A Longtime Creeping
THE POETRY OF JONATHAN KEITH (1949- )
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FOR A LONGTIME CREEPIN'
The Caterpillar
admired; exposited;
emulated.
Exegete the parameters of
reality of:
worshipped and believed in:
Butterflies
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A PHOTOGRAPH FROM AUSTRALIA
i Among a conversation of lovers,
a windswept child loosed by an artmonger's craft
Innocence, out of place in smoky rooms:
Grandfather's taxi, in a photograph of Devil's Blowhole,
caught the sunlight from the street
friendly to winter-dressed boys playing
the wrought-iron bars of the graystone library.
ii. We were all standing there,
though the edges are worn now,
Somewhere between the dark foaming
and the page
fixed by seen spent light
on a round wooden table
smelling of old varnish
in an empty house
on a hill overlooking the town.
iii. Down all the days of sunlit streets,
marbles and bagpipers in the Sunday schoolyard,
a Feeling of never knowing self
pushed the years
toward the direction of away,
leaving winter days unnaturally longer
in the Cycle of seekers and young vagabonds;
much later, the days became lyrics,
but curiously unresolved - like sparks of static
within the small awakening of spring.
iv. Even now, wrung out dried out set upright,
the desire is to get back into Fairyland;
mornings of deserted railway stations,
light rain clouds hanging dull over lines
endless by wooden waiting walls
chiselled like distant country songs
on the still wind of country roads;
light brown girls, fair and golden hair
and the long black, rips the heart out of a man
following the rails to Nowhere.
v. Have you heard the bleeding hearts
of young bold men
unknown in bright towns
along the highways
of this aching empty land
of small places in big deserts?
A certain smell of soap and talcum
soft motherness,
leaves intangibles
to taunt graveseekers
and vague bondmen,
all their days.
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A Small Painting
Exploding words
Encrusted hymns left sung
in the garden
prayers ripped out
by neat fleeting lovers
walking in the older parts
night's blanket
searching for gaps
in the fabric of anguish
gaps letting in the sea blasts
from the cold horizon
houses pale by carlight
are many evocative to the mind
but full of mundane bags it has been said
it has been said
chains surrounding
chains rooted to deep trees
longtime trained chains
on the calling skies
in corners of the night
Churches devil their chains
like wild bells
near to the edge of the rigid square frame
a mark is gouged into the paint
Sing a yellow story
captures the freckled shade with wind,
the wind leaves & evening
lingers rustling secrets in soft colours
you have remained in this quiet place
with summer's passing
for I walk through the colours of your hair
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Autumn Memories
the leaves
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AUTUMN SCUFFLING BOY
Sun swung in his pocket
(sly as a flowered marble
among stilted sermons
spun with pulpits & quaking gowns
or the witching hour in spider's eyes)
before the years had grown
from eager legs & cricket socks
toward a knotted glimpse
of forested ambitions
& scoldings
urging lean uncharted homespun halfmast years
from seeking wings among dimensions
not yet foraged into patterns
Autumn scuffling boy
linger between springing grass
iridescent greens & bitumen
Scuffling autumn Sunday mornings
. . . 99, 100!
coming in a rush of pinchy shoes
ready or knotty sling shots slung careless
& bravado seeking abandoned snail shells
& ladybirds
Autumn scuffling boy
. . . 99, 100!
come find a wintered shell among these leaves,
an empty shell,
a shuffling onetime scuffling
Autumn scuffling boy.
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I T I S E N O U G H
It is enough
to bound with dog below the morning skies
& smashing webs
hung low & high
it is enough
surfeit mind
appetite with wheeling flight
& splashing wings
of red & green
it is enough
or one in conversation
mid the ferns that bow & pray
as if in awe
It is enough
to be yet alive
at night's-long end,
it is enough
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Dead Books
The days of five sharps
Musty manuscript books
& smelly violins
died shortly after
I forget his name now
but I remember Sue
the only person I recall
who has ever run to catch up with me
most others will call out
and expect you to stop
we hung the intervals for a while
it's hard to dust off dead books
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I C A N N O T D E S C R I B E T H E R E A L W O R L D
I cannot describe the real world,
to try would be as a man
filled with sunlight
going out to a dull room,
but from time to time unforgettably,
there is a nexus; as a babe might coo
at his mother's voice,
as a pilot uncertain in the night
might sight at last his place to land,
as when the morning sun
breaks through the clouds
and all upon this grass is seen clearly;
such that a child might say:
"Come! I'll kick it to you to climb your hill!"
