Focus

I have a tiny little hole in my eye,

Some embolistic rupture from the pressure

That pushes my blood through my veins,

Which carry it round my body,

When I look at white paper, or a blue sky,

I catch glimpses of what is always there,

But of which I am usually unaware,

A tiny dot,

A blurred little burr,

To the lower left of my right eye's vision,

Putting it overall, just right of centre,

It is always there,

Weather or not I am aware,

And on those occasions,

When I notice,

I try to look at it more closely,

But it evades the capture of sight.

Every time I look directly at it,

It moves,

Being part of my eye,

It moves when my eye moves,

And so the tennis game goes on,

40 love to the embolism,

Game, set and match,

I'll never catch it,

Unless the whole eye goes dark.

It lives in the peripheral.

I have a tiny hole in my soul,

A spot, 

A speck I cannot see,

And whenever I look at it,

The bugger moves,

And I can never focus on it,

For it cannot be looked at directly,

But lives within the periphery.

It is all I can do to acknowledge,

It is there,

And from time to time,

When the environment is bright enough,

It floats around on the edges,

Just to remind me.

Specks.

Eyes.

Planks.

Thorns,

Prayers.

Grace.

Sufficiency.

To My Lord

To my Lord,

I give the meaning of that word,

I bequeath him all the lies he heard,

From my lips,

Knowing the truth of it,

Before I conceived a word,

And yet he heard with a smile,

And loved me still,

Knowing beginning from end,

That indiscretions like good intentions,

And promised mentions,

Were laid thick with ripped up paving stones,

 I stole from my path to hell,

Sure, I intended well,

You went there first,

So you knew,

What good I would,

Or would not do,

You paid my debt,

Knowing how often I would throw it in your face,

Christ is that not the very definition of grace?

And I have the tenacity to call you Lord,

When I have scarcely learnt the meaning of that word,

I bequeath my heartfelt lies,

And all I've come to despise,

And lay it at your feet,

Oh for perfume,

That I were a prostitute with a pot,

To pour on you,

Rather than just these tears

In my unworthiness,

It would be better 

And more truthful by far,

Than the word Lord,

Simply thrown off from the cuff,

Oh Lord Jesus,

When will enough be enough?

(Not all who say to me 'Lord, Lord' will enter. The double use of the title almost infers we are over familiar and complacent, like 'daddy, daddy'. In one sense we should be confident in his affection, but also we should never be complacent. The title 'Lord' has a meaning.)

Disappearance

The disappearance of the day begins at dawn,

Born dying, the sunlight ascends to height,

Night, sees its descending,

The ending of flight,

The light of the sun,

Spawned ending, even as it has begun,

Clung-to moments are already on the run,

Spun leaving the second they come,

We are all of us leaving,

Cleaving, we are, everything, leaving.

Believing seconds are for sentience,

Sentiment settles on our decadence,

To lavish ourselves upon the hours,

Like a leaper lavishes themselves upon the rocks below,

Go, take every second by storm,

Born dying, but living and reborn,

Scorn shame and waste the same,

I came to spend them both alike,

Like the disappearance of the light.

When I Was A Child

When I was a child

I reasoned that although I was a child

The fact that I was a child

Bore no bearing

On who I was

And I had no concept of becoming

I did not feel like an incomplete soul

I was not waiting to be made whole

I was not enriched by what I stole

Nor depleted by what was stolen

I was not held

Or beheld

I was not emboldened 

Nor beholden

I was me

And I longed, more than anything, to be free

My fantasies were winged things

Wolf-raised loners or kings of the invisible,

My longing was for the infinite

Stretched out for ever before me

Never diluted nor divisible

Risible though they found me

Climbing trees

Scraping knees

Caught in rainstorms

Playing windmills in the breeze

They tried to encage me

But they could not

I would not cease nor freeze

Simon did not say

And I never wanted to adapt

That was pure essence

That which you thought play

I was the skinny, day-dreamy cry-baby kid

I was too sensitive

The teacher told me 

I looked at hawks

In books

Paddled with the other boys in brooks

Put people off by my open hearted sincerity

I clung as tightly to friends as I did to dreams and desires

And thus suffocated the air out of friendships

Quenched fires

And retreated 

Beyond the walls

Within the earth

To the inner life,

Perhaps that is why I write poems

Because beneath the crust, and tectonic, melancholic plates

The magma is still moving

Still flowing 

Cast Down

Laid low, lost my glow,

Nowhere to turn, nowhere to go,

In free fall, in tail spin,

Nothing to grab,

To stop or slow me,

From falling in,

From the toast of the town,

I'm cast down, to class clown, 

Lost my crown but found my frown,

Cant do a verb, 

Slowly

A doing word became a noun,

A non-swimming swimmer,

Quickly drowns,

The whirlpool, Sucked me in,

Murky waters but lucid wallowing,

Despair licked lips start swallowing,

I feel peeled,

Hope's core is gored,

And hollowing,

Where is the voice,

I could be following?

