Aahlu's Poetry
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Fri, 22nd April, 2011
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RSVP EROTICA
I Had Brown Eyes Then 12.05.11
I had brown eyes then, still do. As brown as Mother’s
And pale skin like dads, save where the sun has tanned it
With a personality and an attitude that would always get me
Into more trouble than I could ever imagine, because
When I started out to travel the world
I was just a little boy, you see……..
Sweet were the times and places, like exotic fruits some of them
But every one had pips and peel, a bruise or a hidden bitterness
Which shaped the way I smelled, tasted and touched and found
Directions lodestone. Until the same sensations I relied on failed me
Choked by the avarice and acquisitiveness of others
Their needs seemingly taking precedence over mine.
My experiences came early one morning
In a pair of cheap denims and old spice aftershave
How many boys shaved at thirteen? Well I did
They said I was wayward, rebellious; she asked did I want to fuck?
So I ran through the grass in the quarry and caught her
Linda, the school bike, she’d let anyone.
No she was not perfect, neither was I. Fallible, yes, oh yes.
That always happens the first time, she told me, she knew
But I shared her imperfections, patted her belly – escaped luckily
Not so imperfect that I didn’t know one or two things
And those illusions came and went along with others,
With other girls and other men, I met and loved along the way.
Oh yes, sweet, so sweet, were those times and places
And those who travelled the path along with me
And bitter too, often, so, so often
Brown eyes blackened bruised, filled with tears.
Are you queer, they asked, laughing, jostling for a place
To jeer and stare at what I was wearing
There were times when it was autumn, when it was winter
When windfall fruits rotted ungathered and friendships died
And the confusion I felt led to more fighting, until I realised
What I had and what I am and how it reflected the way I felt.
Then my Rasputin stamped, his boots huge and bloody
While my Catherine groaned and writhed ecstatically.
I had more rings than I had fingers then, more brooches
Than I had jackets to pin them on. Why don’t you, one asked
Stay with me awhile, my wife likes you, so do I…….
I had more underwear than a second hand shop, more shoes
Than my broad feet could cram aches into, more scents
Than Arabia, more, much more of everything.
The world’s mirrors gave me, unlooked for, but
As true as daylight, the shrug, the stance, the condescend.
Ha! I need not brag nor do I exaggerate
But I can tell you I had them all where I wanted them.
The secret is to let them think
That they’re in charge, you see.
Men and women came and went, like busses, slow and late
Girlfriends too, schoolfriends, careful companions
Caring, carefree, capable and I learned
Oh how I learned what it is to be free
Wanderlust drove me but the hearth called me
Calmed me brought me wives, one, two, three.
My first gave me twelve years, two kids, a vasectomy and took everything
My second hysterics, crabs and a certain instability
Both took what they wanted and left the pips and the peel
And one or two shrivelled over ripe bruised fruits in my basket
Along with oddments of clothing, fixtures and fittings
A table, a blanket, a leather corset too small for me.
The third remains, tenacious, tenuous, indifferent
Dragging with her older burdens, as we all do
The deadweight of other, too hard to discard, dreams
A chipped picture frame, tarnished and tawdry
Quiescent urges, rewrapped and buried deeply
In a treasure chest for which she has lost the key
And so at midnight I lie in darkness softly listening
To those small silences which signify so many things
Ends, beginnings, new hope, no hope, breathing
Sorrow's pale dust, chilled by pondering, sensing
No movement nor any likelihood of any, so tell me -
Is there a dawn, a morning, a light, is there anything?
I had brown eyes then, still do, so tell me Mother
Am I still your loved and treasured little boy?
The one you wanted, needed so desperately.
True love came to you too late, as it did to me
Swept clean and bare of all it’s trimmings
Tailored to fit the situation and the fashion perfectly
So yes, please tell me father, am I, do I
Look exactly what I am, as you once said disparagingly.
Tweeds can be a skirt as well as a Norfolk jacket
Can’t you see, oh won’t you see?
I need a hug, and some recognition, not castigation
For this is me dammit! This is me!
© Aahlu. 2008. revised 20011
Kiss and Make Up
Summers fragmentary fragrance
In lush, long green shadows lies
Dark with arrowheads of grass seed
‘neath hedges high with honeysuckle
Hooped loops of delicate dogrose
Pale silk confetti petals tumbling
Rampant as hogweeds that grow
Into weird jungles at the roadsides.
