David Brazier
THIRTY-NINE IRREGULAR SONNETS
Copyright David Brazier 2008 Amida Trust 12 Coventry Road Narborough Leicestershire LE19 2GR UK dharmavidya@amidatrust.com 0116.2867476 Words, photography, design - David Brazier
CONTENTS Page Introduction Saddam Ralph Fragments Last Attempt at Love Old Man and Youg Maid Not Knowing the One Who Passed Away Meet As We Are Chemistry of Mirrors From the Skippet of His Heart Travelling Friend Divine 25th January Each Has God Lotus Learning to Crawl Dick the Bad You Will Be Wiser Secondaries Immune from Life’s Disgrac The Recluse Extra Time Going to Bed Sweet Redundancy To S.T.Coleridge The Poem Of It Poetry Is Ancient Art Was It Gayomart
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CONTENTS (continued) Page Africa Blue Camper Van Autumn Morning Can I Be Invisible to Poetry Histories in Limestone Little Light Amor Chaucer Was Gentil Man On a Ring Dropped into Water Elsa Many Gods Man and Wife
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INTRODUCTION The sonnet is one of the best known forms of verse. There are a number of standard forms deriving primarily from Italian and English poetry, but there are also many variants. With the advent of modern poetry in the twentieth century forms became looser and few of the works in this pamphlet adhere to a traditional pattern with exactitude. They do not generally have lines that conform to the iambic pentameter form and the rhyming patterns vary. Some do not rhyme. Some of the poems here have a ‘turn’ or volta at the ‘golden section’ point, others do not. A few do not have fourteen lines. However, the basic fourteen line form and rhyming pattern is a reference point from which I have consciously diverged in each specific case in a particular way to suit the theme or material. Writing sonnets is something that can become addictive. There is a certain kind of perfection this form such that the inevitable imperfections of human craft and the limitations of language are thrown into a relief in a juxtaposition that ideally adds to the charm. These poems are mostly commentaries upon the human condition. In many cases, as is traditional with sonnets, they deal with love, including its disappointments, but the range of other topics is also wide. Some are humorous, others serious. A number are concerned with death; some with art, especially the art of poetry; several with religion, though not profoundly; some with life’s milestones; and others with travels. This is not, therefore, a volume with an overall theme, other than the exploration of this particular poetic form. My approach to poetry is rather experimental, so there is no attempt here to offer a uniform philosophy or a single voice. If you think you discern one, well and good. If, however, you sometimes wonder if these were all written by the same person, I can assure you that they were, but also add that the author is a person of many parts and I hope that you find the diversity enjoyable. If you should wish to reproduce any of these poems singly in a publication or web page, I generally have no objection so long as they are properly attributed and you provide me with the web reference or a copy of the publication as appropriate. Warm wishes - David Brazier
Saddam In the land of Adam there came a Stalin look alike in khaki, moustache black, complexion, swarthy; they called him Saddam. He was the Tigris’ iron madam; a master of the military, lieutenants, in imitation, all looked as he and, my God, he had’em. Ruthless, he didn’t give a damn for nicety. None crossed him with impunity; like Hitler he made the trucks run punctually; he was no little lamb. Let’s pray that one day the land that’s Adam’s will find a way less grim than Saddam’s.
