Poems
The Speaking Chair [poem]
Rays of rising sun had struck the chair and table awkwardly
as if through shyness (though that can’t be proven here).
A corner of that little plastic throne was shredded –
worn and torn by countless swift unthinking hands
and now forlorn we stare each other coolly in the eye.
(How can we ever know if things are real? Who decides?
Perhaps that chair is just a figment of my mind –
my over-fevered dream imagination working overtime).
Stuck inside my decomposing head, that corner of the chair
becomes a finesome hirsute masterpiece instead;
and I recoil. What if we, at this stage of our river’s flow,
are not equipped to full discern the working of a brain which
dwells within a chair or any other dense unanimated thing
but then, at some far future date develop apparatus which
can see a brain (or more) is plainly there? And if you tell me
that no chair has ever moved I will reply by saying that not
just a little chair but every single thing in earth or sea or space
or in the air vibrates and turns in ways beyond our mind
can nowly see. And furthermore I here declare that nothing
anywhere is what it seems to us to be. We, in our desperation,
give our mundane names to things and then there are the
frames we bring in which to trap the essence of an object
lest it acts in ways which pull the wretched rug of rationality
from underneath the boring functionality which makes our feet
stay firmly on the ground. And all around is light and something
we have not learned yet to name, nor ever will so long as in
these lumpy bodies people dance the karma-dharma game.
I’ve sought that unnamed something through the halo of my days;
yet here the worn-out chair before me speaks in brainful ways.
© Alan Morrison, 2013
Cosmic Soldier [poem]
Sometimes one has to go where even angels fear to tread –
a barely-heard-of hinterland where one is neither live nor dead;
a world beyond the forest fires and quaggy mires of ordinary fate,
a semi-hopeless state where greyness has no legal home,
where demons cruelly duelly roam, poke fun and poke out eyes,
where mysterious means dangerous and truth consists of sighs,
where every trail leads off a cliff; where driftwood floats not in
the sea but in the air and nothing’s just and nothing’s fair;
where only patience gets you through combined with prayer
disguised as tears and nothing ever there allays your fears.
Yet freedom slyly creeps up on us when we throw away the map
and compass, wander down that muddy unmarked track,
explore the meaning of alone, face the bloody rumpus, then,
with luck (& after many thrusts of lance and sword) come back,
a thousand aeons older, a wounded tattered cosmic soldier.
© Alan Morrison, 2013
Call Off the Search [poem]
“Make the most of every day”, or so they say,
“for you never know which one may be your last”.
Which sado-masochistic dreamer coined that koan?
Presumably a robot with no record of a past!
Is our only goal to stay alive? If so, for what?
For in this stricken broken world what reason
could there be for anyone’s desire to survive?
The Verdict [poem]
The coroner (a meaty sort of man
whose mother made him sit for hours writing out:
“I must not touch my willy with my hand”)
composed a so-called solemn face
because he was the boss man in that haunted
clutch-at-straws deliberating place
and said with gravitas:
“The deceased took his own life
while the balance of his mind
had been disturbed”.
Gender Bender [poem]
dangling dangerously
feet first
legs swinging pendulously
unposed
in frozen shards of
rigor mortis
metal locks resembling
subterranean aftershocks
he gave a kindly nod
toward the half hung drawn and quartered
bloody-spattered brained
gratuitously tortured
lined and pitted cliff face executioner’s
endless scrawl
On the Election of the Pope [poem]
And so we have another pope upon the throne
or papa as he’s sometimes fondly known
though I prefer to call him GODFATHER
but not because he is a father sent by God
but more because the Vatican has long been known
to be in bed with those they call The Mob!
Tundra [poem]
And so these soresome feet have turned their heels on this cold land
(though cold is not used merely to describe the mercury
but also as a measurement of mind and hearts
which I can only now describe as bland).
For never have I felt such ice brush by me
yet not melt at finely chosen words and deeds.
No knight can find a horse to ride in glaciers
or darkness hiding out in hazy midnight suns
and penile breastshaped guns which smile and say
‘Come suck me then I’ll shoot you in your face’
and not regarding chivalry as something even worthy to be said
this poetboy has cried and died shed many skins and bled.
It seems there is a gulf between their smiles and gift —
a gashed and bloody rift —
which hangs unspoken
always blind unwoken
never boldly broken
brittle
shoulder chiply moulded
by the unforgiving wind which only blows from
northern graceless firlined
endless faceless frozen darkly wastes.
Crumbless Comfort [poem]
There’s treacle in those cloudlike hills.
(Or so I then was told; experiencing
for myself how real estate is falsely sold!).
So in my usual curiositical state of mind
I climbed then found my feet fast stuck
in thick and sticky slime. It was a trap.
Too Zero Won Free [poem]
The New Year looked me gravely (frankly) in the face and said:
What resolutions have you made as this old year begins to fade?
I took her hand in mine and thought I saw some future light
begin to shine. Perhaps I was mistaken for as I looked into her eyes
she took me on a journey far beyond my skies had ever been before
and if I was to tell you what I saw you would (like me) begin to shake
and thoughts then flickered through my mind that I would never
make it through her year unless some superhuman strength
I’d soonly find. She squeezed my hand and smiled that soft and
drenchful face reserved for those who will wholeheartedly embrace
her delicate tapestries
fortunate auspices
melodic mysteries
yet at the same time
wholly leave behind
every wretched kind of
worthless history
mindless twisterie
thoughtless brusquerie
things which can’t set one free
feeling regretful for
acts done ham-fistedly
openings missed by me
false meets at trysting-trees
those kissed resistingly
realness dismissed by me
new paths unrisked by me
good things unhitched by me
itches not scratched by me
dreams pistol-whipped by me
so many hopes unseen.
As she gazed into my eyes and therefore deep into my soul
I sensed her clasp me to her side and as she did a little voice said
Are you ready for this ride? This won’t be just like any other tide
in which you’ve flowed before in any of your years or wars.
The sea is deep and rough which I will bring under your boat
and you’ll be smashed on many rocks although you always and
in every way will joyly stay afloat. Indeed I’ve seen your future
shining face above the waves bemused by buffet’s perverse ways.
You know this is for your own good. (At which I kissed her fresh new
skin while breathlessly she drew me deep within and we were one).
© 2012/2013, Alan Morrison
I am Complete [poem]
I am complete
needing neither none
to dance within my field
or life’s ungame
nor any thing
that can be named.
If you should seek
to draw me in
I will not yield.
All cellular constructions
now before me in this moment
I will treat the same
No clear distinctions will be made
for I am now replete
enveloped by this tick of time
which
considering my frame of mind
is not compelled by any rhythm,
meter’s scan or rhyme.
I am complete.
Yet not one fleeting second
intervenes
my oneness with all
creaturelife
in here
and now
absolving every sandy
gravelled grain of strife.
And even though the cold
makes deepsome cracks
upon my always probing fingers
thumbs I have no need for
friend or lover
wife who throws me crumbs
or any other.
The Naked Troubadour 