azure sky, catch the eye and stun the senses,
Elsewhere, spectacled bears, weighing all of forty stones,
eat bromeliads, raise their young, high up in the tree tops,
while kodkod, secretive and shy, birdlike in the canopy,
kudu, tiny foot high deer dwarfed by giant greenery,
puma, sloths - green with algae, armadillos, countless creatures,
touch the heart and fill the mind with wonderment and awe.

© 2004

Benign Indifference

Benign Indifference



Oft she turns her wrinkled face,
pirouettes through starlit space;
agitated her demeanour,
aging legless barrelina.
Now and then she belches, spews,
shakes and quakes and so renews.
All is cyclical in motion,
life and earth and sky and ocean
living, dying, rising, falling,
though to us it seems appalling
for, short lived, to life we cling
while nature simply does it's thing.


"Gazing up at the stars, for the first time, the first,
I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe."
-Albert Camus (1913-1960)

Crazylady
© 2005

Philosophical Ramblings

Philosophical Ramblings.



Does the butterfly know courage
when first it leaves the cocoon?
Having left it's earthbound pedestrian life
of eating, eating, and yet more eating
to hibernate for many days
on the underside of a leaf
to break down into genetic soup
it now has to start all over again
struggle free, out into the light
stretch its wings and soar on high.
How brave is the butterfly?

Does the lioness know courage
when she faces the male who comes along
and wants to mate and sees her young as
a threat to his own genetic line;
when she drives him away with tooth and claw
to defend her young ones sired elsewhere
does she stop to think "Oh, this is scary"
or just act purely on instinct?
What courage she shows in human terms
but a mother's desire to defend her young
is pretty instinctive under duress.
How brave is the lioness?

A baby bird has to leave the nest
learn to fly and fend for itself
and we put it down to instinct
but is it afraid of the cat and the owl
the predators all around?
Does it have to pluck up courage
to launch itself off that bough?
To struggle at length with its very first worm
which must be a little daunting
and we call it nature, take it for granted
that's just what creatures do.
Is talk of courage absurd?
How brave is the little bird?

I ask because I'm human,
and humans like to know.
We want to know what makes us tick
why we do the things we do
or why we sometimes don't.
Is courage merely an instinct
born of the need to survive?
or is it something we can control
by an act of will, determination?
We like to think we're so brave
ripping our fears assunder
but are we really? I wonder.

Christine
©July2002

Progress

Progress.



Things have changed.  We've come so far.
We often don't know how lucky we are.
We fly to the moon and study the stars;
we travel in trains and planes and cars.

We can feed the world, well most at least,
yet still some starve while others feast.
We are no more than savage beasts;
our brains grew larger, but we decreased.

We treat each other with such disdain,
ignoring one another's pain.
We've grown so cold and inhumane
and one man's loss is another man's gain.

Our animals are cruelly used
often neglected and much abused,
some sick folk are even amused.
Can that really be excused?

Is there anything that we need
to  justify this kind of deed?
Does self-content, like a noxious weed,
choke us with laziness and greed?

What is humanity's ultimate goal ?
What do we see as our primary role?
Can we get out of this awful hole?
And what do we gain in exchange for our soul?

It's like some terrible pact we've made
a kind of intelligence/feelings trade
and now it seems we're too afraid
to admit the piper must be paid.

Where oh where will this all end?
Will we ever comprehend?
Can we hope we'll all transcend;
wake up one day, and buck the trend?

Christine.
© 2003

Seventy Per Cent

Seventy Per Cent.


Oh, molecules of H2 0 , by my flesh now employed,
ancient and perpetual, just how far have you been?
Did you hail from outer space as an icy asteroid,
melting in our atmosphere by human eyes unseen

or from the planet's molten core when it was first volcanic?
No doubt you've sailed the heavens to refresh the earth below.
Were you in the iceberg that sank the proud Titanic?
Perhaps you've graced the frozen face of Everest, as snow.

How many living creatures have you helped to keep alive?
How many trees owe part of their existance to your aid?
Where will you be tomorrow? Will you watch as dolphins dive,
or be in someone's whisky, or a cooling lemonade?

I'd like to think you've floated down in petals on the breeze
and fed the mighty whale sharks with plankton in the deeps.
I haven't travelled very far, or seen the seven seas,
but seventy per cent of me remembers them, and weeps.