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W O R M S
Some of the best friends I know in the Word like me:
worms undone & squashable worms
yet in that their low estate
boldly coming & going
in the presence of God.
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Their DIES IRAE at Dingo Rock was the Ghost of Glacier View!
There's a Dingo Camp in Cooranbong, up the Hunter Valley way,
But two-legged sheep is what you'll find - an outpost of the USA,
Two-faced it could be said, but it's not Christian to be cruel,
Why, even the Jury at Darwin ate the Dingo "weetbix" gruel,
So proved that all of us have got bowels, bad taste, or worse:
Look! Even the ancient prophets wrote their words of God in verse!
Dingo is the word for it, 'cos that Camp is far from Eden,
There's a College there called Avondale, by Dora Creek a-grieving,
By the waters of fair Babylon they sit down and wait for Christ,
Don't get it wrong - he just might come, if they got up off their Arse!
'Cos chamberlains, and chamberpots, and thrones, and things of God,
Like Plato said: are shadows of our dreaming 'til we're laid beneath the sod.
But in mice and men there is no truth 'cos God is hard to find,
Computers are our prophets now, and TV's heaven for the blind,
The Three Wise Men have gone to dust where Dingos chew their bones
In scholarly contention, like some clutch of Satan's clones,
While the common folk are damned to hell if they smoke or drink or swear,
And no-one's righteous, no not one, 'cept the Dingos at Avondale there!
The world must wear a simple face for them that's got the cake,
But those of us on pies 'n' sauce have found each slice a fake,
'Cos there's nothing here can save us from the politics of men,
Rumours are that CHRIST! Comeback? got busted, stoned and beaten,
But enough now of frivolity in the face of human woe, and
Come! On the empty echoes, of the Dingo chamber show....
Dingos are the well-groomed lot, fierce Zealots to the core,
Mortgaged hospitals, schools and churches,
filled with good works to a bore!
At Loma Linda, California, they've perfected medical art,
Replacing Human with Baboon, in transplant Surgery of the Heart!
And there's no doubt it's efficacious to be clinically: "Born Again,"
'Cos them that get new hearts like that, are monkey-tricked for HEAVEN!
Since born in Eighteen-Forty-Four, they've worked up a tremendous sweat,
Bulldozing schisms and dissensions, trampling all their heretics flat!
George Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four's got nothing they need learn
'Cos Dingos know they go to Glory, just as others surely burn!
And so, there is a truth that's evident to the sorrowfully wise:
Dingos "hoist with their own petard" are Devils in disguise!
Come the dawning of the Eighties, Dingos torn by rabid strife
From lair to lair across the world, cringed in terror for their life;
For Desmond Ford, a man of God, if ever such there be,
Raised from the dust dry bones against them, to set their captives free.
Now you might judge such matters trite, unworthy of recall,
But those bones like whited sepulchres reach out still to taunt them all!
Brave and true stood he before them, on ground firmer than Ayers Rock,
A child yet man of wisdom, fearless Champion of the Flock!
Dingos gnashed their snarling fangs in bloodlust's empty prayers,
Howling curses at the Shepherd, and the flock held in His care.
O dark the night Azaria was taken!
Dingos locked in dire preoccupation
At Glacier View, in the USA, worked their most foul abomination!
From the Dingo camp in Cooranbong, like Judas in the night,
They took that man of God to Glacier View to bait a savage fight.
From the vicious jaws of Fate and Chance, coincident in Time
A chilling unseen spectral hand reached to Ayers Rock's torrid clime.
Rampant chaos overturned the carnage from the Dingos' cup of slaughter
As the blooded robes of the "Bride Of Christ" revealed the "Devil's daughter!"
Posed as self-appointed "Michael"s : "archangel Chamberlains" of the Lord,
Dingos purged the Shepherd's flock with fanatic guilt-edged sword,
And the Throne of God - their chamberpot for dry bones of pious gore,
Casting out that man of God with all his kind - the bane of Dingo lore!
O dark the night Azaria was taken!
Dingos raged such unholy desecration
That no-one was safe, no-one saved,
from Dingo tooth and claw!
You'll find Azaria's Dingo chamber lain in metaphor beyond Ayers Rock
At a conference room at Glacier View, where the laws of Love were mocked.