Ralph When Ralph committed suicide and used a knife to do it we realised, for the first time, mentally going through it, that he had actually existed - No, really lived, like you and I do, not merely stubbornly persisted in being there - that, everyone knew, but was quickened with a suffering soul that could have been cared about with enough going on to cut his own carcass and let that soul out and just for once be seen. It’s shocking really - that others do exist, I mean. Day to day one doesn’t take it seriously, lip service, of course, but to feel it, know it, inside, gives one pause. Is it just propriety that wants to intervene, that dwells upon the way it could have been? A knife, of all things, is somehow so crude. How could one always mild have suddenly been so rude? 17 December 2007
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Fragments Fragments of a time long burnt away arranged upon the panels of my heart, a regiment of moments sweet or tart, each tarnished in its own especial way; each with a story or at least a word to say expressing what is at the root of art, the point wherein a sacred dream may start, a regiment of moments on a tray; a line of memories all torn along the edge, a forest floor of fictions that were true, animations of the stories of my raining soul like glories of the wayside on an evening stroll: a time when I lived all my life for you, herein there lies the memory of my purest pledge. 22 September 2008, Narborough Written in response to an artwork '101 8010' by Jan Lewin-Cadogan http://www.artreview.com/photo/photo/show?id=1474022%3APhoto%3A350827&context=user
Last Attempt at Love On the pavement, wooden chairs, attractively heavy and inviting, induced them to stop, and order coffee, perch the cups neatly on the border of the metal table with, beside them, the small levy of a few coins, to appearance a normal couple, easy, if slightly formal. “They’re foreign,” noted passers-by. Celia, ice-breaking brittly, asked Thomas the reason why he chose this sleepy town for the piece he is writing for the magazine. Disturbed in his dream he expletes, in self-satisfied bark, “Contrast! This is easy, docile, isn’t it? Where better for the blast of violence, of people hurting one another, selfish and mean?” He stopped. “So unnecessary,” she thought. He sat. She sipped her cup, flinched, and adjusted her hat. 17 December 2007
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Old Man and Young Maid Come by pretty girl, come, come converse with me For I do love your syllables, so comely; And the swelling of your figure, your full breast, That makes me feel more young than years attest, For you are hot not old, while I am wrinkled cold, And would be warmed, so now I’m feeling bold, And you still stand “in majesty of youth” Time yet enough for tempering to the truth That “life is fleeting” and “its fire soon stilled”; You know, one day, I’ll get such truth distilled, But for now new passion stirs my wand’ring eye For comely form no more than surface deep And willingness mischievously to lie With what I hope will not be mine to keep. 13 December 2007
Not Knowing the One Who Passed Away The cousin of a new friend passed away to another realm and although he’s been gone a mere day or two so that the glow of the parting continues to play in the life of my new friend who only just said hello I ponder what can one say when the acquaintanceship has only just begun to flow not to be fay or false or a bringer of more woe but just trying to be OK to speed affection from one’s bow remembering in the right way and cherishing the ones we know whether the dying are they or we or so and so 17 October 2007
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Meet As We Are Together and not tempestuously, I wonder, can we ever face the simple machinery of grace? I am yours for all to see yet I fear you - fear your dark complexity. Piano fortissimo; my mechanism is too slow, too fast, too this or that, to match or know your unfathomed deep’s perplexity. Meet as we are - can we? suitable together? Encountering, beating time, retreating, mating, perhaps insufficiently hesitating; no gadget can shrink-wrap the weather. Changeable; outlook unsettled; bicycling through the sleet together - can I be meet for you? 17 December 2007
Chemistry of Mirrors I wish he loved me as I would be loved and thus unlock the love in me imprisoned as it is, not truly free, but occasionally paroled until once more removed back to its cell by sudden inconsideration. No doubt he feels the same as I, she thought, we’re not indicted by a lie, but by symmetry of perturbation. Each would be cherished, each received. Each yearns to be noticed and not capped. Each longs for attention, sometimes rapt. Each sharply feels short change of tenderness. Yet each defends for fear of more distress. We are a chemistry of mirrors, if I’m not deceived. 17 December 2007
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From the Skippet of His Heart From within the skippet of his heart her impresa guided him, he, the imposing stone upon which her pages were arranged; his type falling into place filling and fulfilling her awaiting chase, their interweaving stratigraphy thus straitened mutually, each a typeface for the other. Her commanding voice, silent, nothing to repudiate, the skippet never open, his facing and cover jacketed in her fine clasp. 8 January 2008
Travelling Friend Tom knew me since the world began: with restless spirit he theorised, avoided work, womanised, catch as catch can; he was a travelling man, liked to indulge, oversized, obsessive, Mesmerised, couldn’t settle, tried to get even. He was not one to rely upon - now you see him, now he’s gone but a jovial friend who’d come and go telling his tale - the joy, the woe and I found my own way to correspond with the world’s most dapper vagabond. 12 January 2008
