Poetry Blog by Adam Whitworth

One acre of grass. Thistles, nettles, anonymous bugs

and just lying there- sticks and stones for bat and ball.

Yet again it is afternoon-cum-evening 

another course laid out for run and jump trials.

In time told by sky-shown colour 

amorphous clouds racing for faraway homes

momentarily absorb every possible tint.

Little feet strike the field as lightening

Earth answers...

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Lady plays the Tarot
her cut-throat razor
splits an infinite deck
in the present moment
showcasing one colourful image 
over all other bright possibilities
look and attend properly
it fills the entire field of vision
there never was a witch
nor any outlandish deck

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Awake again to the room you have dreamt up:
two identical doors on opposite walls
a mirror for each of the other two walls.
After checking your hair you pick a door and leave.

This is a world where love is a blessing,
it is an improving power.
It replaces selfish greed
with a desire for another's happiness.
One sees the reality of another
where before one saw only a tool
to use if...

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My poems spring no more on stress-free feet
nor hallowed ground nor untouched wilds they walk.

Ever-present inflamatory gout
and something they call fasciitis burn.

My steps become a mechanical hobble
comical I guess as I walk through flames.

What kind of poets press on without hope?
The ones with unfailing inspiration.

The ones lacking the view from Everest
speaking of wonde...

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Was there ever a level playing field,
children gambolling everywhere like lambs?
I often dream of this version of paradise 
being reclaimed.

Because now I have been urged and prodded
up my own towering, fragile-looking ladder.
apparently everbody has one,
apparently the sky's the limit.

I began afraid of the height
afraid of the indifferent elements
but thought this is how it mu...

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Your heart is mortally wounded
little bird chirping 
little tiger roaring
little wonder you are sad
your joy eludes the firm grasp
your troubles all unmerited
and your heart is mortally wounded
little new born lamb
little baby crying
so little time is left for you
and your flaw is not your fault
your story already well known
your heart mortally wounded
no demon targets you
equal...

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Like anyone serious about their Art
I have craved a hermetically sealed room,
just for ten or twenty years.
And like most I have failed in my quest.
The more determined artist searches out
roccoco caves almost unreachable
and in the weirdest crevices they will
pursue their Art, probably upside-down
and without visible means of support.
If I, as a good friend, could hunt them down
I ...

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think of breath made visible in chilly air.

I think of the child
who nearly managed to faint
producing short-lived ghosts from his mouth.

Speaking from experience,
there is joy to be found here
and that must be worth something.

What our pride owns will collapse:
even-handed time insists the world we know 
be reduced to a rumour of Atlantis.

I believe a butterfly can cro...

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I plucked a flying arrow from the air;
it was aimed for the heart of a child.
I was a hero and a child was saved
but being too clever for my own good
I thought: this couldn't have really happened.
I was saddened not to be the hero,
relieved a child was not terrified.
I saw how the picture might change-
a universal hero, a universal child.
Who supports this ponderous meditation?
Tell...

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The nettles are on the march
and the brambles too.

See the right angles 
of a world war two bunker over-run.
The straight-line wisdom 
of civilisation crumbling.

Lichen, moss and fungus
signal sites for dens and nests.

See abandoned boats all along
the delta, mired in grey silt.
Crying out loud
time has begun to dismantle us.

The nettles are on the march
and the brambles ...

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The stain of day finally absorbed
into evening shade. Shall we
step outside to cool off.
The moon beckoning closer-
what does it mean?

Hear the siren's blare fade
but the cricket's song persist.
This city may be unknown
still the friend is recognised.
What can it mean?

When spring is a thing of the past
plant these seeds, please, in the mind.
Just as the bottle is emptied
do ...

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Everyone knows the difference
between prose and poetry
is the difference between
words and song.
I say it's the difference between 
birds and the Moon.

Birds can but follows their own agenda
meaning neither good nor ill.
The mysterious Moon will lift the tides
we catalogue as though we know-
until overwhelmed by the deep.

I fear those who support megatonnes of rock,
their Moon of f...

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I won't presume to regale friends with odes
of the storms that all but uprooted you:
we grew up together didn't we.