Christine
© 2003

The Colossal Squid

The Colossal Squid


The colossal squid is a fearsome beast
with parrot's beak and enormous eyes.
It has arms so strong it strives with whales
and grows to an unbelievable size.

It's tentacles are armed with hooks,
swivelling claws that are razor sharp.
Once a legend, now a fact;
no more will listeners laugh or carp.

In Antarctic waters it has its home,
eating whatever swims its way;
it takes exceptional strength and size
to avoid becoming this creature's prey.

If you dream of a life on the Southern Seas
midst howling gales and cliffs of ice,
just think about the colossal squid
and stay away, is my advice.

Christine
©2006

The Dragon Flies

The Dragon Flies


The Emperor, a dragon,
emerges from his lair,
undergoes a transformation,
magic without incantation,

Doffs his armour, brown and drab
to go about his task.
Emerging now in dazzling hues
he adds some glamour to the scene.

Weak from lack of food he flies,
devouring what he can,
building strength and stamina.
The days he has are very few
to do what he must do.

In coat of brightest blue he goes
to find a mate before he dies,
with breath-arresting, death-defying,
aerial skills and expertise,
by force he takes his kingdom from
whoever ruled before.

A damsel and her lover lie
embracing, unsuspecting.
Nearby the dragon waits until
her lover leaves her there
then pounces on the hapless creature;
razor sharp, his jaws devour.

The dragon's days are numbered though.
One day a new contender comes
to challenge for dominion.
The Emperor does his best to fight
but battered, tattered wings are weak
and this time he's defeated.

Ten days were all he had to rule,
ten days of mating, fighting, feeding,
meeting every challenge while
the force of life was strong.

A brief life has the dragonfly,
once he leaves the water.

Christine
© 2004
edited 2010

The River Rat


The River Rat


Along the Mississippi
where muskrats swim and play
a man in tune with nature
celebrates the day.

River Rat they call him,
a name of which he's proud
though he's not one for boasting,
not uppity or loud.

Following the seasons
he traps or shoots to eat,
fishes from an old canoe,
come snow or summer heat.

Green things in their season
are gathered from the ground,
for medicines or table;
his needs are not profound.

Quietly he censures those
who make of death a game,
who kill for sport and brag of it
instead of feeling shame.

He has no love for cities,
which steal the land away
so generations yet unborn
will ne'er see light of day.

Farming, too, offends him.
In slow and measured voice
he shares with us his sympathy
for captives with no choice.

His prey must take its chances
knowing what's entailed;
wild things run instinctively.
A time or two he's failed.

To watch the changing seasons,
that's his chief delight;
the passage of migrating birds
in slow majestic flight;

The river when it ices up,
the breath of springtime thaw,
a water lily carpet like
no townsfolk ever saw;

then melancholy autumn,
the colors of the fall
and soon will come a shiver
from the wild coyote's call.

Christine
© 2004

A Wing and A Prayer

A Wing And A Prayer

When I think of where humanity's bound
I'm tempted to despair.
There's death and destruction all around,
we're polluting the air, the sea, the ground
and still we ignore the death knell sound.
We're on a wing and a prayer.

Why do some people never learn -
is there any hope at all?
Are we determined to crash and burn?
Is our children's future of no concern?
There's time to halt the downward turn
if only we heed the call.

A gung-ho attitude drowns the screams
that issue a warning note.
Not enough people care, it seems;
we merrily cheer our favourite teams,
heading for hell on a sea of dreams,
in a rusty, leaking, boat.


Christine

© 2006

Arrogance Indeed - a Poem

Arrogance Indeed.


God - if god there be - is
beyond my understanding;
unknowable, ineffable, dweller in endless
time and space, themselves a mystery to me.

I ponder creatures of the deep
and wonder what made these:
a mind infinitely vast
or merely evolution?

Humans, in their wisdom, take pride
in their bigger brains,
in fire power, in language; with brute
force and ignorance we try to tame the world.

But now and then, like some old dog,
it shakes itself and moves
and we, like fleas upon its back
are simply tossed aside.

And what of God - if god there be -
in all of this? The holy men
search for answers in their books
and speak of humility.

Humans need their gods it seems,
hard wired for religion, but
to make God in our image
is arrogance indeed.


Christine
© 2005