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Divine Divine is a big word, bigger than ‘hypercataleptic’, even in the service of latria or dulia, but hyperdulia may be due reverence enough for Oedipus still defying the Erinyes Divine, though a big word, is smaller than ‘is’, notwithstanding that some tongues dispense with the latter altogether, though Hermes Trismegistus could turn subjects into predicates even when the one was plumbic, the other auric. Divine is a big word, more expanisve than ‘exponential’, though galatic proportions may be as exponible as contemporary verse, even if transparent to Tiresias still smarting from Hera's rebuke - he who gave the game away. Divine, though a big word, is smaller than ‘a’, and what a discovery it was when zero came on board making uno exceed it by a proportionality greater than that between jeraboam and nebuchadnezzar even when inebriated. Divine is such a splendid word that you need a rod to fathom it, lying as it does beyond hierology, hariolation, augur or surmise, yet Prometheus still stopped by for a light. 17 April 2008 hypercataleptic - of a line in verse with dditional syllables latria - worship that may be paid only to God dulia - reverence paid to saints hyperdulia - veneration of the Virgin Mary Erinyes - Greek goddesses of retribution Hermes Trismegistus - central figure of a cult of mysticism, alchemy and magic combining ancient Greek and Egyptian elements Tiresias - human wisdom figure in Greek mythology who had been both male and female and offended Hera, queen of the gods, by revealing that women enjoy sex more than men do. Jeraboam and nebuchadnezzar, besides being figures in the Old Testament, are measures of wine (4.5 and 15 litres respectively) hierology - study of sacred things hariolation - soothsaying Prometheus - brought fire from the gods to humans.
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25th January Through Kyoto streets in darkest night they stride, a hundred black clad chanting priestly men, as if that olden time had come again when great Amida’s Name could move the tide. With all their strength of voice they now confide the holy Name that means more than men ken; a thousand times they call it, not just ten, and march to mark the sage who died. For this is the day in late January when saintly Honen’s body met at last it’s secret cremation amidst the wary, for still the persecution had not passed but all the gods and bodhisattvas came to thank the sage and give him utmost fame. 19 December 2007,
In 1207 the practice of nembutsu (worship of Amida) was banned by Emperor GoToba at the instigation of monks from Mt. Hiei and Saint Honen, its advocate, was exiled to Tosa on Shikoku. Subsequently he was pardoned and returned to Kyoto. He died in 1212. In 1227, however, monks from Hiei tried to exhume his body to desecrate it to prevent his resting place becoming a pilgrimage site and so his followers took the body to Awano and cremated it. On the night of 25th January each year nowadays there is a ten kilometre pilgrimage along the route his body was taken.
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Each Has a God Each has a god to upbraid it and I mine, though mild. I, it’s cherished child, in awe and reverence serenade it. Our pound of sin, our wile to evade it, - the unexorcised wild, by manners moulded mild who made it? Each step is sacred mystery as life emerging from the Bathys sea, to make its wakes and celebrations, civilized as justifications, legislated as biasses and levels, til the god of each spawns as many devils. 20 January 2008
Lotus It does not grow on high plateaux for all to wonder and admire the lotus rises in the mire where the stream has ceased to flow It is well known, you reap as you sow, and in the midst of fate’s fine fire the harvest work will make you tire ever struggling with the foe. We cannot pay our karmic debt, the effort makes us poorer yet, for purity is not to be had for those like us inherently bad, but on our mire the sun inclines and it is we on whom it shines. 27 January 2008
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Learning to Crawl Baby bending, turning, twisting, wild the sweep and thresh of arms, the clutch and grasp of desperate effort, every instant life committed, all at issue, push and pull and growl and grapple, bones articulate and muscle, touch and cry of infant spirit, bursting out from tears and tissue, stretching strength against the carpet, hard set against that first free movement, baby’s first flight, first reach upward, but a breath away. Date unknown
Dick the Bad I knew his dates. On Tuesdays we had double studies in the impenetrable afternoon. I loaned Mary my pen, hopefully. We were god kings then; Tiu and Woden, Gleipnir and Sleipnir, sallying over floods into clefts of fancy; doubly restored after fatal encounters. Soar heart! Valhalla? A return please. Or Hades. Sticks mark the border. Password or coin? Once paid, will there be a homeward track in the maze? Her shade darkened the passage: a hint of something serious. The knell brought us back to history and homework. Notes passed under desks. Was I the last one to fall in battle? 26 December 2007
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You Will Be Wiser Ambition? Do you have ambition? Sir, I have a mission not to see my passion go on strike God-like, but to feed life’s fire ever higher and to do so for as long as I can. Sir, I aspire to be a dirty old man. Son, you have made a popular choice though some will blame you for it, no doubt, but keep your eyes open, though you stay up late, for there’s much to discern as you entertain fate, as you live to the full and pull your life about it will teach you - you will have no choice ... and soon you’ll be a wiser man. 14 December 2007
Secondaries The life of my beloved friend is under threat, from within her torso the traitor has struck once again subverting the regiment of life, setting up a war of tissues, a strife, a new outpost of rebellion that seeks to pluck out the eye of life in premature payment of the debt we owe for having dared to be born, to grow, to set ourselves upon a course, to yearn, to make creative work; Oh, yes, we owe for all that we take and though mortmain claws, don’t go til you know the meaning of this riddle, the touch of love, the trapdoor into faith, the holy dove. 23 December 2007 Written while thinking upon a dear friend who subsequently duied of cancer.