I remember those spindly limbs
like long hair in the wind, but see
now you are stronger than most.

Scarred by traumatic memories,
incessant pests still all about you,
at last you are grown noble.

I'll sit at your foot to catch the spirit
for only now are sweet ap...

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I took issue with a plant in my garden
called it an eyesore and a weed.
After removing any sign of it
I was content again 
to laze upon the fragrant grass.
But I found another to argue with
and quickly removed it too...
a year later now, my garden is a desert.

The one who would restore the garden
for the benefit of every wild bird, 
animal or insect may take the land
blessing us both 
...

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She had found out the hidey-hole
of all the gold you could ever use
and all the shiney silver too.
When he begged to know and told her 
all their dreams could come true
she said "I know, I know, and you know as well as I do."
Imagine him exasperated, bewildered but unrelenting,
boldly crying "TELL ME."
And hear her reply 
" You see a cloud rolling to the horizon, 
free winds carrying it ...

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Once he saw himself
a shaman from a vanished world.
World in perpetual motion;
no patience for how the photograph lies.
Two-dimensional people of today,
snapped and shot, could not stand in his heart.
But she! He saw how she powered forth 
from a pre-linguistic world. Her magic
brought joy with instantaneous engagement.
That's not to say she wouldn't speak.
Speech is yoked with brea...

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I'd hang a poem or two, well-framed to shine,
on the walls of a friend or two, and their's on mine.

You see, opalescent clouds from pink skies
march in regular lines towards me.
See again for a converse perspective,
and artful the braiding of melody.

I believe our words should begin to care 
about exactly who they're written for.
Why trust our babies to public platforms,
to hope ...

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Sketches dashed off
immediately torn to shreds.

Confetti of nameless colours
obscure the view.

And how quickly a new sketch is made!

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It is in the way of things
for your eyes to hold the stars of Van Gogh
and, behind the double-gate so elegant,
for an Aladdin's cave to hold treasures, 
more than treasures.
You'd be forgiven for thinking
my eyesight would grow dim
before these reflections in those elegant eyes
strike me dumb and exult my soul.
And is my step to grow feeble and need sticks to help 
before my attempt on t...

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     For all the garden birds now grounded 
and poorly sheltered through the blizzard
strength extends to sleep. 
     Why wake to more of the same? 
          No; wake to blue skies or not at all.
     All the flames- ritual, beacon, celebration-
sleep so still. When all is ash 
do embers not fade to die?

     Love, it needs no great faith to live again
          the instant a new s...

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Shortened stride in falling snow, in England.

See a panorama cropped in every way.

Endangered birds still asking nothing mourn 

their missing heaven. All now tucked away.

The one good superpower is balance.

Just up to the next corner thoughts can stray.

Mouse to mouse move all the nearer for warmth

deep dreamers under white blankets they lay.

So slow the progress to th...

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People from the other side of the mountain
(our bright their dim, our straight their crooked)
with unfamiliar customs, strange words
(our most celebrated ones unheard of)
studying our time through their own lenses
(our perishable goods once stocked high all gone) 
hunt and discover- but they knew all along

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How a tornado didn't rip me off of my feet
I'll never know.
On the surface of a totally strange planet
standing by a bottomless pit
people all around, god knows who.

The hitherto kindly minister lady
began her magic words- shades of Clannad 
belting out their most spooky chant
far too loud. All of a sudden
this was real.

Having been thumped in the stomach
I was invited to take a ...

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He could sidle up to the pier
unmissable rusting hulk
slowly slowly docking.
He could stand off in deep water
make himself known
boiler room venting its last
steam as signal.
Could send from his craft
a launch under cover of night
an imperative mission
success dependent on reception.
And you thought 
he might make the effort 
to pick up the phone
or tap lightly at your door.

...

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The goal worked towards
not part of the game
won't ring the doorbell
with the house all aflame.

It's grasped by the mind 
not held in the hand;
a passing cloud over
a parched land.

A sleeping infant;
a tree unobserved;
a lost symphony
every note preserved.

Close as a whisper
in a waiting ear
when only the dead 
can wait one more year.

