richard.a.patterson

POETRY

Epigram.

Homer’s works and our answer he would give

If but one more moment were he to live.

At: www.geocities.com/rapatterson17/

CONTENTS

The Sun is God.

On Leave from Marsden.

To The Modern Poets.

Fifty Years in One Act.

Old Town.

Solace.

The Kingdom.

The Borrower.

The Lone Poet.

To Mount Macedon.

Momentary Fragment.

Witness.

The Sun is God.

I saw the sun today it was so beautiful.

It was not rising nor setting and no clouds framed it like burnished gold.

I saw it as an image on my monitor.

An image which in turn had been captured by some telescope.

Magnified in all its glory its surface a patchwork of flame,

A fiery maze.

It was beautiful. So beautiful and so fragile,

I realise now why it’s beauty seems greater when pitched against the horizon

It is because my eyes normally blinded by its light can then rest upon its glory

I am told it has burned for millions of years

And will continue to burn for millions of years.

But when my eyes can rest upon it and my thoughts can sleep on it

I admit that some part of me becomes afraid.

I am at a loss to explain how something so necessary,

And so life giving, can desire to give itself and ask nothing in return.

Surely nothing can be so fine and so sublime in power.

It strikes me as a pointed irony that the sun

Through my monitor unclothed by distance and the smear of smog,

Rounded and naked showed the reality of its existence to me for the first time.

I am giddy in knowing that if it can exist then surely it is capable of nonexistence.

I think I am in love.

Over this earth, this world, a speck of dust in space,

Life is a moments grace on this largest rock,

And the sun is God.

Rap.2003

On Leave from Marsden

The milk boy was the first to tell her

face pale as the cream in the pitcher

and renewed stutter

bringing news of her death.

They called her type ‘a natural’

Elizabeth from the sill had seen her

gathering wild narcissus

by the road side - as fast

as they were gathered falling

With one hand to her cheek

Elizabeth wound a lock of grey

absently about her finger.

Heard the bacon spluttering on the range.

watching the girl with the round belly.

‘It was a young cadet that did it,

down on leave from Marsden.’

was the feed store rumour.

‘The pity - her a dumb mute.’

‘Gone fishing.’ Said her husband

the night before, tramping off

to the muddy brook; late returning.

Elizabeth looked up. ‘Nothing.’

was his reproach bringing

the empty bucket to the floor.

His boots were clean

Tackle dry in the box.

‘She had wandered after dark

and slipped.’ ended the milk boy.

Found her at an impossible angle.

Later in the parlour ,after dark,

the settee lined with brown

butcher paper to crunch under

her weight, Elizabeth alone,

counting with the hanging

seconds ticking from the wall.

Rap.2002

To the Modern Poets

From couch potato all stiff and starchy.

To feared and teared at all the parties.

You wrote a nice book its very rich.

Don’t kiss or kill me but what makes you tick?

What? Not a word. Is your tongue bound?

I hear caution in your silence it makes a muted sound.

As if you hold your breath. Wait. Hear your ears pound.

Write it with your pen and know you’ve never told

Is your book worth your weight in gold?

Your book on an aged man lying for a century cold

And you so young to write on someone so old.

Mixing metaphor with your bold belief.

Though who talks of god saves my soul.

Please I beg understanding to do what’s told.

For you see I can not trust my face.

In the mirror I stare blankly into space,

With eyes so deeply closed wide open

Blind to how I am week

It hurts for me to think as much as you to speak

Lest there be awakenings in our heightened sleep

Now the question that I undertake

Ha! Undertake. Oh. Excuse my cryptic pun spun for others sake

I ask to place my soul for your dark fate

Judge before I hesitate

Who am I to Judge?

I don’t know. Oh is that the key?

Are you asking who is judging me?

Beyond how I am seeing me as I wish to be seen.

But still all you speak is chosen all too carefully.

Selection is that the key?

Pardon. I mean no harm .

I know your state of discourse on historic recourse

Is given the critics mandate.

So you take the past to mold the future.

Apt pupil. What a lesson and tutor.

If my eye is my vision…

Oh do not answer like that!

To force fate is a deplorable slap.

Surely after so many knocks and echoing trails.

Making stepping stones on memory’s bedrock floor.

A rock. Yes a rock. This is the real question.

Ok. More the problem. Do you mind to

Key into my state of mind

The covers are drawn rendering me blind."

Writing and scribbling that’s the biz.

I don’t know where the ends are that’s the twist.

A strip sealed in circular ever rhyme

Now meeting itself and looks eye to eye.

To again claim such a beast hast been born.

Nay father these words and this eye that reads.

I have seen the slow scales of the dragon

Been blown by its breath in sour cessation.

By a pinprick still pinned and ever leashed to pain.

Tempered and presented for praise and blame.

In this room this dark room there is a rock

On this rock all written bigger than you

In the blackest ink is the Word of LOVE.

Going deeper down - now here is the rub.

You do not, have not laid hands against it.