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Immune from Life’s Disgrace Let the soul not be a house with windows but only night lights, the kind you plug in on the stairway; they come in different colours and with variable current. Unfortunately the dimmer switch has no zero setting. Deeper slumber unoffered, we mostly prefer to doze and when annoying spirits come we have nothing to say, nor til the shrouds of our premature embalming were rent could we risk a fiver on the betting, and as we’d rather that there would be no account we’ll just stay decent in our shrouds practising the art of the averted face from troubles unaccountable that mount like the hubbub of distracting crowds: we, the dead, now hope to be immune from life’s disgrace. 16 December 2007
The Recluse Due to a caution thicker than his beard he held back from life and did not chance humiliation, so much to be feared, easily acquired now in the advance years when history stretches more long, and not so easily discarded; for tears enough he’d had - vinegar in life’s song, planned joys gone wrong; he’d hoped for more clemency from the fates than life was noted for, and sought, by hermit like retreat to aid them in excusing him. Now he mused and doted more on poetry than tribute overdue, unpaid, to this or that neglected former friend who, in any case, would not be there with him at his end. 15 December 2007
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Extra Time Should I make apology for absence to my grave, to worms who might be fed, to those who cannot mourn until I’m dead? To all I shall consume before? - Sense there might be in apology for being... for still being when friends of lesser age have gone before, leaving me even to engage with new arts and adventures in seeing hearing, touching, breathing. Shall I make... what shall I make, what do, what dance, with this, what somersault upon this extra kiss this clemency or sentence for God’s sake? Perhaps he should apologise for mine that I must, while waiting for his sign, add on a flowery fifteenth sonnet line. 18 December 2007
Going to Bed Going to bed is snug and warm and a good place to die. The horizon is closer when blankets are pulled up to your chin and tight in at your sides. Forget the distant machinery of civilized life with its smug people and regular forms. In bed there’s nothing amiss. Drift back into a faint sigh, your soul, that lonely invisible child, insignificant as scenery, quivering that this snug warm nest may yield a dark downward slide into the sequined night of eternal bliss. 25 January 2008
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Sweet Redundancy Looking tenderly upon the city streets I savour the sweet comfort of impotence. That child triumphant, clutching sweets; the mother worried about matters of importance I have none of that; appeased I stand and stare no different from the walls or paving slabs or less, for it might matter if they were not there, whereas I have no role, save silent spectator. In the fine grained matrix of relating one is redrawn within another’s stencil a design pre-tailored, that stands in waiting, insisting one be remade as component or utensil. Freedom inheres in redundancy and of all sweets, this is sweet to me 16 December 2007
To S.T.Coleridge When I reflect on my strange symmetry, The pious and profane in equal parts, The balance of my soul that sets me free, The poetic turn with which my rapture starts; When I propose or compose some bright thing, Dear to my heart as dearer still to thine, The jewels and mystic ointment of a king, The pearl from wisdom’s oracle divine; Then do I recall and hope I’m not mistaken, Your gracious work of sweetness and your power, Amidst all wild thought, mesmeric or misshapen, Against all fantastic ogres of the hour; When I reflect on this strange symmetry I see I owe a boundless debt to thee. 18 December 2007
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The Poem of It A spic matrix of overlapping twigs gaunt sticks of oak in December’s defoliation posture against grey abstraction that endlessly stirs. The poem of it awakes flesh and eye, no words as such, but somehow the mould was there: clauses could be cast if one had the time and will for it. Pour the molten grammar out into those twigs to make linear stays for stanzas, but this is not a mould to break: the poem is not in the words or even the wood - they decorate; the poem is in the hint of eternity elusive among those dark inchoate spikes. 2 January 2008