(I took her out and left her
In the woods, in the nude, because,
While one swallow does not a summer make
Neither does a constant volley of complaints)
(It grew dark and cool but still I left her
By the beech where once my initials
Blazed bright, hers too, and I thought
Happiness might last forever)
In that summer long ago, I am reminded
Was it really that long ago? A half century
Oh who was the moody teenager then?
Well almost, when I lacked for nothing
Save knowledge and experience and yet
I knew all and everything, you know I did
Riding that piebald pony bareback, barefooted
Getting bruised and sore and loving it.
(She quietened as darkness grew,
Pale skinned and crouching while
The beech creaked above her head
Black against the sky like a castle)
(I knew she’d shiver but still
Hard hearted I left her there
Afraid to move, to breathe deeply
Lest mist gave her presence away)
The days were longer then, I am convinced
The sun hotter, the stream’s waters deeper
My pony faster and more beautiful, of course
Almost as beautiful as the girl, I’d say.
So I swam and sunbathed and drank
Mother’s lemonade by the gallon
Believing myself to be as immortal
As the days slowly passing behind me.
(Ah! Her pale shadow moves!
And look – she stands, a wraith
Shimmering in the gloom
A wan ghost afraid of ghosts)
(I stayed silent in my hidey hole
No leaf rustled to give me away
Yes, she stands, staggers, reaches
Cries I’ve had enough now…..please!)
She was younger than me by a year
Virginal too, or so she said, well anyway
Neither of us minded my pony grazing
Alongside her rusty wheeled pink Raleigh
I’ll always love you, she said, buttercups
Colouring that space between her breasts
But I was concerned more for my bridle
Than for watching her getting undressed.
(Shivering she stood, undecided
While the forest sighed soft grey
And the beech tree sprinkled dusty
Green talcum powder onto her skin)
(I know you’re there! she cried. She didn’t
How could she when I’d walked away
Kidding her that the path led back
To the gate on the road where we’d come in)
Then, as now, in sunshine and shadow
Her body had some strange appeal
I liked the curve then, the slimness of her
Now the curves are more bulges and sags
But the shapes still there, inside it all, while
Outside it all, she’s just the same, only
The sun was hotter, the day longer, as was
My strength and desire, for goodness sake.
(She called me and I chuckled, a bramble
Hooked into my jacket playing fondly
With my arm through several layers
“Ah! Mistress Mouse!” I said lightly)
(“Alls well now, I think, she’s seen
The error of her ways, if only fleetingly
My jacket, sans bramble, shrouds her
Though her cut toe and heel still bleed)
Now, as then, in shadow and sunshine
Her skin smells of apples and her hair
Trailing like treeroots guides my hands
Downwards to her goosepimpled breasts
She shivers suddenly then and giggles
There was an owl, I think, she says
That watched me, didn’t you see it?
That was no owl, I say and kiss her softly.
© Aahlu. 2009.
Shredded Wheat
The old adverts used to say
Eat Shredded Wheat to start your day
And they particularly said to me
I’ll bet you can't eat three..........
Well at one time, Shredded Wheat
Was the only breakfast cereal I'd eat
A little family company owned it and
The taste and texture was just grand!
Then of course they sold it all
And thereby began its sad downfall
Multinationals have no need
For any loyalty with their greed
Can’t eat three? Well once I could not
Now they’re so small I could eat the lot
But times have changed the way I eat
My sorely missed poor Shredded Wheat!
© Aahlu 2009.
An Apology
Sometimes there just is not time
To sit and think up another rhyme
When I am pressed to do my work
Little it may be but I cannot shirk
Responsibilities and tasks however light
If I am to sleep soundly at night;
And sometimes other demands are great
Do this, do that, no they won’t wait.
I'd have to become an amoeba to fulfil
The variety of roles I oft have to fill
So eighteen hours is an average, I think
'Tween lovers, labours and this little link
Don't despair, I'll look in when I am able
My laptops ever ready on my dining table
And reply just like this time, you see
With humorous apologies from a busy me.
© Aahlu.270511.
To lay the ghost 29.11.11
To lay the ghost I played the tune
And sang the song and banged the drum
And cried a bit and let my tea
Go stone cold on the other side of the room.
And while the frost melted
In the sunshine
I fed the cat and all the birds
My bread and milk so there was none left for myself
But still the ghost would not lie down
Nor the echoes of his scornful cries
Quit my ears, my thoughts, my brain.
To lay the ghost I smashed the tune
And crushed the wreckage with my boot
And screamed a bit and made more tea
After having thrown the first lot out.