Echoes dread of events remembered from an elsewhere place and time,
Yet unseen worlds between them, unseen reason, unseen rhyme,
That no human court upon this earth could prove it to be true:
Their Dies Irae at Dingo Rock WAS the Ghost of Glacier View!
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DRIFTWOOD
Upon my suit of time
this clocksprung armour
cherished above fellowship,
no music nor patience
nor feeling for dust to settle is,
but the wind in my shoes
& morning calling
the glory of echoes
resounding always
on pinnacles of distances
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FIVE PSALMS FOR THE SEASON OF LENT
Alpha:
In the boxes of the damned
the orbital foramen of Golgotha multiplies
the eunuch Cyclopes
into the quiet carpet corners
mesmeric cenotaphs
turning on the lusts of the fathers
to the children
of the children to the fathers.
Tau: ". . . and I, if I be lifted up . . ."
a million holy crosses
on the boxes of the damned
Omicron: a stagnant procession
Palmer worm Sunday
greasing the borrowed streets up
for another week
doughnut & Coke
comforts
on the park grass
uniting aliens
like chunks on a skewer.
Psi: It is written
there is no lover
here.
Omega:
unknown,
nobody likes to ask
now it's all changed,
the cities are thick with body ash,
wait.
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Guitar Baroque
Guitar baroque
elaborate ornate hand carved rosette
inlaid fine spruce
Sing, gently sing
mellowed notes of nightingale
sing evening rosewood tones
in fading manuscripts
engraving moon stillness & arabesque chords
in well grained mahogany
alabaster statuesque
sculptured appoggiatura
falling from a subtle hand,
pastelled pastiche
reminiscent of mosaic gothic tapestry,
Sing!
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I N R E P L Y T O H A R D Y ' S
" WH E N E V E R
E X P E C T E D
M U C H "
by chance perhaps I have ached each year thus far
with high expectation that life would all be fair,
determined as a child to lie upon this grass
and hear the sky was not enough,
but to stand and reach and grasp
as one might capture the sun,
that if this life refused to yield
all truth and meaning
just neutral-tinted happenstance was not enough,
with contempt would I return the gift.
a fool perhaps to ache each year thus far,
but you said to minds like mine
- and to you the blame -
in that mysterious voice
one word in which I thrust and surge:
"Wait!"
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A J I N G L E F O R A J A G G E D M A N
The three legged man
with a face so sad
clutched at his sticks
for his sticks were mad
the high sun froze
and we all didn't see
the crazy stick man
going for a wee
he jerked up quick
and kicked the chair
the crazy stick man
with his face all bare
our fronts were like backs
as he crutch kicked past
the crazy stick man he's gone at last
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T H E L I G H T H O U S E C O N N E C T I O N
Sitting in the courtyard here
of the university letting
The Lighthouse melt and shift,
shadowed by the sun light
behind the wooden seat,
someone somewhere
in a moment privilegie
put a needle in a groove,
from remote corners of the captured light
des haut-parleurs -
songs of womanhood,
in her banshee voice
above the virile thrust
of steel and drum
I saw the warrior put his armour off
and do homage to the beauty of the world,
and his son erect and stiff
between his mother's legs
hating him because he had done it first.
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ME
If I wasn't me
it would be easier
to be me
the me I want to be
the me I ought to be
the me I could be
the me that certainly I would be
if only I wasn't me.
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L I T T L E R O O M
I have spent my life
alone in a little room
and though this little room grows
larger inside than outside
and is a better little room
for that it is still my life
alone in a little room.
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T W O I N S T I T U T I O N S F O R T H E M I N D
What is the difference
between this place and that?
trees same - narrowly huddled distant together:
rooms same - sitting eating,
none hot soft free for sex
except solitaire lavatories,
laboratories for rats:
private places must not be exposed
in this place or that.
because of it:
faces same - shells on eggs
nobody likes identity attacked:
yet there must be seepages through cracks
and no-one must ask:
which came first this place or that?
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W A R Z O N E
Commandos
Clenching cigarettes in jungle heat
coldkill glance
clean-cuts the fun-nest's
soft brown cleft
city troops clashing
in the train's gutsy strife
there is a man studying
a plan of Page 3 tits
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T O J U N E S T E L L A
And has the time far gone
we braved & bathed our childish days
together under the sun?