Nor turn your back but face it. Thought to sing

And let your voice sink down into its core.

A low song, a whisper, a sigh, a yawn.

As an oak settles into a forest.

Or so high that your very words and thoughts.

Were the screech and twitter of the sparrows.

All were wasted echoes of love poured forth.

To bounce and renounce a heart beat not heard.

Happy-sad memories of brighter days.

Turned mystery. Anything but break it,

And then you. And I tell only you this.

I tell you this. You would not touch that stone.

From hard nothing no one asked what is it

No one did come and pay you a visit.

You with shiny teared grief and spangled face

Creating in you thought of love undone.

Creating so much blindness by dust.

Camouflaged in tears till made mud and ash.

The only answer to all your questions?

Is to take lovely only brightest

Your last and first delight never lonely

Throw burning into formless history.

With all things remotely necessary.

Or in dead sands gripped by cold hands you float"

When your thoughts were spoken the spell was broken.

Enough of the chatting this gaping.

Your singularly you it twinkles.

What shines the brightest is what the heart

Delights in.

Observing love with pain pricked eyes

The far is made bright.

In vision twisted and knowledge blighted

The prick in time has held itself.

Even the cleverest men be brought hell

And an explosion of Truth.

Why must we float stand up and look around

For falling has ended and we have hit the ground,

And in a dragons inward breath

You breathed on it.

Across these floors desert ash

Became molten matter in the flame

And all that’s in it contained.

Mental alchemy in the words you choose.

Blending me and love and you.

Beneath your magnificent microscope unique.

In telling me the dream you did not wish to chose.

Why not be now loosed because of love?

Rap.2000

Fifty Years in One Act

Cue:

Sound of fading Wedding bells.

Woman:

What happens now? What happens now my LOVE?

Man:

I take you and then we hold hands my dear.

Woman:

For how long my HUSBAND do tell how long?

Man:

Till we gain a son my dear until we get a son.

Woman:

And then my LIFE and then?

Man:

My life I must live; must live.

Woman:

But what of I my ONLY, my ONLY?

Man:

Only you alone can be lonely,

Woman:

But as I am YOURS are you not MINE...

Man:

And other men will come my dear.

Woman:

You are right. I see a priest, the priest my ALL.

So soon, so fast. so many autumns have fallen.

Oh yes I remember you. oh so Tall; so Tall!

-Now the briefest moment.-

Woman:

Are you there my Love? my Love!

Cue:

Sound of a clock ticking

Woman:

Am old and I am old.

Cue:

CURTAINS

Rap.1996

Old Town

An outcrop of city blocks

Throw a shadow on the parking lot.

Sunlight cuts shapes in the park

And makes lace-work with bright and dark.

Grey cars crawl to a stop,

Fences, bricks and shops

Hide them like a rabid pack

To wait until the children cross.

Shopkeepers quote the cost

To window shoppers pushing carts

Who give vacant nods and keep on walking past

In boots which crack leaves sealed in frost.

Bringing cakes and passion fruit

Harps and drums and magic flutes

We fill the stairs and hallways.

Holding masks and waving fans

We hear the playing of the band

And take each other’s hand

To our way through the doorway.

When I pretend eternity

Stands close to me.

I make room.

Feel her breath.

Open my eyes,

Let melt all.

Banishing legions

Lose all thought

Find reason.

God is in the smallest thing expressed.

Days serenity and nights divinity.

Split by morn and eve into infinity.

Seconds with meaning

Every moment dull seeming

Is glory and ritual teeming.

Primed with pattern

We play a tiny part

Thus living on the edge

Makes nature’s heart.

Not if we open a door

But how we turn the handle.

Less the lighting of a match

More when we blow out the candle.

Rap.2001

Solace

I think that there is a wondrous energy

Close and pervasive.

Too sublime for this plane it is felt

In utterances.

Encased in books

Between the covers and the lines

Enshrined in memories

Between two distant yet bound hearts

Enwrapped in dreams

Between two worlds destined to collide

The gateway between the miraculous and mundane

becomes wider.

We live separated by life.

Puzzled people; the scattered pieces of a puzzle

Stemmed by

A greater knowing that to be gone is to be without hope.

Death becomes unbearable when hope is sacrificed.

If we can not hear one atom we could not hear all

We could not see one atom we could not see all

If we could not feel one atom we could not feel.

The duality of consciousness.

Consciousness of ourselves and others.

When all can be sensed we could only

Sense all things

Or we could not sense at all.

From birth to death

Asleep or awake

We are always open to all things

But fear our souls will break.

Should we be asleep or be awake?

Do I sleep for myself or awaken for

Others sake?

Only one life to give for

Only one chance at life.

The Fear and Delight

When we see

Ourselves hidden in other peoples eyes.

But what if

Our eyes have lied?

So we combine ideals beyond theory

And embody deeper needs in ourselves and others

And until these books are really opened by opened eyes we must

Wait in slow torment, separated and united.

This is our hope, our solace.

