(AA) Canto 66: Millennium
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Grim was it in that dawn to be alive
Except to those who like their mornings bloody
Sagittarius
Epiphanies
How happy is he born or taught,
That serveth not another’s will ;
Whose armour is his honest thought
Sir Henry Wotton
There is a wonder in a scented muse,
Once tasted nothing earthly may compare,
Where else may such diverse sciences fuse
In such wondrous exultations of air;
Accepting how
This music moves to me,
“A poet am I now, a poet shall I be”
I bloom’d as springtime gladsome grows
In effervescent beauty,
Kissing yellow-centr’d yarrows,
Bringing orchids harmony,
The skylark sings as high swallows
Swoop gay & merrily
Oer meadows pepper’d with chrysanthemum,
Michaelmas daisy & wild marjoram.
There grew a garden in the heart,
Where sweet a songbird sings,
Oerwhelm’d by art, where would I start
Midst all these wondrous things?
So off I went to libraries where poets sit with kings.
Portsmouth
1998
Tradition
Of all the streets that blur into the sunset,
There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Jorge Luis Borges
I set foot forth upon the the day of fools
With aging suitcase, page-wet library,
Retiring from the system & its schools,
Determined on a path of poetry;
O secret course
Toward an unknown goal,
Sensing an unseen force was stealing thro my soul.
As our lives are like river
Carving causeways to the sea,
From the trickling streamlet sliver
To ocean’s immensity,
Off I stepp’d, with heart a-quiver,
Fill’d with antiquity,
Not knowing for two decades & a half
T’would take for me to carve a Golden Calf.
Phrenzies pursued, oft fuell’d by wines,
Waltzing with poetry,
This mind designs ten thousand lines
Offer’d in fealty,
To Clio, Lord Apollo & sacred Calliope.
Bognor Regis
2000
Troubadour
What racks can bind, or what research unveil
The soul, with flesh encompassed as a mail
Of proof, impervious, save to God alone
Nicholas Thorning Moile
I flew to Salzburg & a land unique,
Breath’d in the Berchtesgaden fairytale,
The Residenzmuseum at Munich,
& Dachau, where I heard the phantoms’ wail;
From wyrd Landsberg
The ghost of Herr Hitler
Leads me to Nuremburg, heart of Bavaria!
At Jena, amid wooded heights,
Admir’d I Napoleon,
Left Leipzig under dull street lights
For Colditz schloss – & on
To Berlin with her stirring sights
Of grandeur not long gone;
The imperial park of Sans Soucci,
The Maifeld… & that villa by Wansee!
I felt a young conquistador,
Calm Clio was my guide,
Her haute couture was mine, de jure,
Oer poet’s they preside,
Those minxing muses whom with synching scenes our dreams provide!
Germany
Summer
2001
Al Qu’aida
You will be treasurer of my heart,
Although my body must depart
Learning and science to attain
Adam De La Halle
There is a new threat to the Allied world
Outwith Europe, from the Afghan passes,
After the mats of morning prayer furl’d,
Soldiers of Jihad tend to their classes;
What power reign’d
Thro’ their spirit’s guide,
“Paradise can be gain’d thro holy suicide!”
By cruxdom number’d they nineteen,
Full frenzied & factitious,
Stalking the airways as unseen
Servants of the ambitious
Al Qu’aida, what does this mean?
What outcome their wishes,
To penetrate the land of Liberty
& channel hate into a strange fury?
Turning off the television,
They chatted man-to-man,
Holy mission! The decision
To instigate the plan
Was theirs & theirs by birthright like the death-flights of Japan.
Florida
September 9th
2001
Airjackers
Your son has come,
To answer your call.
In my mouth and in my blood
Ali Squalli Houssaini
As the cabin crew filter’d the coffee,
Five Arabs full of fervour’s brave intent
Rose from their seats, rather nonchalantly
Stepp’d up the incline of the plane’s ascent;
“Can we help you?”
The stewardesses sought,
How deftly sharp-blades drew red lines across the throat.
