to the magician of nouveau imagism, the duke of haiku, venerated poet,
man-of-letters, and friend, to whom I humbly offer my piece in our tapestry of
verse.
With heels upon a jutting concrete cape,
With heels upon a jutting concrete cape,
my bitter silhouette the only shape
on that pedestrian promontory,
livid curtains of rain confronted me
like a dead sea captain, who, solemn, waits,
for a repeal from Fate, and nightly hates
the insouciant living, locks his eyes
on threads of infinity in the skies.
One whiskeyed breath from my infernal throat,
and chiming from the pockets of my coat,
and where once I walked with Terpsichore,
now a portentous sense she’s sick of me
keeps traipsing its mud through each rumination,
and stalks heavily each thoughts deviation,
as fear, with the ubiquity of thunder
a lightning flash of hope can’t put asunder.
Yet form and theme, we know, must bow to me,
never forsaking classic tragedy
and its demand for a climax, and so,
the rain turned sleet, and finally to snow.
A lack of temperance is youth’s defence
against all odds, reason and common sense,
so as I swayed, surveyed the whitened scene,
the spirits I’d imbibed then intervened,
I’d found a little courage from the Dutch,
and rallied against Nature’s frosted touch;
she, who in springtime, altruistic, brings
a myriad of colour, gaily sings
with muddled cadence from each newborn thing,
and sets each bird in flight on fledgling wings,
makes Mankind sigh in testy gratitude,
while sunshine compliments the poet’s mood
in churchyards, gardens, verandas and bowers,
and most forget the force that drives the flowers
and maudlin sonnets clog moronic pages,
extolling summer's genius through the ages,
until Nature reveals womanly vice:
capriciousness turns rapidly to ice
her warm maternity, and once again,
daft wordsmiths set down complimentary pens,
aptly recall that Wordsworth’s in the ground
and grumble about how it’s pissing down.
So with the fury of lover’s volition,
against the worst hand of weather conditions,
observed the crossing, spat, and hands on hips,
announced my port of call as Hero’s lips.