Rap.1996

The Kingdom

Welcome Wordsmith to this poem

I humbly ask that you read this tome.

Please listen well to this tale I tell

about the loss of faith and a realm.

As a fan drops sliding across a golden floor

courtly laughter echoes within the marble hall.

Ladies in waiting exchange whispered dreams

while a gilded harp drowns out the distant screams.

As the aged king weeps bitter tears

the queen dances away her fears.

The prince shows a secret smile

and the jester prances with his winning guile.

For God and King the commander roars

to the charging hundred bred for war.

From horses high swords come crashing down

till like autumn leaves the dead strew the ground.

Outside all is now cloaked in death

and ravens pick at the kingdom’s best.

No more nights will fight this day

broken shields mixed with blood and clay.

Still their flag so proudly flies,

its many colours hide the lies.

But secrets sooner or later end

and an enemy may yet prove a friend.

For what is told and what is true

change as kingdoms win and kingdoms lose.

History blesses the chaste and just

while deceivers are claimed by ash and dust.

Those with wisdom be you young or old

pray your floors are not paved in gold.

For that which shines can also blind

and wealth that frees is known to bind.

With these last lines my tale must end

I wish goodwill to your King and his valiant men.

But beware the King you trust

or it may be you who returns to just ash and dust.

Rap.1994

The Borrower

I clutch at any book.

A solid significance of time

And signature to my existence.

Although I do not face the pen

I cry to be blessed in my attempt to understand.

What another issues forth.

Hard and hollow

Like smooth velcro

It clings to my chest.

I see a glittered rip

That scars the faded surface.

On legs week with reality

I sink into the dream recorded.

Words as crushed brick moist with blood

And there is another issue

This time of innocence.

My vision is gritty,

A mutated child is born.

It's a boy.

The librarian hands out cigars

Standing still she throws them.

One to be caught in my mouth

And I chew bitter with her hidden tears.

It goes down hard to find my guts more bitter.

A trilogy of little difference.

No Plot

Little character.

A mere division of humor

Naked facts

I smirk tiredly

Ripped edges

I hurt with doors

Digging in creating voids in my flesh

And orifice for eyes.

Disciplined I choose the narrow path

Finding it easier to follow

Blameless in retrospect

Introvert in recognition

Interned for eternity

Go on feel me die.

Opium of no taste.

It is a voluntary wither.

Rap.1990

The Lone Poet

When I see the beautiful things

The things which are good and true

I wonder why I write these poems

And why I write to you.

It seems to me the poems I read

Are the ones you may never hear

I know to me that the poems I write

Are reminders that you're not here.

So when the moon shines twice as bright

And the stars brighter still

I find I lie awake at night

And think perhaps I always will.

Perhaps some words are spoken better

Than they are ever read.

Perhaps there are things written

That would be better said.

I know that poets are often praised

And writers claim their dues.

I know that writing has healed their pain

As such writing has healed yours too.

But I believe that words alone

Leave too many scars.

I believe that true healing

Can only be done with open arms.

But here we are with this poem

Telling me I lie.

But here we are with this poem

So I have no need to cry,

And here I stand reading this

Replacing tears for ink.

I stand reading this

Hiding what I think.

But sometimes when I am lonely,

And I am all alone

I wonder why if I can pick up a pen

I cannot pick up the phone.

They say that the pen

Is mightier than the sword,

And I, like Damocles, wonder if it

Should ever fall.

When the sun has set with the rainfall.

Or mist climbs up to my house upon the hill,

And I am surrounded by all these beautiful things

I know that if I was a swallow I would have flown

A little faster

I know that if I was a willow I would have grown

A little larger.

Know that as a man I walked a little slower

Never one with what I saw.

Too impatient to record.

Rap.1997

To Mount Macedon

We three on the road.

In the car warm wind dances.

Between us alone.

Momentary Fragment

On one afternoon delight

Nature’s majesty cast a room of light.

By the elemental architect and builders,

Parting clouds sank down as pillars.

When, between opaque bars, sunlight burst

Forth golden colonnades.

Now all was furnitured by trees,

Upholstered emerald in grass.

The dying of the day

On the hill and fields exhibiting

Heavenly evidence in the things,

Each original and shimmering,

Under vaulted ether

The world magnified instantly beneath her

Changing, and animated

This domed and varied array

Created in enchantment.

Unlocked and bounded

With beams all surrounded

Onto the centre of my eye.

Praying, contrasted to calm,

Before the spray of a storm incoming

Whose rain’s warmth washed thy into formlessness.

Rap.2002.

Witness

Dear city,

Deserted Mystery.

Now only the wind

Between the bleating of the flock.

The windy echo of that

Does more than simply scour the ruins

Of your dark stones into sand.

Being a pale requiem

Weeping from beneath your rocks

Does sing to me in grains of sadness.

Begging empathy to emptiness

With your funeral symphony

You would never die,

And your once existence

Wagers with eternity for one instance.

Compared to now,

The ever present,

This is the shaking of skeletal hands.

Rap.2002.