Poetry Blog by John E Marks (2016)
CHRISTIAN JAMES
With his close-cropped hair and his tatoos here and there
And his thin pale face and his commitment to the race
Christian James was well known for going it alone
He drove the multi-story and he died in a blaze of glory.
The owner of the Golf GT
A businessman from Daventry
Got a new one from the factory.
Christian James, youngest of seven
Lived & Died and went to H...
Saturday 22nd October 2016 9:56 pm
Janissary (1)
My parents were Christian, Serb,
I remember the icons in my mother’s house,
The smell of meat on feast days.
One orthodox Christmastide,
I think I was nine or ten,
My parents made me hide when the Turks
Came to our village in Kosovo again
Looking for boys and women.
My father was ashamed.
He hung his head.
I pretended I was dead.
Hiding under my sister’s bed.
...Saturday 9th July 2016 11:48 pm
Heaven
A Catholic priest crucified
On Good Friday
Children blown to bits
In Lahore.
Home to the Shalimar Gardens,
A piece of pink Heaven on the bloodyearth.
Built by the Mughals to celebrate God
In its marbled, mosaic mosques:
It celebrated the Hindus and the Buddhists
Who'd moved into the future
Keeping their close hold onto the past.
It celebrated the Christians an...
Saturday 2nd April 2016 10:25 pm
Easter Sunday Blue
My father was not born an orphan
And now the state agrees
Absent. He is a holy mystery, to me.
The massacre of the Innocents
Children celebrating Easter blown into pink dust.
In the name of God.
The words of the prophet are perfect and deep
You sow as you reap
You sow as you reap.
The unholy priest
With the holy words
.
Monday 28th March 2016 1:38 am
Gethsemane
an old oliveoil press rusting at the bottom of a sandy garden
in his occupied territory.
man lying prostrate,
on the soil.
murmuring.
about a weight, a burden, something.
we disciples could not hear clearly,
what with all the muffled explosions
and such.
this man, this man, he screamed out ‘NOT AS I WILL BUT AS YOU WILL FATHER!’.
but there was no other man there, no ...
Saturday 30th January 2016 8:59 pm
Breath
In the Apple Market
Your south London twang
Accompanied the many undulations
Of time
Your wild androgyny
Mirroring the mirror
Of yourself
Skimming off the water
Of childhood,
Like a shaking dog,
You lit up, spot-lighted,
An iridescence of sound
Ziggy!
Your songs were the water
We needed
Your terse verse
Spreading underground
Watering imaginations
...Monday 11th January 2016 9:42 pm
Near Water
Birdsong flung into fond recall
A dry-stone wall,
A dry-stone wall.
Fleecy clouds on this May-time day
Don’t fade away,
Don’t fade away.
Daffodils lean into a wind of change
Begin again,
Begin again.
Pale-blue eyes on a snow drop face
Seen-through lace,
Seen-through lace.
A grassy bank to invest my time
No bells' chime,
No bells' chime.
Tuesday 5th January 2016 9:33 pm
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