Blood gush’d from each jugular gash,
Happy mood alters abrupt,
A flash of angry shouts abash,
“Do nothing else we blow up!”
Against the lock’t cockpit men crash,
More threats of death erupt,
The panicking pilot opens the door,
Two air hostesses dying on the floor.
Stern-faced, head-banded Arabs cry
Above the engine whine,
“No-one shall die!” their dreamy eye
Seem’d bless’d with the divine,
As distant thro’ the windows rose the Manhattan skyline.
Flight 11
September 11th 2001
08:40
The North Tower
I asked God to spare me pain.
God said, No.
Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares
Joanne Gobure
How vastly the capital of the Earth
Outrolls her concrete sprawl without abate,
World-famous monuments peep from its girth –
Liberty’s torchlight & the Empire State,
Dwarf’d by the twins,
Unrivall’d gemini…
The tragedy begins… a child points to the sky….
Peering upon the ants below,
From the hundred & first floor,
She froze dolicapaxan slow
As the wings of death did roar,
Life flashing by before the blow,
Then she was there namore,
Caught in Dantean incineration
As on all sides surges devastation.
Struck edifice stood like a rock,
Then… shook with a shudder,
Its aftershock spreads block-by-block
“There’s been a disaster!”
“Man, a goddam jet has flown into the World Trade Centre!”
New York City
September 11th 2001
08:47
In the Field
That’s not how I suddenly become a poet,
By wetting my lips in the Hippocrene,
Or dreaming on the twin peaks of Parnassus
Persius
From musing-grounds around old Rusthall Wood
I dallied home, poesis almost spent,
A spot of morning strolling to the good
My house-mate serves up pleasant refreshment;
A spotted tart,
A pot of sweet Earl Grey,
“A film’s about to start!” “Which one?” “The Longest Day!”
Niave young lads switch’d on the box,
Wise men crank’d up the volume,
Twin Towers crumbling into rocks,
Twas a new & brutal doom –
Casting such global aftershocks
From a dusty mushroom,
Wide-surging thro’ a world of steel & brick,
Straight from some seventies disaster flick!
What image splash’d across TV
From Sky to Channel Four,
We sip our tea, hesitantly,
Rebaptized evermore,
Are Men condemned to ever live their lives in fear of War?
Royal Tunbridge Wells
September 11th 2001
21:21
Pentagon
I heard my throat deep from the well,
The wolf my brothers’ summon spell
Invok’d, did hear & fled to Hell
Abbas Beydoun
The roaring Boeing honed in for the kill,
Al Quai’da’s chosen warring weapon,
Ignoring White House & Capitol Hill,
Preferring this five-sided bastion
Symbol of might
Beside the Potomac
A simple morning flight becomes a bold attack.
It crash’d into a helipad
& slid into a building,
The fuel rich tanks of the Jihad
In violent ‘WHOOM’ exploding,
From Moscow to Islamabad
On the spot reporting –
A universal moment on TV,
Not one attack, not two attacks, but three!
This firestorm fell fury daubs
The scene in smoke-swabb’d paint,
Thro blue, white strobes, assail’d earlobes,
Sev’ral survivors faint,
Behind, a crawling officer, arm cast up as a saint!
Washington
September 11th 2001
09:46
George Bush
Why are you staring at me
as if I were America itself
the new Empire
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
An aide whisper’d in the president’s ear
“Sir, there has been an incident…” struck dumb,
‘Ministrations defining moment here,
Time to honour his nation’s faith now come
Stands Cowpoke George,
Subject of so much scorn,
A chance for friends to forge & image be reborn.
For like Thatcher, Mussolini
& his father before him,
Votes can be won thro’ victory
& healthy jingoism,
He spoke with calm assurity,
“It is our country’s aim
To bring all these terrorists to justice
& blow them sky high off the Earth’s surface.”
His ear whisper’d into again,
“They’ve hit the Pentagon…”
By private plane, fighters in train,
He dash’d to Washington
By crazy zig-zag course, “Sir, there might be another one.”
Somewhere over America
September 11th 2001
09:57
Mumble Words 