rozk

Fidelity

Your hair in bunches, lipstick baby pink
vestigial shorts pulled tight against your bum.
Lollipop simper. Lightly hovering thumb
against pink lips. But do not ever think

that air quotes are not there. You're so perverse
Wholesome becomes just fetish. Those who lust
for your twelve-hole doc martens will adjust
follow you drooling still. So, go. Rehearse

A thousand girly ways, abandon butch
but do not hope to lose us. We'll be true
follow you round. We'll stalk you in a queue.
Smiling, your cynical wry grin will touch

our cheek as if you slapped us. Blushing red
we'll ponder how this all plays out in bed

Nightthief

You cough and something tears. You drown in blood
and splatter walls with red. And then you fall
gone in five seconds. There's no use to call
or hit your silent chest. Dead where you stood.

And that's one way we die. Mumbling to sleep
talking in fragments. How you drove to Kent
or how to make cheese omelettes. We just rent
all that we are, no freehold, cannot keep

our bodies as they were when we were young
no matter how we fast, what pills we take.
Madness will fever us, our hearts will break,
we'll lose a finger, or an eye, or lung.

Breathe art each second, make or dance or sing.
Night comes forever stifling, silencing.

Sestine- the year 2011

It was, like all our years, a year of war
a year of death, and sorrow, and of greed
of crowds that fought through danger to be free
of sudden kindnesses and random grace
of love and hatred, parched days and cold rain
and smouldering from long-neglected fires

Much of our works will die, perhaps in fires
or smashed collateral of some vast war
We stand faces upturned and look at rain
except for those whose eyes are fixed through greed
on other's disadvantage, have no grace
Their greed must go, or we will not be free

And we may die before we stand up free
our bodies cast by thousands into fires
and yet through struggle we reach out to grace
We hold each other tight. Around us war
may rage, and profit those who live for greed
but all that rage will quench and die through rain

the rain that lasts past death, the fertile rain
that's cold and wakes us. Wakes us to be free
wakes us to fight the ones who live for greed
wakes us and helps us to put out the fires
in which our dead burn and the dead of war
the rain that is just water, feels like grace

And if we die, we live again as grace
we fall as tears on friends, we fall as rain
we last though dead beyond the years of war
we last beyond our work. Dead we are free
as rain and tears we will put out the fires
and last beyond the ones who live for greed

My curse upon a world that's killed by greed
My blessings on the sudden random grace
of love for comrades, sisters. Through the fires
some will survive and struggle. And the rain
will fall, bring grace to them, they will be free
washed of the ash of fires, the filth of war

In fires we will see burn the life of greed
With rain we will be washed, the tears of grace
At last we will be free, beyond the war.

This is another Hitchens poem and is liable to go long, if not as long as its model.

Another vision of judgement
Heaven had changed a lot since Byron's day,
And mostly for the worse. Its pearly gate
squeaked loudly as St Peter made his way
to his official desk, tipsy and late.
In answer to the bell. His beard, once gray,
now shone with dye; a toupee on his pate.
Making an effort, as chief employee
of God, once Lord, but now an absentee.

There was no reason yet to think God dead,
As Nietzsche claimed, as Dawkins still maintains.
You'd think if someone killed God, he'd have bled
a little ichor, which leaves golden stains,
or, since he was incarnate, maybe red.
No scrap or bone of Heavenly remains
invisible to saint's or angel's eye.
St Peter even called in CSI

to no avail. The choirs still sang out loud
although they gazed up at the now vacant throne.
What else was there to do? The holy crowd
of patron saints answered each prayer or moan
exactly as before. The Powers bowed,
the Seraphs fluttered. Every sainted crone
or virgin scrubbed the place so very clean
it shone as bright as it had ever been.

The queues were even longer than before.
So many dead, all trying to get in.
Some dead in famine, some in holy war,
and all convinced they'd never done a sin.
St Peter had to judge; he let in more
than you'd expect; he saw them as his kin.
his were the keys and he threw wide the lock,
remembering the crowing of the cock

When he'd denied god thrice. And if bad men
got into heaven, he could always hope
that they'd get bored there, and would leave again.
He took as model our dear current Pope
who writes out blessings, with a Mont Blanc pen
for ex-dictators who deserve the rope.
Peter thought his successors were so wise
he'd let their practice be his main advice.

And this is how I shall be mostly spending it...





That, and roast venison with juniper and celeriac, and the usual pudding.