And are we grown so wise
our scuffling plans
(to thrive when old in some great house
with dogs & things we ever loved,
just you & me)
are done?
And are you grown with children now
that I am left behind?
To catch for you the suns of all
those fairy lands we dreamed,
sailing sheets in unknown nights
as happy wanderers.
I still see you, as a mermaid
in some magic time,
a tinkerbell, as through the looking-glass
at you & me.
And has the time far gone?
Are we grown so wise?
Did we not sip a sweet disguise?
None other two was one as you & me.
And when at last, the last life's kissed,
love's circle's joined & free;
One grown, returns to the child
to find that all eternity's a dream
for you & me
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W H E N N O A H T R A D E D I N H I S BOAT
FOR A D A R W I N - E I N S T I E N B O M B
Dinosaurs laid down and died
Obligingly in ranks in rock and clay,
Miscellaneous Neanderthals hacked
The boat to shreds and hid it all away,
Pterodactyl Pan with volcanic diarrhoea
Sang ditties fluted in reeds,
'til Noon-day sang the songs away.
Homo came with bright banners
And flags with songs of war,
'Til skin and drums were broken,
Dancers leapt all day a-gay
With manna nibbled in step,
'til Noon-day sang their souls away.
Meanwhile back at high noon,
Someone thought to make a world
With everything in place,
But never finished,
when Dooms-day blew it all away.
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P S A L M F O R A M I N O R S E C T
Sinbins & Megathumpers
UNITE!!!
Blast ye down the breasty curves of all the world!
Ironmongers' fire & blood
streakers ripping up the bitch you men like.
scarlet & garfunkel fading in
The weeping sunsets for all the bleeding teens
twenties hundreds thousands
thumping cubic sins with leathered thighs.
TAILS OF BRIMSTONE!
PIPES OF FIRE!
FUMES OF FLOODED PLANETS!
JUICE OF GOLDEN DEATH!
Fingers scraping on uncaught velocities
hurtling into the Sun.
SING!
SINBINS & MEGATHUMPERS
BLAST YE DOWN THE BREASTY CURVES
OF ALL THE WORLD,
UNITE!!!
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S H R A P N E L ECHOES
The private war field of the mind
can never be ploughed with lips
nakedly ashamed exposing
the cutting edge of neat white teeth
The private war field of the mind
can never be raked
with manicured nails
can never be raped
can never be never be . . .
The private war field . . .
the private war field . . .
the mind . . .
the mind . . .
the mind . . .
mind . . .
mind . . .
shrapnel echoes
in eaten out skull
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SILENCE
Sometimes the pain of silence
sometimes is I louder think than I softly may spoken starve words in
of the hunger
silence of our conversations
can you not hear the unspoken words
that I have placed before your half open door
or is the implication of your goodbyes enough
to leave unsaid what we might have tried to say ?
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F O R T H A T E N D U R I N G S K E P T I C
Deep in conversation, two friends
As trees walking, I see:
God and Hardy arm in arm,
One speaking, one weeping
Having questioned history.
Deep in conversation, two friends
As trees walking, I see:
God and Thomas arm in arm,
One surprised, one fiercely
Questioning eternity.
Deep in conversation, two friends
As trees walking, I see:
God, His Calliopist, arm in arm,
One composing, one in dancing
Chords of mystery.
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W H E N A B U B B L E S N A P S
When a bubble snaps and is gone
where do the colours go?
The captured rainbow enveloping dreams
is never really lost.
somehow into the eyes of the one who at heart
Is always childlike
a dreamer the pain of something burst is remembered always.
after all these years grown from the moment when as a child
"forever blowing bubbles" sang out before the dawn
nothing inside has changed much
except for now possessing a small crystal stamped me
and being fully known
by the one in whom I am not changed
but put together pieces of bubbles rearranged
into rainbows after the rain.
Who can describe the sky?
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I H A V E M E T T H E S O R R O W I N Y O U R E Y E S
I have met the sorrow in your eyes
and turned back to the shadows,
For they have been my friends
more than something one might touch
or someone touched by.
Nor have your tears grown upon me,
or the mornings of your boldness ever deceived me,
For I know your arts, did you not learn them from me?
And so, in solitary places far removed from each other
we sit and contemplate the past,
At the end of the day
we desire no tomorrows.
