Inevitable [sonnet]
I stand before the Sun — she waits for me
with splendid orchid sighs upon the breeze.
I bow before the Moon — she cries to me
with orchestrated whys and mysteries.
Inevitable emblems of our tryst
are haunting my perception of the path
which stretches out before the lips I kissed
in vague galactic visions’ aftermath.
So then the Sun and Moon before my eyes
did blend their molten rays around your face;
I felt my inhibitions vaporise
but did not want to box you in a space.
I have no expectations, so I said;
(a lie) while portions of my cheeks turned red.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
The Furrow on my Brow [sonnet]
There was a furrow stationed on my brow
which disappears when thoughts of you prevail.
Your silences have made me want the now
on which my heart will gladly be impaled.
The honeyed words which drip from your sweet tongue
are like a salve to soothe my withered soul —
a featherbed to mute the smoking gun
so often poised to shoot out of control.
There’s just one cloying quandary in the groove:
How can I know my fantasies are sure
and not just wishful thinking platitudes
but crazy concrete facts which will endure.
That troubled chasm fronting on my head
has filled itself with raw desire instead.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Quivering Quill [sonnet]
Each time I write I hear a voice opine:
“Take not one grain of salt from what you say,
nor cover it with saccharine or wine.
This is no time for bards to hide away.”
The urgency which underscores that word
instils the verveful sinews of my verse —
to every highest mountain I am stirred;
all doubts of my ambitions are dispersed.
But yet the ruddy feathers of my quill
are quivering with fateful finitude
in case my soaring strophes should be distilled
and not reflect the wishes of the Muse.
For if my words should seek a valley’s lee,
to compromise I will have bent my knee.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Ghostword Graveyard [poem]
[Dedicated to the memory of all the poems that
I thought of in the night which I didn’t record]
if the brain is space infinity
and I owned an endless spaceship
then I could float
and thus rip free
that verse
which I dreamed
in my half-sleep’s
amnesiac sea
Les Mots qui Rient [sonnet]
Words are what I love above all other
components of creation’s rainbow rain.
Fulfilment beckons when I am smothered
beneath the stream of alphabetic skein.
For words can dance and sing and paint the sky;
they sculpt the night and heighten solar flares.
They influence cold minds to tears and sighs
and take the hardened-hearted unawares.
Yet, I say fulfilment only “beckons”,
for there’s a darker aspect to this verse;
one on which I never would have reckoned
but which is my secreted cri de Coeur.
For though with words I make ten thousand worlds,
they laugh at me for what has not unfurled.
© 2011, Alan Morrison
Hermann Bahr
“They hate everyone who tries to be true to himself. That is what they cannot bear. They cannot bear someone to have an opinion or will of their own. They cannot bear the idea that someone should try to be free. Yet they wish they were free themselves but they do not dare. They are secretly ashamed that they are so cowardly so they avenge their bad conscience on the brave”
(Viennese music critic Hermann Bahr, 1909)
Bahr wrote this in his diary when he observed how the independent-minded, iconoclastic composers and artists of his time (such as Gustav Mahler and Gustav Klimt) were denounced and ridiculed in the press and had lies and smears spread everywhere about them. His observation about the secret jealousy of these slanderous critics is most insightful and applicable for all time.
My definition of a True Friend
“Someone with whom you can be yourself COMPLETELY without any condemnation”
© 2011, Alan Morrison
By True Friend I don’t mean a Fairweather Friend (who only sticks around when things are good), or Friend Lite (who will never go deep with you), or Fantasy Friend (who has idealised you). I mean the one who never judges you or scorns you or rejects you or betrays you but who will stand by your side forever
My Little Sieve [poem]
I’ve got a little sieve
and it’s sitting on a shelf
in my mezzaninal mind
where it works its sieving ways
keeping fruitlessness at bay —
interference left behind
It’s an automatic sieve
so I never have to force
such a little sieve to work.
In fact the sieved-out parts
make it function with their hearts —
their sievedoutness well-deserved
I am of the Street [poem]
[Dedicated to Mike Robinson, poet & philosopher]
“I am of the street”, said he,
excusing what he thought to be
his uncouth background’s
strain of dark vulgarity.
“Vulgar” was the term he
(over)used, esteeming his fine
self to be devoid of lakeside
views and tender music’s
much-refining me-defining
ever-shining undersea.
Ignorance
There are 3 kinds of ignorance: 1) Happy ignorance, which is okay, as there are some terrible things in this world, about which it is better for us not to have the details. 2) Simple ignorance, when we don’t understand something yet — not a problem if we’re willing to learn. 3) Wilful ignorance, when we deliberately reject important or vital information, knowing it to be true — heads in the sand, a dangerous attitude
© 2011, Alan Morrison
The Naked Troubadour 