And while the birds ate
In the sunshine
I stood and starved without my breakfast
My bread and milk all gone for someone else
But still the ghost would not lie down
Nor the echoes of his rattling chains
Allow me one moments peace.
© Aahlu.. April 2006.
The Wheel in Summer 29.07.11
Now here is
Some stuff I
Wrote too early
Fanciful words,
Fantastic deeds
Fantasies indeed!
Odds and ends dredged
From a sleepy head
At four in the morning
In high summer.
I might have made
A little something from
Those dregs of dreams,
A tale perhaps, or
A ghost of one.
Gaunt
Gauzy remnants dragged
From a muzzy mystery
On a midsummer dawn
With dewdrops clinging
To its grizzled beard.
Thoughts in pale green,
Outlines in crimson.
Great plans.
Innovations.
New wardrobes!
Work done!
A book finished,
A payment made.
Marvels, all marvellous,
But,
Wakefulness came
And,
All hopes were dashed.
Drowned in drab reality
Tumbled over teardrops
Washed
In trickling birdsong
Ground,
In the mire beneath the wheel,
Which turns unendingly.
© 170611.
Arrghh! 11.06.09
This morning I am quite a’feared
Having found a small nest in my beard
Be it mice, lice or rice its not very nice
And it also feels very weird.
It came out in the shower along with a flower
A lentil, a dentil – am I going mental?
Now even the soaps disappeared……
© Aahlu 100611.
Scribe 09.06.11
But for the swans feather, rather than the ravens
The scribe's ink, hand made, would die unwrit
His parchment dried by sun warmed havens
Tis oak bark and iron, filed and mixed I'll admit
The colour of noble blood unsullied, blue black
Not anything as common as mine, or so 'tis thought
And so the scribe dips, forms his letters with knack
Softly so as not to smear what his hand has wrought
Words not wings it is that lifts him higher then
Above the dull commonality of everyday things
He knows the best sword remains defenceless to his pen
And his words, once writ, are the most powerful wings.
© Aahlu.2009
To lay the ghost I played the tune
And sang the song and banged the drum
And cried a bit and let my tea
Go stone cold on the other side of the room.
And while the frost melted
In the sunshine
I fed the cat and all the birds
My bread and milk so there was none left for myself
But still the ghost would not lie down
Nor the echoes of his scornful cries
Quit my ears, my thoughts, my brain.
To lay the ghost I smashed the tune
And crushed the wreckage with my boot
And screamed a bit and made more tea
After having thrown the first lot out.
And while the birds ate
In the sunshine
I stood and starved without my breakfast
My bread and milk all gone for someone else
But still the ghost would not lie down
Nor the echoes of his rattling chains
Allow me one moments peace.
© Aahlu.. April 2006.
The Wheel in Summer 29.07.11
Now here is
Some stuff I
Wrote too early
Fanciful words,
Fantastic deeds
Fantasies indeed!
Odds and ends dredged
From a sleepy head
At four in the morning
In high summer.
I might have made
A little something from
Those dregs of dreams,
A tale perhaps, or
A ghost of one.
Gaunt
Gauzy remnants dragged
From a muzzy mystery
On a midsummer dawn
With dewdrops clinging
To its grizzled beard.
Thoughts in pale green,
Outlines in crimson.
Great plans.
Innovations.
New wardrobes!
Work done!
A book finished,
A payment made.
Marvels, all marvellous,
But,
Wakefulness came
And,
All hopes were dashed.
Drowned in drab reality
Tumbled over teardrops
Washed
In trickling birdsong
Ground,
In the mire beneath the wheel,
Which turns unendingly.
© 170611.
Arrghh! 11.06.09
This morning I am quite a’feared
Having found a small nest in my beard
Be it mice, lice or rice its not very nice
And it also feels very weird.
It came out in the shower along with a flower
A lentil, a dentil – am I going mental?
Now even the soaps disappeared……
© Aahlu 100611.
Scribe 09.06.11
But for the swans feather, rather than the ravens
The scribe's ink, hand made, would die unwrit
His parchment dried by sun warmed havens
Tis oak bark and iron, filed and mixed I'll admit
The colour of noble blood unsullied, blue black
Not anything as common as mine, or so 'tis thought
And so the scribe dips, forms his letters with knack
Softly so as not to smear what his hand has wrought
Words not wings it is that lifts him higher then
Above the dull commonality of everyday things
He knows the best sword remains defenceless to his pen
And his words, once writ, are the most powerful wings.
© Aahlu.2009