It is true I was once a dreamer,
and you?, only you can know,
We never knew each other,
it was foolish to expect your nakedness
could ever cover mine
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THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS
Have you heard
those homeless overcoats
of anonymous afternoons
shuffling down jerky streets
in straight face gray?
Have you seen reflections in the gutters
hubcaps by a narrow way
conjuring a silvery glimpse of dusty giants?
your questions are voiced upon
the silent hours of morning
your sorrow echoes
between the holes in my shoes
would you ask the sun to rise at midnight
or see the patient hills shed tears?
Would gold give his riches to another
or ask a stone to share?
your questions are felt like
the silent arrows of morning
your wisdom touches
the wandering of my soul,
Yet I remember leaving something
somewhere behind
a half forgotten scene,
a question greater
than water changing to wine
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W A S A T I M E
Was a time the sunrise
overtook the clock in the long bones,
Was a time the grab of morning
was felt in the pulsing heart
Even before the passing,
Was a time, was a time of love.
Down in the winter harvest
of wine and smoky days,
Was a time the ways of leaving
were ventures of deep conquest,
And the coming and the goings
Was a time, was a time of hope.
Was a time the reasons
all were taken before they came,
Was a time the fabric breath
breathed with simpler friends,
Even before the passing, was a time,
was a time of faith.
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W H A T H A P P E N S
W H E N T H E
M O R N I N G C O M E S ?
This is the moment you've been waiting for, isn't it?
YES, I'VE THOUGHT ABOUT IT
FOR A LONG TIME.
It's cold outside
and the night is long and black
like my hair
and there's an old song on the wind...
YES, I'VE HEARD THAT SONG...
We can make it last...
THE MORNING ALWAYS COMES...
We can sing the words while the fire burns...
IT'S WARM HERE BESIDE YOU...
I am warm for you
and the elixir of my perfume
can soothe your mind.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE MORNING COMES?
Long and black, an old song on the wind...
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE MORNING COMES?
MUST IT ALWAYS BE 9 TO 5 DAY AND NIGHT?
The wine is warm,
now hold it to your lips and close your eyes...
BUT I AM FULL OF WINE, AND GOD,
THERE HAVE BEEN SO MANY GIRLS,
MOUTHFULS OF SOFT WARM FLESH;
I HAVE LOST MY HANDS IN LONG THICK HAIR,
BUT I HAVEN'T LOST MY MIND...
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE MORNING COMES?
-----------------------------------
When A Bubble Snaps
When a bubble snaps and is gone
where do the colours go?
the captured rainbow enveloping dreams
is never really lost.
somehow into the eyes of the one
who at heart is always childlike
a dreamer
the pain of something burst
is remembered always.
after all these years grown from the moment
when as a child "forever blowing bubbles"
sang out before the dawn
nothing inside has changed much
except for now possessing
a small crystal stamped me and
being fully known by the one
in whom I am not changed
but put together pieces of bubbles
rearranged into rainbows after the rain.
Who can describe the sky?
--------------------------------
O U T O F T H E W I Z A R D
I N T O T H E S P I R E
Out of the wizard into the spire
Caught in a smug sect
watching the sky,
And the long climb down
Up to the fire:
After the dying
the chaos is past,
The flight no longer spoken,
And paths to the grave
Seen going from the place of death.
Still small voices of the still point,
Amidst Iscariot and shylock angels,
Out of the crucifix into the blood
A man with scribings on his thigh unseen
Bleeds from the mall and city thickets
For steeples and synagogues
For the ears of the sheaves
That have no hearing.
And the tea-cups clatter
The thunder,
"I said to her, I said, I said,"
the heralds of the corners
Of the streets cry out,
They buy, they eat,
they are fed.
Out of the wizard into the spire
Down through the tube and the long night maul,
The sayings of the shod are etched,
On decalogues of glass,
on marble and stone,
When death shall have her dominion.
-----------------------------------
E T C H I N G S
words can never do it.
and in the most minutest failing
to be it - so very ugly.
shall we dine tonight?
the menu
I will thrust a fork down your neck.
come let us be lovers,
I will make a hole in your photograph.
If we read the ancient manuscripts
we can be god
And worship is better than words.
It is written:
men will exorbitantly unite
to fight death to the death.
Earth grows meet for the task.
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[ More Poems to be done - Under Construction ]
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THE POETRY OF JONATHAN KEITH