Three more Poems for May

Fallow Fields Unseeded

The legend goes, the elderly Inuit

Floated out to sea on ice floes, calm and still,

As royal loyal wives in India, slowly lay

Down on pyres; but is there wisdom in your wit?

The praetorian guards far to the north, each slew

The other, and his steeds, to keep his warrior’s oath;

And thousands of porcelain soldiers, faces new

And distinct even today, defy the growth

Of empires and invaders, underground; so that we

In massive machine-dug graves in jungles, absolve

The guilt in rest-homes, where forgotten, fees

Unpaid and corpses left to pass away dissolved,

Vague determinations of what is just and needed,

Economy or eternity, fallow fields, unseeded.

Illegible Ossuaries

As the seasons refused to yield their rains,

The shallows of the Amazon displayed

Forgotten cities, vast canals, empty drains,

Clogged ossuaries where colourful spirits once had played.

Great inland oceans now withdrawn, their shores

Reveal amongst the rusty ships, ancient

Mortuaries crumbled into shells, and spores

Unwilling to yield their hopes—and those whose patient

Cores wafted away to distant continents

Our imagery and tones. Under archaic seas

Were monuments to life before our own discernments,

Scratched on icy walls, silent, the lees

And dregs of illegible gods and their liturgies.

Did you Lose your Consciousness?

Not as I skittered along, smash-bang into

Furniture, a chest of drawers—because you often ask--

Did I ever lose my consciousness; my dignity,

Yes, my modesty, too, scraping both knees;

Like a little kid of eight; and me at eighty

Slowly aware of a crack, and where it was,

That old bum shoulder, deltoid-ness for yonks.

Above all, the consciousness of pain, not blood

Or the noise coming out of my mouth, until you woke

From your soundless sleep, while I slowly hoisted

My decrepit self, and said, “I tripped and fell.”

You looked on in disbelief, and then agreed,

Time to press the emergency button beed-yonk beed-

Yonk “Nasty little wound there, young man,” she said.

So down from the ambulance, into emergency for triage.

Not even a bandage, with no one waiting. Details:

Name, address, date of birth; and

“Do you know where you are?” I looked and wanted

To sing, “It must be heaven, if you are here.”

Instead I whispered,  “A great big ER.”

And the nurse of seventeen crooned,

“And yer ‘ad a bit of a nasty fall there, sir.”

“Indeed, I did.” Then more and more, the angels

Flocked, prodding and probing, making me flutter

After them to the icy x-ray room,

Then chased me back to my little cubicle,

More tubes and wires and questions.

“Did you lose consciousness?”—“Why, is there one missing?”

“Do you know where you are?” “A paradise of nurses

And technicians and doctors who are neither surly

Nor sulky.” Then they said. “Yo’se ‘ad a narsty fall

An’ an inj’ry.” That done, I was allowed to fall

Asleep and have some lovely pills, and to dream.