Neighbourliness Sestina

Tags

AA, antidote, Audi, Chinos, do-gooding, Hazmat, neighbourliness, nerve agent, rogue state, Samaritan, sestina

The lawyer asked Him: Who is my neighbour?

He said, I’ll offer moral assistance.

Nowadays you’re out at work and ignore

those who live opposite, or alongside.

One day you spot someone in a bad state,

lying in their drive, but you’re in a rush.

 

Lawyer:

I’m late to pick the kids up, so must rush.

It’s bound to be dealt with by a neighbour,

so I’ll spring into my Audi estate.

That nosy woman will give assistance –

the one who draws her curtains to one side.

A chance for do-gooding, she won’t ignore.

 

I should ring up the police, but just ignore

those dodgy callers, who seemed in a rush

and annoyed me by parking on my side:

too many visitors for one neighbour!

They doubtless gave him hefty assistance

with his mortgage.  (He comes from a rogue state.)

 

Him:

You’ve claimed you’re public-spirited, but state

your character through your actions; ignore

the twitching corpse in his drive.  Assistance!

Who helped to dig you out when in a rush?

Lawyer:

It was the man from the AA.  Neighbour?

Getting involved can just be suicide.

 

And, if I go over and kneel beside

this loser; feel his pulse, what kind of state

will my Chinos end up in?  This ‘neighbour’

could contaminate me; I should ignore

his plight. A family man’s in no rush

to inhale nerve agents.  Police assistance –

 

or, perhaps paramedic assistance…

they’ll have Hazmats and antidotes beside.

Where angels fear to tread they’re known to rush.

Samaritans don’t live on this estate!

Him:

So, walk on by is what you’ll do; ignore

the parlous condition of your neighbour?

 

Lawyer:

Rush to his side?  No, not for one’s neighbour.

To ignore the perils of assistance

is for citizens of another state.

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The Inexpressible Expressed (a Sestina)

Tags

agora, Diogenes, Epicureans, Halirrhothius, ineffability, Mars Hill, orator, Paul, sestina, Stoics, Unknown God

 

Paul was in the agora (market-place)

and saw the altar to The Unknown God.

Unimpressed by ineffability,

he was moved to make a proclamation.

Being keen on words and declaration,

he spelled out the Creator’s qualities.

 

A skilled orator, he had qualities

respected by debaters in that place.

Converts were won by his declaration.

Diogenes submitted to Paul’s God

and was made Bishop by proclamation:

an agent for Ineffability.

 

Could God retain ineffability

and yet reveal immanent qualities?

His Son, some say, was the Proclamation-

the One prepared to come down to this place,

to manifest the true nature of God

the Father – a fleshly declaration.

 

Not speculation, but declaration

validated ineffability.

Paul introduced the Personhood of God

and defined the Almighty’s qualities.

Stoics, Epicureans in that place

felt the power of his proclamation.

 

The gods had made their own proclamation

on that very site and a declaration

of guilt had been conferred in that same place,

for crimes besmirch ineffability:

Halirrhothius judged for qualities

inconsistent with the ways of a god.

 

On that steep Hill of Mars, who was the god

of War, Paul made a love proclamation.

He swept away the fickle qualities

of their deities.  His declaration

was that Divine Ineffability

condescended to one time and one place.

 

Paul’s proclamation; God’s declaration:

Ineffability’s limitation

of qualities, so we transcend our place.

 

 

 

 

 

Great Coxwell’s Barn

Tags

aesthetic, Cistercian, Cotswold, Genesis, Great Coxwell, Henry VIII, Joseph, Malachi 3, Matthew 6, Pharoah, Pre-Raphaelite, sestina, The National Trust, William Morris

(Photo: Ballista: Wikipaedia)

 

Great Coxwell’s Barn

 

Off Hollow Way stands this vast, vacant barn:

huge receptacle for Cistercian tithes,

garnered from tenant farmers – a dry store,

where the granger checked accounts; did not trust

his hired servants.  Here Cotswold riches

were protected from thieves and from decay.

 

Christ had warned disciples about decay

and storing up of surplus in a barn.

Christians were always meant to share riches

and not to extract profit from fat tithes.

