Auckland Poetry.com

The humaneness beaten
And flamed
Into that museumed
Grecian mask
Was the same sorrow
And wisdom
I had seen
On the faces of the Madonnas,
Framed with rocks,
By Da Vinci.
Though it was the first time,
I had seen such life in that bronze,
I was not,
After that morning’s joy,
At such loving laughter,
Surprised.
Brothers and sisters with us all.
Such makers
Whose names we may
Or may not know.
And the many,
Who in so many living ages
Will have seen so much.
I beam in the companionship
Of Pete Green,
And the hurrahs of saints.

Vic West

One Morning…

Dawns silence gives me comfort,
My night has been restless, showing
In sharp black& white, movies of
The bygone; till bitter regret awoke
Me and filled me with dread of
The future. A door opens and shuts,
Steps in the hall and a car starts,
Tells me I’m not alone, and as dark
Gives way to light, my past slowly
Regresses. To day I will not be sad.

Love’s Sorrow

The silent distance between us whispers,
A widening plateau of the unspoken as
Pale starlight shimmers on leafless trees.

The river of love ran dry it never met
The ocean, a twig snapped in the apple
Orchard as tears flow inwards.

Barn Dance Wyoming 1887

My dream was to be a cowboy I had seen
movies of big men in Stetson hats riding
into town from the vast plain ready to take
on the bad guys. Then I saw a picture of
men dancing with each other the caption
said they were cowboys a bunch of filthy
looking men and none of them wore guns.

I went to sea instead and it is bigger than
the plains of Texas combined, but it’s all
water and keep changing hue; and horses
were made of sea spray and harbour bars
had no swing doors. I do realize, sadly,
life is more complex than a boy’s dream
of celluloid heroes shooting holes in the sky

Paris Mon Amour

I’m going to Paris in the fall, last time I was there
it was a June, I feel into the Seine when I waved
to a girl who walked on its other side. Two days
I hung on a hook behind a door that led down to
a wine cellar, drying out; people were rude to me
because I didn’t speak French and ever since I get
easily offended when I hear Parisians laugh.

Paris in September, is melancholia, I’m a guest at
a white wedding to a couple I have never met; yet
I’m worried I sense a Sagan type tristesse as when
rain fall like gentle sorrow, trickling down a girl’s
soft cheek; blue twilight and the whisper of fallen
leaves. What do I know? Whatever, happens I must
be careful not to fall into the Seine

Literature & Alcohol

Poor Edgar his world was dark, laughter was
a gasp on dying lips. He mined the deepest
ravine where not even the summer sun reaches
but he was able to, in moment of clarity that
lit up his tunnel, to give us great literature,
a look into his world of horror.

There are other Edgars who walk in our streets
or sit in lonely rooms wearing a cape of despair,
their laughter too is a shriek of agony, a bitter
smile set in a pale face of utter defeat, for they
cannot articulate and share with us or turn their
suffering into a readable literature.