The waters have, washed over me,

Like the breakers of the sea,

Your water-falls down inclines so steep,

From heights of flight, to the deepest deep,

You call to me,

To wake from sleep;

The Night time dawn-songs,

Sound morning-sweet,

And as my breath is squeezed away,

I hear my voice begin to say,

Why so downcast, soul, today?

Why disturbed and in dismay?

Look up, look up,

And hope in God,

I will praise him anyway,

I had been downcast

Cast down,

And drowning fast,

But now I'm free, 

Free at last, 

And for this time the time has passed,

The trial tried,

But it did not last,
And freedoms praise 

Is glorious, expansive and vast,

I'll tie my colours to the mast,

I'll raise the flag and praise with every gasp,
He is good, 

And His goodness lasts.

Satan Has Cleaned Up His Act

So Satan has cleaned up his act,

Got in on justice and that,

Stands for the poor and oppressed,

No need for chickens, or getting undressed,

No mentions of becoming possessed,

And no need for sure, for calling BS,

As Satan himself is not real,

He's just held as a symbolic ideal,

For freedom and self expression,
To cast off restrain and repression,

And for the plight of human autonomy,

That's why the fruit didn't stay on the tree,

And there is no such thing as a sin,

And these 'saints' do his work now for him,

And so the actor becomes director again,

The only thing of him attached to his play is his name,

And silently he waits in the wing,
Till the time comes to take up his title of king.

The Gentle Rain

The gentle rain,
It comes again,
It falls the same,
It fills the frame,

It's almost imperceptible,
But my clothes are it's receptacle,
Weighted down with it,
As a million miniscule droplets hit,

Drenched am I,
By stealth and sighs,

I'm washed, without knowing,
I've stopped without slowing,
I've grown without growing,
I am shown, but am not showing,

This gentle rain,
I'm soaked in pain,
Sodden to the skin,
So wet, I can't begin,
To tell where it began,
The water, as it ran,
Its running rivulets race,
Over my hands,
And down my face,

I didn't see it start,
I just stopped, and played my part,
The silent statue king,
Soaking, soaking in,
Soaking, soaking in,

The melancholic king,
Raining over everything,
Reigning over nothing,
Loved before even loving,
Standing under,
A silent thunder,
A growing numbness,
And a thawing wonder,

This gentle rain,
Its mercy comes again,
Its quality is not *strained,
It drops,
Softly drops, the same,
On the quick and the dead,
And in its gentle generosity,
It falls too,
Upon my head

Steeped in sin,
But soaked to the skin,
In cleansing spray-like mist,
I'm being baptised,
But I barely notice

M Joseph Burt (18.06.2020)

*Note: When starting this poem I was inspired by nothing more than the rain outside my window and the mood that it invoked in me from many rainy days and walks in the past. The phrase gentle rain just sprang to mind and I knew I had to convert this feeling into verses. At the stage where I was inspired by the 'melancholic king' image, I remembered the line from The Merchant of Venice, The quality of mercy is not strained. Rain has long been for me a symbol of God's mercy, and the Shakespeare line provided not only amazing imagery but also a good (if not obvious) rhyme. I looked it up in the middle of writing and was surprised to find that Shakespeare used the phrase gentle rain in this exact speech, and not only that but is speaking of mercy as an attribute of God which is reflected when Kings show mercy. So the Monarchic imagery was also strongly present in the same speech. Subconsciously it is possible that I had absorbed this and was recreating it in my poem, but it was not a direct attempt at interpreting or commenting on The Bard's work. Consciously it was just a happy coincidence. However I am sure that the phrase gentle rain was in my mind because of his contribution to our culture and consciousness. Whatever way you look at it, the Man has a presence in my poem that I would like to acknowledge.