The parable’s ‘fool’ was he whose whole trust

was in possessions.  He had wrath in store.

 

Henry VIII would plunder a marked store

and most abbeys were subject to decay.

Monastic wealth was held in deep distrust.

Though Morris praised this cathedral-like barn,

Pre-Raphaelites would not restore tithes;

they venerated aesthetic riches.

 

We coveted colonial riches

and viewed the whole world as potential store,

compelling other countries to pay tithes;

forgetting moth and rust would cause decay.

What were the treasures we stored in our barn?

We’ll reap what we sowed: we abused faith, trust.

 

Joseph, in whom Pharoah had put his trust,

managed underground silos of riches

and, when his brothers came – not to a barn-

but to the pits where corn was kept in store,

did they recall they’d left him to decay

in such a space?  (He who asked no tithes.)

 

 

This massive hulk, once packed with peasant tithes,

now supported by The National Trust,

mouldered with neglect; died of decay,

until ‘heritage’ was seen as riches.

What are the values we would like to store?

Should we maintain the past?  Convert the barn?

 

Some build barns with their family riches,

but tithes benefited community,

as long as mutual trust did not decay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bristlecone : a Sestina on Survival

Tags

Bristlecone, climactic vaults, heartwood, Longevity, Methusaleh, Mother nature, Pinus longeava, Promethean, sestina, snow crystals, survival

(Photo: jrbouldin at Wikipedia)

 

Methuselah, you ancient Bristlecone –

rooted to the spot on your downward side,

flying snow crystals, lightning, exposed

your heartwood, so you’re more dead than alive,

but scoured into a fantastic shape

and mastering your harsh environment.

 

 

You thrive in this barren environment;

it makes you a successful Bristlecone.

A lesser species would be in worse shape;

wouldn’t have knee-high saplings at its side.

Below, the sage brush is scarcely alive;

up here your resilience is exposed.

 

 

Birds took your seed to lower ground, exposed

it to a much gentler environment.

Those seedlings grew quickly; seemed so alive,

but grew straight – so unlike a Bristlecone.

Then curious scientists came alongside,

to analyse those needles’ incurved shape.

 

 

Buffetings have given you that weird shape.

The store in your climactic vaults exposed

secrets of surviving the mountainside:

how to adapt to that environment.

Pinus longaeva – well-named Bristlecone,

bedded in dolomitic soil, alive –

 

 

not cultivated, but polished, alive.

Civilisations’ sine wave graphic shape,

is atypical of the Bristlecone.

Your victorious, steady endurance exposed

those less in tune with their environment.

Mother Nature seems to be on your side.

 

 

Science did not seem to be on your side

when it bored into cambium – a live

specimen’s – to measure environment

and its effect on arboreal shape.

Hubristic Promethean theft exposed

a greed for knowledge; killed a Bristlecone.

 

 

Bristlecone, so exposed and yet alive –

your twisted shape conquers environment.

Concentric, your rings chart longevity.

A Sestina on The Fall

Tags

Adam and Eve, Cranach the Elder, forbidden knowledge, Free Will, hortus clausus, Paradise, sestina, temptation, The Fall, Uffizi

(Cranach the Elder: Uffizi- Adam and Eve)

 

In the hortus clausus of Paradise,

Adam and Eve were naked, without shame;

partook of luscious fruits’ delectation

and yet, both were subject to temptation

and yielded. God then issued His calm denunciation:

expelled, they entered a marred Creation.

 

They wanted to be lords of Creation;

were not content to live in Paradise.

Adam, quick in his denunciation

of his wife and, both wearing leaves of shame,

blamed the wily serpent for temptation.

Forbidden knowledge was delectation.

 

And, oh the price of that delectation:

to have usurped the Lord of Creation!

Over-weening hearts, prey to temptation,

caused them to exchange Earthly Paradise

for lives of labour, childbirth pain and shame

and inter-gender denunciation.

 

Lest we jump to denunciation

of the Almighty, His delectation

in His creatures was His aim.  Death and shame

were never endgames in His Creation.

But how could there be sin in Paradise?

Free will left them open to temptation.

 

Yes, automata feel no temptation:

adoration, or denunciation

of God both possible in Paradise.

