GREETINGS!

Greetings!.  Three recent poems I've been working on.  Apologies for the silences as I think these blogs are meant to be populated with such revelatory information such as what I ate for breakfast and what really "sucks" - I'm pretty tardy in such matters and can only crave your indulgence and understanding.

 BTW toast and wasps are the answers to the above but not necessarily in the correct order.

Many thanks for your positive comments on the poems I posted fairly recently which is always appreciated.

WALL

WALL

On the first day I stood beneath you,
Your height hoarding the air
The sky no more than a bruise
That threatened thunder
Your top crowned with glass
Like the coronet of the king of Walls
Shark's teeth sharp and snarling down, 

Daring me climb and I must admit I was afraid
But promised to return

On the second day
I brought rope, pick and axe
Only to find you were made of the purest crystal
Your surface smooth and
Mirroring my frustration
As hour, upon hour, upon hour
Of axe and pick and cursing
Hour, upon hour, upon hour
Not one impression could I make,
Not one foothold could I gain
Into your imperious, insolent heart and
Your spikey grin wider than ever
All attempt to climb you postponed
I vowed I would return

On the third day
Spade and shovel I brought
To burrow beneath you
I'll bury you yet

(c) Stephen Evans

A BUXTON SNOW SCENE 1906

You stare back at me

From the photograph's sepia season
Forever frozen in winter

I trace your dark tracks strung out across

A sledding scene of nineteen hundred and six,

Atop the Slopes near Buxton park where the

Serpentine is stilled, its coils, cowed,
Inanimate, amid the season's chill.

Rows of children standing stiffly to attention,

Already cocooned in adulthood,

Wrapped warmly in parental wear,

And weighted down in bonnets and caps,

Stare at me from their walled-in lives,

Hung and framed like inmates in an ice-berg cell.

The modern convention of the inane smile has not

Yet corrupted the sensibilities of this scene,

As they pose for the photograph which takes an age to

Compose and capture,  their faces, pale, stern,
Frowning forever

Compressed upon the glacial plate,  

Yet on closer inspection, 

Through the camouflage of conformity,

Eyes etched with excitement,

Erupt and crater the still decorum.

You wait to take your turns like

Patient dominoes all in serried row,

Black on white and white on black,  

Peppering and dotting the all-prevailing snow,

A world uniform and balanced,

You grip your tiny sledges, 
Vulnerable,

Amid the winter's bleak attack.

At risk of being blown away,

At the whim of wind or fate,

Like leaves fallen haphazardly,

Your prints pattern the tilting ground,

All  crows' feet stitching amid

The raven’s ratcheting dance.

Senseless to your fate and the decade ahead
Your frozen smiles explode and

Strafe this frigid moment,

You thrill as you anticipate your reckless,

Raw descent,

Cut, tear and scissor the pallid quilt,

Which you forever rent,

Headlong, downwards, ever sliding,

Unhindered by the sombre angel yet to be built.

Stephen Evans June 2014

PACKING AWAY

Packing Away

Today I packed my memories of you away

Every last one 

Better stacked safely on the shelf

Than see them thrown into a sack

To drown

I moth-balled them and there they'll stay

Like a child stores away the toys someday

He eventually outgrows.

I close the cupboard firmly tight

Stare at it, frown: still work to do

I scrape the varnish from the wood 

And run my hands across the grain

Its smoothness softly shares my skin

Then take the paint I'll use as coat

But just as I begin.  Stop. 

I prefer it plain. 

(c)  S Evans 2014

WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

My name's Charlie and I'm fifty-one
I've got four daughters and I've got a son
I've had three wives, more of less
and lots of other women when I've transgressed

I photograph weddings for my trade
and document the moment when your vows are made

Wedding photographer, now give me a smile
Wedding photographer, we may be here a while
Wedding photographer, please stand over there
Wedding photographer just relax, don't stare
Wedding photographer, now say cheese
Wedding photographer, all face right if you please...


My first marriage lasted over twenty years
A great deal of that time was spent in tears
I gambled and I womanised quite a lot
And drank heavily, I was quite the sot
Judith finally left me and took the girls away
And the divorce papers landed on the very next day

Wedding photographer, more to the side
Wedding photographer, please re-kiss the bride
Wedding photographer, bunch up some more
Wedding photographer, now lift her off the floor
Wedding photographer, no one make a sound
Wedding photographer, throw your bouquet to the crowd...

My second wife Penny was highly strung
She was needy and possessive and awfully young
Her parents disapproved of me and it led to a fight
I ended up cruising bars every night
It seemed like it was over before it hardly begun
She left me for a policeman but she gave me a son.