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A peasant girl conjured by song, her story-
    and my tower of arguments 
         tumbles right away.
Guardians of my status quo 
     thin like smoke
           and are gone.
I myself bead with sweat 
     to establish a homestead
          where the lark and the kite soar free.
And if morning tide shows my holy fever
     cured and way downstream
          let me shiver at the ...

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I have been encouraged to reanimate mythologies
when they are of a mind with my cause.
          My excuse.

To scan the canon and most obscure visionaries
for immediate use in elaborate travesties.
          My confession.

These mirages have not the power supposed.
All I am will be rebuilt, given time.
          My challenge.

I have to speak plainly as children, truly as pain,
...

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Dark lines patently trouble our moon
but she is ever young.
She has failed to record her dreams
but as paeans they have been sung.
So long so distant and above all
how to embrace now?
Voyage further for an answer 
but her seas rise under the prow.

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I'll hear no more of the piteous masses
pray tell now of our dogged filigree.
Persistent iron turned upon itself:
all our own paths blocked, yet withal,
spaces created between thrusts of steel 
and snakes of hard wire make a home
for our heart-red rose without root or stem
-so often cried, repeatedly- mercy.
And I have cried for the limitless masses.
I and I have been the strained mu...

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From the high ground spread out your silver skirts
though the dawn be a thousand miles away

my chamber is flooded, my casement wide
and the dawn yet a hundred miles away

unbidden you send your mute messenger
a cool dawn calculates ten miles away

who could mistake the mundane for magic
the fast marching dawn now a mile away

and who can quite recollect the sea of...
when sudden...

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Yer old cavemen, they ate raw meat
they had trouble making clothes.
They'd only say "Ug, ug, ug."
I wouldn't wanna be one of those.

And I wouldn't wanna be a dancing bear
I'd be dancing through my pain GRRR!
Entertaining the ignorant
and the ones who know are WORSE!

I wouldn't wanna be a poor witch
swinging from a gallows tree,
only crows paying attention
all the good brethren shunn...

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A leaf takes all your concentration.
A silver-green side and a brighter green 
green side curled into a little boat.
Braving an uncertain voyage becoming real 
only as it happens.
Intuitively you follow the music
of this singular leaf on its clear stream
for the value it must bring.
You needn't apologise for your nature
though you have a way of looking
in a minor key.
Your musicbox...

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Tell us the story again, again,
of going to the well again.
Mothers merry in highest praise
finding their children so happy
with so little again. Then,
the beggar beside the well.
He sings to a small guitar
of the lord come from afar
with blazoned bucket so shiny
who turns for home
disappointed, thirsty. Again and again!
The ballad relates how the lord,
glist'ning pail bright as your c...

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In the agora, as a child,
I stood shoulder to shoulder with you.
Moved where the jostling crowd led
regardless of my will.
Now, older than the paved walkways,
I am drawn to the quiet words of Socrates,
tireless in that quest for wisdom.
By the flashes writ large across my sky
often I am startled
but lightening has never struck me.
Against a background of volcanic eruptions,
turbid ...

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Truth is frightening. 
Straining to wriggle from its stranglehold
develops a vital strength in me.
Light spreads further and brighter: 
the inevitable dawns on me.
Ah, but the pace is slow! 
Like a statue that moves 
although nobody has seen it move,
it is closer now. I see clearer
balance in motion, silent expression.
Countless brief lives swept away 
when tumbling rivers spill th...

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This budding, tightly curled potential leaf
has begun, and stalled, a fantastic journey:
progress halted for each chill wind racing through.
Now it gives itself wholeheartedly to flourishing, 
the idea of retreat discarded. If
a cruel icy hand should grip the land again
this life must cease. But, pouring on the vitality,
this expanding leaf is keen to show the world beauty.
Minstrels ...

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The one who said jam tomorrow was right.
Will anyone hold out their plate?
There'll be more than enough of all kinds of stuff
but today was not the day.

Did we really believe the promises
telling us of a better way?
There'll be peace and love and heavens above
today was not the day.

Blessings and curses were interspersed with
the homilies we love to say,
if the workaday world's ...

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