Disobedience was their delectation;

they wanted to be Lords of Creation,

yet, till their eyes were opened, felt no shame.

 

Do we repeat the arrogance and shame

in excusing ourselves our temptation?

Have we now lost Free Will?  Does Creation

struggle under God’s denunciation?

There was One, Who said His delectation

was to obey and He left Paradise.

 

We, His new creation; delectation!

Conquering shame, temptation, He opened,

Paradise; cancelled denunciation.                                                                                

Sestina for Palm Sunday

Tags

Assisi frescoes, Balaam, Hosanna!, Messiah, Palm Sunday, Pharisees, Pietro Lorenzetti, Roman rule, San Francesco, sestina, Sion

(Pietro Lorenzetti, Assisi fresco: San Francesco S Transept

http://www.aiwaz.ner/panopticon/lorenzetti-pietro/gi58po)

 

 

So, if you are challenged about the ass,

just say ‘ The Lord hath need of it,’ He said.

I’m coming to them as a different king,

envisaging another kind of rule.

My humble steed will show them that the meek

will ultimately rule over the earth.

 

The disciples obeyed, but ‘What on earth

is He doing?’ they questioned. ‘A dumb ass!’

We hope its owner, when he’s asked, is meek;

remembers once upon a time, he said

he’d lend Him it.  For Friendship’s golden rule

is not to lend, unless it’s to a king.

 

Growing crowds cried:  ‘Hosanna to the King!’

‘Blessed be He who comes down to our Earth

in the name of the Lord.  O, let Him rule

We recall Balaam and his talking ass.

What miracle will there be next?’  They said:

‘It’s strange a Messiah should look so meek.’

 

The Pharisees were anything but meek;

were unimpressed by any kind of king.

‘The world has gone after Him!’ they all said.

‘They think their Saviour has come down to Earth.

Well, they are all simple peasants.  His ass

may well understand more of Roman rule.

 

This upstart seems to break every rule;

He affects to be quite harmless and meek.

We recognise reference to an ass

and how, sitting on a colt, Sion’s king

will come.  He’s announcing His reign on Earth.

We don’t like this Hosanna! stuff,’  they said.

 

‘Master, rebuke your disciples!‘ they said.

‘Who do you think you are that you should rule

over us?  We’ll teach you how to be meek.

Apart from Caesar, there isn’t a king.

Anyone who disagrees is an ass.

 

But the people cast cloaks before the ass,

acknowledging Christ’s rule; hailing Him King

and said: May this meek one rule forever!

 

 

The Burning Bush

Tags

acacia, Adonai, auto-combustion, boscage, Brexit, burning bush, Church Green, Cotswolds, Crateagus, David Cameron Witney, Desolation, Dieric Bouts, hawthorn, Highgrove, I Am Who I Am, Israelites, kohl, Michael Portillo, Midian, Milton, Mindfulness, Moses, pastures new, pillar of fire, Prince Charles, Renaissance Man, SamCam, sestina, Shekinah, Sir Philip Sidney, smoking flax, St Catherine's Monastery, St George and Dragon Dragon Hill, U A Fanthorpe, UKIP, Waitrose

 

Dear Brassica,

Hope you are not inundated in the South.  Read about all the flooding,

power cuts and trees coming down.

Yes, I like being in The Cotswolds.  Might bump into David

Cameron in Waitrose at Witney.  Recognised Church Green the other

day as his backdrop, when he was telling the world that he was giving

up as an MP.

Remembered the shock (some years ago) of seeing a photo in The

Financial Times of Michael Portillo, posing on the bridge at the end of

my garden in Suttonford.  I think he must have been visiting his

associate, George, who lived nearby.

Well, I needn’t fret: I am evidently still at the centre of global events.

Mind you, sometimes taking early retirement and leaving your old pals

for pastures new (ghastly euphemism pinched and abused from Milton,

who employed it freshly) can be a bit daunting.  That’s why it was

wonderful to come across a veritable burning bush of hawthorn berries

above Dragon Hill – you know, where St George allegedly slew the dragon.

I kept thinking of U. A. Fanthorpe and her witty, GCSE anthology-

endorsed poem on that subject.