Wedding photographer, let's have mum and dad
Wedding photographer, please don't look so sad
Wedding photographer, the bride and her maid
Wedding photographer, don't stand too near the shade
Wedding photographer, just five more shots to take
Wedding photographer, now pretend to cut the cake

Yasmin, my third wife was a mail order bride
Packed and packaged and fragile inside
Once we'd been together for almost two years
I came home to find she'd disappeared
With the help of a PI I tracked her down
Where she'd hooked up with a woman in a north eastern town
Seems she'd had this girlfriend all along
I was too busy with my weddings to ever think she'd do me wrong

Wedding photographer, now give me a smile
Wedding photographer,I like the natural style
Wedding photographer, give them some room
Wedding photographer, let's have the best man with the groom
Wedding photographer, you'll want a close up of the ring
Wedding photographer, you're my first wedding this spring

I guess it would easy to be bitter and mean
And cynical and twisted by the whole marriage scene
But I'm a sucker for a wedding with ordinary folk
And a crowd of happy people full of cheer and love and hope
So when I see a newly wed husband and wife
I sincerely wish them both a wonderful life

Wedding photographer, try not to frown
Wedding photographer, I really like your gown
Wedding photographer, you won't know I'm here
Wedding photographer, I work through the year
Wedding photographer I'll re-take it again
Wedding photographer we might just avoid the rain

(c) Stephen Evans 2015

EVOCATION

It isn't your body that still beckons
From the eyelid of the doorway
Or the mischief and promise
In your sigh and your smile
It isn't your  warmth in the private of  places
Or your eyes' dilation at various stages
Not the coupling of our heart-beats
Nor the whisper of your skin

It is none of these.

What most  visits my memory and recalls you again
Is the smell of your hair when we kissed in the rain.


(c)  S.  Evans

RIDING ON THE WHIRLWIND

Some find it in a powder
Some find it in a bottle 
Some find it in their children 
And some in Aristotle

Some find it in the fire
Some find it in the frost
Some find it in the bedroom
Some find it on the cross

We're always searching
Searching all the time
Riding on the whirlwind
Reigning in the rain

Some write it in a poem
Some sing it in a song
Some preach it from the pulpit 
And some just bite their tongue 

Some find it in the desert 
Some find it in a book
Some never find it
However hard they look 

We're always searching
Searching all the time
Riding on the whirlwind
Reigning in the rain. 

(c) S Evans 2014

HAPPINESS

Do not  bring me happiness
Let such thoughts pass quickly on
It's been  banished for so long,
I'd barely recognise its smile.

I think of  its cool in the summer's heat or
Its warmth in winter's night
As one thinks of a ship that has sailed
Out of sight or forbidden fruit too
Tall to reach however laden
The bend of the bough.

If  you  could ever  liberate
This death camp husk  from
Its starved  and shrivelled host
If you ever  unlock that leaden chest
Beware...
When freed
Happiness is too rich a treat
On which to ever  feed

Your well-intentioned intervention
Would likely  kill than cure
Your generous ministrations
Would choke  at birth
The patient heart in me.

Instead... I beg
Wean me from these midnight  dreads with Hope
Droplets of silver rather than tears
A finger tip  measure to my lips
Over the months,  perhaps the years,
Until at last  I'm ready to taste happiness again.

(c) S.  Evans 2014

SCAN

SCAN

Polo mint capsule
Starch white
Drained of rainbows
Receives me stiffly
Through its
Stargate portal
Reduced to worm-hole vision
Mirrors place me in reflective mood
A tube hangs out of me
Horizontal mind floats
Headphones buzz
A disconnected voice shrills if I'm OK
My name scratched out by static
She could be in the control room
Booth or Houston USA,
She could be in Heaven but
Sounds like HAL
Go through the checks
Left hand holds switch
Press in emergency
For immediate attention
In case we have a problem
Brace myself for lift-off
The chamber shakes I'm aping Heston
I'm Hurt in Alien isolation
My chest feels heavy
Pregnant with dread
Lead thoughts scrape along the
Trenches of the brain
Like x-wing in Death Star searching
For elusive port
Eyes closed to try repose
Nose-free zone
Senses are vacuumed up
Shrink wrapped
Laid bare
A rose in suspended animation
Would smell as sweet- less
No perfume pricks the air
Round and round
I'm tumble-dried three cycles,
Itch I dare not scratch
Tectonic plates of neck and back
Must stay still, all animation suspended,
Status in stasis,
Mouth dry and open to
Aid respiration
Oxygen ingestion,
This wordless O my final stage of examination
All metal removed from me
Floating in my own tin can
Click click slick
The music slides sideways into head
 REM lullaby my dread
"If you believed they put a man on the Moon,
Man on the Moon."

© Stephen Evans 2013

VISITING MY MOTHER IN A HOME AT CHRISTMAS

You're a jigsaw puzzle without a picture on the box
All in a thousand pieces with one piece missing
The instruction sheet long lost
You can't be fixed or reassembled
Your mind is a shattering of moments
Scattered across your pillow and beyond
Unravelling beyond recollection like
A tapestry torn into a thread
That twists into a question mark
For which there are no answers

Your open mouth
Clams in the past
Lying on your side like
Some blubbering creature
Washed up by the tide
I feel within this stagnant room
The siren calling me to sea
Return me to lost innocence
Intern me in your mammal womb

I hold your hand and smooth
Your thinning hair
Aware of the unwanted gift you always bring
Acutely at this time of year
From the many you have given me
From the moment you caught
My first breath and taught
My mute tongue how to sing
And bound me to your dominant cord
That never could diminish
Determined we to ever duel
Or duet to the finish

The silence now your parting gift
Allows me to reflect upon
The gradual ending of a life
And selfishly contemplate my own

From down the corridor
A radio plays a song of praise
Great Joy and Tidings to the World!
The singing ends without applause

As no more words can be said
I scratch these lines beside your bed

(c) Stephen Evans