Poetry Is Poetry is just what’s fashion, they say, what’s in, what’s out, what’s not cliche: No Capital Letters, don’t make it rhyme Wordsworth wouldn’t get published today. Minimalism’s become the norm, and don’t end a line with “and” be, “kitchen sink”, no editor can stand a work in classic standard form. Rare things and common interpose, make it look a bit like prose. If you need a form, I would incline to the sonnet with an extra line on a theme of eating chips in hell with the tenderness of a villanelle; but, trust the Muse - you never can tell. 10 January 2008
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Ancient Art What subject is worthy of a poem? Surely one could worthily write savoury verse on blue, green or white, upon a cloth well stitched - even its hem wherein to find, well stitched, a gem never before brought to sight like a shooting star on an August night revealing to Zeus a theorem. A poem is a soul of sorts like a boat that calls at many ports gathering cargo, delivering supplies, making the old new to discerning eyes. Showing that dust has a sacred heart, the poem plies an ancient art. 19 January 2008
Was it Gayomart? Was it Gayomart who got us all gavotting on the garish Gaulish mountains or a Gaussian fluctuation in the Massif orchestrated by Massine? And did our gay gavotting reach the Meuse or Bar-le-Duc or merely leave us mewling melancholy in the mews? I like those shoes. Where did you get them darling, was it for a carioca or a samba in Savona? I wish I'd known you sooner, such a crooner for the moon in the bawdy afternoon. Though Selene hides coyly swooning in the clouds our selenographic challenge gets distracted by her silver a gaudy, Guatamalan guava, which is better than a grump. Yes, was it Gayomart or just a frump? 9 January 2008
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Africa You know she’s always known you since you went away from home, and still you see her standing, tresses crowned with that red comb that was given by young Adam on one silver afternoon. Yes, Africa is known to you as seedlings know the loam. Your dreams were not yet born then nor yet hatched out from your bone, as the sunset hardly threatened yet the sand already strewn had brought a haze across the dunes where you would sit and moan, for your birth pangs had fore-echoes in the redness of her moon. Like a womb of light eternal from which diadems are grown her lovers they are legion and she never sleeps alone: she is our tomb and omega, she’s where our seed was sown, she is a siren and a drum that beats an ancient tone; so come, one day you’ll shelter ‘neath her canopy of stone for the end time has begun and she’s waiting for her own. 24 September 2008
Blue Camper Van How we loved you, our blue snail shell wherein we cuddled on a dark night after parking discreetly without legal right in the woods and slept til the knell of church bells told of dawn. How we nurtured you over high passes and down again to Mediterranean sand. Yes, you were our magic ship, our prow that sped us into adventure near and far; and how sorely we lament the day you died after long ailment and decline; I cannot think of you but pine for those honey days long gone, far away. You were so much more fun.... than a car. 18 December 2007
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Autumn Morning Gaze on moping mist that mourns upon an autumn morning: through the gloom that won’t persist I stare seeking a glimpse of tender rays that care for frozen souls who shiver in the frost as finally light is dawning. A great light that ups and fills the heavens warms the earth, fulfils our hope, restores within us calm, as dark dispersing under the great charm there comes a gradual glory to a land where all was dearth. Through winter months in faith we’ll live and hope, yes, even to that day that’s shortest until, come spring, will budding life atest the land still blooms and there’s no need to mope, for though all’s gloomy now, upon this autumn morn, come spring we’ll see that all the dead’s reborn. 24 September 2008
Can I be invisible to poetry? Can my hand write not knowing who the next word is going to be or who its’ mother is or know if she is crying for it to come back after its late meander wandering wantonly into my verse so far into the evening past the ebony pool with all its fast fading reflections singing tenderly to one another in ever finer silk tones as the great conductor goes slowly retiring in the west behind the blank hills that dominate jaggedly beyond the lateral road where blackness as of deep water consumes the breath of God until there is again something upon the deep - some word waiting to be rekindled; waiting to catch the dropped stitch by which worlds are born and the way home lost. Written 25 March 2008 slightly modified fro mthe version published in Stanza (37, summer 2008)