I was compelled to approach this crimson phenomenon as it was so

vibrant and it reminded me of Moses and his encounter with verbal,

auto-combustible branches of boscage.

I wondered what it might say to me and checked on the original tale.

So, Moses was over 40 years old and no longer a bigwig.  Instead he was

caring for his father-in-law’s sheep, which did not exactly utilise his

expensive Midian education.  (I suppose he might have been having a

crisis, like David Cameron after loss of power.  But I don’t think SamCam

would like Dave taking to pastoral studies unless she got a discount on

wool for her new fashion line.)

I wonder if Moses’ wife still wore her kohl in the backside of the desert?

Or had she already been yummy-mummified by then?

However, the encouraging thing is that, in a moment of paying

attention – I’m not going to say ‘mindfulness‘ – Moses was called to

a new commission, namely to be leader of the Israelites, as they were

to be delivered from slavery.

So, Brassie, what do you think I did?

No, I didn’t apply for leadership of UKIP, or any other party,

hoping to take my people through the wasteland of Brexit…

No, I wrote another sestina on the epiphanal moment when I

realised that I am not past it.  I mean, I knew it, but I had not felt it

in recent days.

My friends who were staying with me had just been to Highgrove,

where it has been suggested Prince Charles talks to plants, so people

may accept, that, in a way, a bush spoke to me yesterday. and said

something like, Fool, look in thy heart and write!

(Okay, so I know I am appropriating Philip Sidney, but it was a poetic

moment and who better to prompt you to get on and do something with

your life than the original Renaissance Man?)

It was in the news yesterday that trees communicate with one another

and, in Fanthorpe’s poem, the dragon speaks, so, suspend your disbelief,

dear Brassie.

Here’s the poem inspired by a communicative Crataegus, namely the

humble hawthorn, except that it was an acacia in the case of Moses

and they have the original (they allege) at St Catherine’s Monastery:

 

The Burning Bush Speaks

So, how was I to get his attention?

Ah yes, an acacia bush on fire-

though plenty self-ignite and are destroyed,

he’ll notice that I actually sustain

and it is not consumed.  Thus I will speak:

that ought to alert him to my presence.

 

He feels that he no longer has presence.

The world has ceased to pay him attention

as he minds in-laws’ sheep, over a fire

on Desolation Mountain, so to speak.

It’s not an activity to sustain

a man’s confidence, which has been destroyed.

 

A Midian education, doubt-destroyed;

his eyes blinded to Shekinah presence-

he has to be convinced that I sustain.

He is not paying me due attention;

the smoking flax is no longer on fire.

Moses!  Can he believe a bush will speak?

 

He cautiously approaches tongues of fire.

Confidence that had been all but destroyed

re-ignites, as I re-assure him, speak

my name:  I Am Who I Am  (The Presence)

and creator of all hope.  I sustain

 

the universe.  The Egyptians I sustain.

The Israelites I will refine with fire

and, in order to gain his attention,

I’ll speak to him from something not destroyed

by elemental powers.  My presence

is going to give him confidence to speak.

 

I have a message; words for him to speak

and laws which I will give him to sustain

my people.  He will convey my presence;

cause them to follow my pillar of fire;

ensure that other gods are all destroyed.

Now, Moses, I need your full attention:

 

Speak! For the Egyptians will be destroyed.

Sustain your attention.  Heed my presence.

The fire of Adonai will burn in you.

 

(Image: Dieric Bouts)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Matter of Trust

Tags

betrayal, nothing will come of nothing, sestina, Trust

Now I have got the hang of the sestina, I can’t stop!

 

 

Marriage was supposed to be based on trust.

When challenged, he had said it was nothing.

She hadn’t envisaged that he would cheat.

How she wished she hadn’t found that letter,

or the lipstick marks that were so suspect.

She felt that she was going up the wall.

 

And between them, there seemed to be a wall.

At the beginning, she had put her trust

in God, in him- little did she suspect

that she was a mere cipher; a nothing

to him.  Though compliant to the letter,

she’d never please one who would always cheat.

