Blockhead

 'No-one but a blockhead ever wrote except for money'

                                                            Samuel  Johnson

OK so I'm a blockhead.

Welcome

I hope you enjoy reading from this collection

as much as I enjoyed writing it.

(more poems in 'SAO' by Michael Amor on Kindle

a complete overland tour of S. America)

What makes a piece of writing a poem?

I f there isn't any rhyme or at least repeating rhythm,

it's just pretentious shredded prose and not a proper poem.

Material for myth

I rest and raise my head from a session of winter digging.

It isn't really cold but still my nose is dripping.

It's damp and growing dark. Eastward the the wind is rolling

a grey duvet of cloud across a bare hill's muscled shoulder;

westward is a skyline of skeletal trees resembling

a distant platoon of ragged soldiers surrendering.

A single seagull tacks across the wind spiralling

arabesques on the sky. Now a flotilla of more gulls

appears, a wind blown bluster of white leaves whirling.

Then I hear a call. I know the sound. Like a mewing

animal. I search the sky. There. High up, circling

around each other. Not animals but birds. Buzzards.

Three of them dancing the air, continually calling.

And now two more fly in to join them, all five ascending

towards the clouds. Five ! Surely they must stop rising

now. They are almost into the bottom of the cloud.

But no. One by one they disappear into the grey fluff.

I wait for them to re-appear. Nothing. I keep watching.

Still no sign of them. Eventually I tire of waiting,

shoulder my spade and start to walk home wondering

what an earlier, more superstitious age would have made

of the event. Some secret place in the clouds welcoming

the birds home? An avian country ? A kingdom of buzzards?

TO MY WIFE

A day in May,  weekend in June

and weeks in April very soon

were distant memories in view

of all the rest of life in you.

GOODBYE

Leaving I gave my love a rose

fragrant, royal, red

saying "Take this flower from him

you kept from your bed."

Glaring at me, proud in parting

sharply she said

"What am I to do with it?

Why give me this?

I don't want your gestures now

or farewell kiss."

Just as I'd guessed she would -

a chance not to miss.

"Just let it die" I said

"wither and die.

Don't ever water it

cover the sky.

Just like my love for you

just let it die."

Turning she left me with her smile

dazzling, royal, red

saying "I shall keep your flower

though love has fled.

Having no root it must of course

quickly be dead."

Just like my love for you

GIRLS NIGHT OUT

The photos will show them smiling, laughing at the phone,

these clustered women embracing the weekend evening

together at the disco, families left at home,

reviving the tingle of teenage dreaming.

The videos will show them dancing together while a stream

of men flows past, sometimes splashing a glance

of interest at their antics which perhaps may seem

inviting some sort of dalliance dance.

But any sort of misbehaviour seems out of place,

young daring ceding to mid-life propriety.

That this can happen regardless of race

is tribute to British open society.