5. His Discourse on Love

There is a love of men men do not know
Who talk of love and taste upon their tongue
hot salty seed. I knew such love when young,
thought it an appetiser, that would go

with red wine, warm champagne. Such love must fade.
There is a love, seen through a whisky glass,
dim in a bar, that lips or puckered arse
cannot compare with. Love that was delayed.

We talk of writers, go home to our wives.
Argue in public, though with speaking looks
that reassure. Praise in each other's books
Such love is durable, drunk in, through lives

as hair thins and lines grow upon smooth skin.
Love that's respectable, no hint of sin.

3 Kiplingesque

Oh I went into a bar where smart right-wingers hang about
and the editor of Commentary said 'throw the Commie out'
O'Rourke and Coulter snickered and I blushed down to my toes
Face red, if not my politics – though I write better prose.

Oh it's Trotsky this and godless that
and drunken Limey queer
but it's thankyou Mr Hitchens
when there's Presidents to smear
there's Presidents to smear, boys, there's Presidents to smear
It's thankyou Mr Hitchens when there's Presidents to smear.

It was the end of History and I was on the wrong side.
I helped impeach a President who'd screwed around and lied
I strutted round the Beltway like a million-dollar whore
But I didn't get my payday til the Iraqi War

Oh it's socialist and Eurotrash
and drunken Limey fop
but it's thankyou Mr Hitchens
when the bombs begin to drop etc.

Yes, ignoring literate writing pays when getting right wing votes
but you need the likes of me to stab my pen in people's throats
and when killing brown civilians is the order of the day
you need someone who'll quote Camus for surprising modest pay

Oh it's dandy English stylist
with morals far too loose
but it's thank you Mr Hitchens
when there's peaceniks to abuse etc

I'll line up Martin Amis and Salman to the fight
Orwell would have agreed with us, 'coz he was always right
Don't think that I'll add Austen or De Beauvoir to the mix
I only talk of girls when I slag off the Dixie Chicks

Oh it's Vidal's heir and Bellow's chum
Around the praise game whirls
And it's thankyou Mr Hitchens
But we'll ignore the girls etc

I went to British public school, which is a Fascist state.
Taught me who to suck up to and taught Orwell whom to hate
I'm Jewish, bi-ish, left but moving rightwards every day
Down with british dithering reborn in the USA

And here's the song they sing for me
the whole damn rightwing choir
Hoorah for Mr Hitchens
A Patriot for hire etc.

Odysseus

The goddess came and saved him once again.
We had him and his son, knives at their balls,
down, sweating. Then a voice like struck brass calls
out of the air. Our king had killed our men

taken one generation to the wars
and killed their sons for hanging round his wife.
I wish I had been quicker with my knife.
He hanged my daughters, said that they were whores.

The island dies. No one to guide a plough
sow seeds, make pots, bake bread. We will grow old
and starve. He has not even brought home gold,
just death. That's all that Ithaca grows now.

Athena guards him. Otherwise our king
would be dead meat, not one of whom men sing.

Villanelle - Annoyance

I really am too old for shit like this
Strange bed, stale pillow hair wrapped round my tongue
Sore lips and yet no memory of a kiss.

They lie entwined. I need to take a piss,
I'll slip out from the sheets before too long
I really am too old for shit like this

My piss stinks and it makes a noisy hiss,
tried to be quiet but it came out wrong
Sore lips and yet no memory of a kiss.

I woke from dreams of sex that seemed to miss
pleasure by miles. These girls are both too young
I really am too old for shit like this.

Who dreams of bad sex? And my clitoris
stings like a bastard, echoes like a gong.
Sore lips and yet no memory of a kiss.

One of them fucked me in my sleep. That is
embarrassing and yet will make a song.
Sore lips and yet no memory of a kiss.
I really am too old for shit like this.

Seasonal

The year turns in the dark. Midnight will strike
and bitter is the chill; deep in our bones
is bitter colder anger. On our phones
we type out messages no one will like

'they clubbed us down' 'Raided, took her away'
'we cannot find him' 'helicopters flew
far out to sea'. We watch the things they do
and murmur - Do them in the light of day

no shame, and they forget the seasons turn
and spring is coming. We will shout aloud.
They break us one by one, but in a crowd
we'll stand. One day their mansion blocks will burn

and we will warm our hands, see by the light
of flames. Mourn, organize, assemble, fight.