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Histories in Limestone In limestone country by Littam on the scarp edge striped snails live out lives of consequence in prolific numbers. Humans hurtle past in tin vehicles unaware of shelled histories playing out amidst the sheep shorn grass. In Eyam Village Church below one hears other histories of heroic isolation in the days of plague. In the church apse, demarcated for silent contemplation, a couple chatter about trivia of great importance. Pondering on all, I share God’s sense of humour - upon divinity, my only claim and wonder what form of laughter gives release to creatures who lack bone. 3 April 2008
Little Light Amor Little light, who is your sister, where does she live? I ask, wonderingly, yet not quite fully concentrating. She lives on the ring finger of God. I am her twin. Amor is my name. She speaks gaily. There seemed nothing more to say, but more attentive now, I would have liked to know them further. Little light, who is your brother, what about him? You ask too much. You must also look and learn not merely ask of me, says she, without a trace of malice, and rebuked, but glad, I feel the truth of it. Little light, then show me how to learn, for I am only dark, with no sweet-light of my own. Just continue to say so, she said, for saying is seeking well. On your jet core dance all the lights you need know. And then she was gone. 8 April 2008
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Chaucer Was a Gentil Man The maker was a gentleman. Such men as boldly claim to gentle be must virtues generate and vices flee or loose all claim to safely gentle be for only good bestows that dignity. The first man was a gentleman established in his kindly honesty, so those who rightly claim to be as he, renouncing sloth, practise sobriety, for only good bestows that dignity. Nor riches, popularity nor fame inheritance, rank nor elected acclaim, no, none of these will make a sane man deem one noble; for only good can bring you that esteem. 24 September 2008 Narborough This poem contains allusions to Chaucer’s “Moral Balade of Gentilesse”.
On a Ring Dropped into Water Small stone sink slowly: return to an ancient bed, no longer monarch of gems. Willows bend along the oblivious bank. Solitary you’ll endure among ancient flints, nothing now to give nor gain. Ripples invite solicitude and yet lapping fades on the stony shore. Blood of sorrow stains the adamant superfice. My single tear falls unseen amid the rain. Perfume oil might leave a rainbow hint behind: love and hate - empty from the beginning bequeath their insignificant trace in an envelope of pain. 18 April 2008
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Elsa As a quilt around my heart huddled in a rocky vent hang ghostly thoughts of Elsa who taught me much too much, too much, in fact, to tell of, too much to understand, for she was not an open book, nor I a gentle hand, but we set a certain compass and she mostly led the way as I learnt to be a sailor and she taught me what to pray, for I, thereto, was silent, loyal only to the pure, with no thought to be unfitting, with no reaching for a crutch, for those were jewelled days then, before I learnt to sigh when I lived a sacred hope in my secret Sinai til she, a worldly angel, led me down the mountain side and it cost me all I had to give away my bag of pride and see that what's most noble's not the climbing up to God but the tumble and the trouble of descent. 21 April 2008
Many Gods Each has his God, be it evolution, money, love, light, totem or revolution. Each has his bane to be voted out, favourite iniquity - whispered sin or tawdry shout. Each has her God, favoured solution, cure for all ills, world’s needed ablution. Each has her hate to abuse and malign, the low ground to finger with contemptuous sign. We are partial, not dispassionate much, each has dogmas to which to clutch rarely thought through, never reconciled, with logic enough to content a child. Whether its science or creed you rely on be sure each strives to reach his Zion. 10 May 2008
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Man and Wife Upon a beach beneath inclement weather with golden fingers sifting pure white sand she sat and he observed her sensuous hand as in his dream when they had walked together and so they learnt to play their new found parts that cast upon the air ethereal light so thus the rain was falling stars that night that fell into a catch of open hearts and so within the skein of reverie that turns the theatre of that holy dream and shows things as they are not as they seem was made a troth to plight what had to be not for a moment only but for life: he took her hand and they were man and wife. 22 September 2008
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