 

Was it a triviality to cheat;

a childish mis-demeanour, or a wall

of lies, crushing her heart?  And the letter,

addressed to one who had betrayed her trust:

it was an enormity; not nothing-

to have one’s self-esteem shattered; to suspect

 

that he did not view himself as suspect;

that he would blithely carry on, to cheat,

to tell his mistress his wife meant nothing

and, if she cried, to callously stonewall

her needs while she’d remain patient; would trust

that he would start proceedings by letter.

 

She came home from work.  There was the letter.

She knew it would come, but didn’t suspect

its impact.  The betrayal of her trust

overwhelmed her.  She had married a cheat:

the writing was well and truly on the wall.

So, she had pledged her troth for nothing.

 

Who was it said nothing would come of nothing?

Whoever had been right, to the letter.

And so now she was up against the wall.

Though she’d play fair, she could only suspect

he’d lie, mis-represent and try to cheat.

Oh, what a fool she’d been to ever trust!

 

But trust nothing again?  She was no cheat.

I suspect she’ll construct no wall of shame:

beyond the letter of the law lives trust.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fourth Circle

Tags

Dante, Fourth Circle of Hell, glossolalia, Gustav Dore, mountebank, sestina, tele-evangelist, villanelle, widow's mite

So, villanelle rhymes with hell? commented Brassie.

Yes, and very useful it is for my poetic purposes, I replied.

And ‘fourth circle?’ queried Brassie.

The destination of corrupt tele-evangelists and their like.

But there was no television in Dante’s time.

She can be really obtuse.

Just listen and learn!

 

THE FOURTH CIRCLE

 

He played upon their fear of going to Hell

and claimed that he could heal the blind and lame,

till, mesmerised, they fell beneath his spell.

 

Attracted to his giveaway gospel,

as to a mountebank, the greedy came:

he played upon their fear of going to Hell.

 

Glossolalia from forked tongue glibly fell;

extracted cash lent kudos to his name,

till, mesmerised, they fell beneath his spell.

 

His oleaginous hair, apparel

slick as the cut and thrust which was his aim:

he played upon their fear of going to Hell.

 

How could his victims reservations quell?

They trusted one who seemed to know his game,

till, mesmerised, they fell beneath his spell.

 

No one seemed to mind when he’d embezzle

the widow’s mite.  To query would bring shame.

He played upon their fear of going to Hell,

till, mesmerised, they fell beneath his spell.

 

 

A Sestina on Senescence

Tags

entropy, Eos, Macbeth, mortality, old age, senescence, sestina, sic transit gloria mundi, Struldbrugs, Tithonus

Eos pursuing Tithonus: Louvre

 

SESTINA ON SENESCENCE

 

It comes to all of us- old age-

 

with aches and pains and memory loss,

 

which intimate mortality,

 

reminding us of matters grave:

 

the inevitable changes;

 

the unavoidable decline.

 

 

Some invitations we now decline.

 

(Youth does not mix too well with age.)

 

Our crow’s feet presage further changes.

 

Perhaps our non-attendance is no loss

 

to those who do not wish to face their grave,

 

nor trace the lines of their mortality.

 

 

‘Nothing serious in mortality?’

 

And yet Macbeth resisted his decline,

 

declaiming while one boot was in the grave.

 

(At least he did not have to reach old age.)

 

He knew a crown was not worth all the loss.

 

Sic transit gloria mundi: nothing changes.

 

 

Icons who have trounced Life’s changes

 

may rub our noses in mortality,

 

though they themselves experienced loss

 

of face, of friends and suffered love’s decline,

 

they died unwithered by the blasts of age

 

and somehow made a portal of their grave.

 

So, do our footsteps all point to the grave?

 

Does Death’s knell merely ring the changes?

 

Our brain cells burn out from an early age.

 

Is this how we define mortality:

 

an inbuilt diminution, a decline?

 

Or, do we think there’s much to gain from loss?

 

 

Life’s penalty may seem to us a Pyrrhic loss;

 

we can’t resist the pull towards our grave

 

and feel like Struldbrugs in our steep decline.

 

Is entropy to blame for all these changes?

 

If future medics cure mortality

 

will we, like Tithonus, just age and age?

 

 

Why shun mortality when the changes

 

need not be loss of anything but age-

 

the grave not something that we should decline.