Poem: ‘München 1980s’

Munich was the revelation, a summer
day and sultry night spent on streets
full of girls.
Americans from Boston, all eyes,
all teeth and smiles, never knowing
the word ‘retreat’. But they froze
in the face of my voice, my accent
(and so what is that all about?). Not a word
to comprehend, though one
would understand my kiss.

Then we rose in circles of museums,
BMWs going back in time— looking
further out toward Alps, first glimpses of
Olympic legacies, where Bayern now
played in their blazing red. More
a work of art than a stadium; like
the girl at the counter, almost beyond
beauty, leaving me speechless
and sadly gawping. “What is this?”
I asked myself. “What are you
doing to me, this feeling?”

So typical of me, my mind going off
in tangents, to eastern philosophies
of afterlives and rebirth. Patience
has made her beautiful, patience
in forgotten pasts, risen up
into this image which attracts
without trying, like a baby or a kitten,
yet so deep, more profound.

I found myself smiling into
cobalt eyes, stuttering my worst
German words. And all the poor girl did
was blush

poem © copyright David F. Barker 2012
* inspired by a trip to Munich way back when
and Claudia’s fine prompt for dVerse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NIi-Q09gLs

Some favourite music for a hot sultry night…

The Preview

I’m sorry, but I think you’re in my seat. OK, let’s
have a look at your ticket. Oh yes, that’s it, you
need to move along one. Thanks very much,
no harm done.

Ah, looks like it might be a full house tonight.
Maybe it’s the intrigue surrounding the play.
What do I mean? Well, you know – Cardenio,
and all that. One of his supposed ‘missing’ plays.
Apocrypha, I believe that’s the right term,
although that word always sounds so medicinal
to me! Anyhow, what I mean is, it all seems a
little too suspect, if you want my opinion,
something they’ve cobbled together from
various sources, though I’m sure it will be
enjoyable all the same. Better than reading Don
Quixote again, at any rate! What was that? You
think it is pretty close to the original? Right. Well,
we will see. I mean, who among us has read the
original? Oh, I see. Mn.

But then of course, there are still those who
believe he never wrote any of those plays.
And you must admit, you can see where
they’re coming from, can’t you? Well, he was,
after all, relatively uneducated, say compared
to Fletcher, even Ben Jonson. Could he really
have written Hamlet or King Lear, or described
places like Italy so well without ever setting
foot there? I have my doubts.

I say, are you feeling alright? You’re looking a
little off colour.

Actually, if you don’t mind me asking, have I
seen you here before? Maybe in town
somewhere. I thought so! I do apologise if I’m
staring but there’s something about your face,
your eyes. That hairline. And the beard. Wait!
Do you know, you’re the spitting image of that
portrait of… they found in Corpus Christi…

* some time ago we went to see the play Cardenio at Stratford, which was based on parts of a play which may have been written by Shakespeare, which itself was based on Cervantes’ Don Quixote. I imagined myself in the theatre talking to the ghost of Christopher Marlowe, who some believe to be the real Shakespeare. Complicated, it is! But then real history always is, not like the myth that we are presented with most of the time at school and elsewhere…

Grieving

Anne Boleyn? Hans Holbein the Younger [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

(a response to Holbein’s sketch,
purportedly of Anne Boleyn)

So, is this really you? Those full lips
well kissed, I have no doubt,
your pretty duckys hidden, fit for ravagers
we call kings. Holbein’s profile, it
simply shines your intelligence, courts
with language, love and ideas,
perhaps a little too much for kings
and enemies to take, at a time
when your sex are meant to be
little more than slaves and vessels
for petulant princes.

But no one can stop me grieving:
I imagine you blink, turn
and smile at me. Oh,
you are strong and keen, yet tender
and kind like all mothers
and lovers should be. No wonder
other men may have dreamed
on those lips, carried away
by your verve, which only victors
ever get to call treason. Now I wish
I could touch your fine chin
and whisper: “Elizabeth—
remember Elizabeth!” My words
vanish into air like justice, while you
stare blankly through Traitor’s Gate;
but this little girl takes the better part
of you, better than any king before
or since, of this abject state

Milly Reynolds’ New Book: ‘The Second Death of Dr Finck’

A new book by Crime Fiction writer, Milly Reynolds, is due out imminently on Kindle.
It is the second book in the Jack Sallt series, a detective based in Norfolk, England, who has a lot of rough edges, getting him into serious scrapes with enemies, colleagues and loved-ones alike:
Two men are found in a beached boat, one dead, one seriously injured, stretching the resources of an already underfunded police force.
Suspended detective inspector, Jack Sallt, is reluctantly rushed back on duty to face his most perplexing and dangerous case yet, where old foes move in the shadows, threatening violence, controlling him with sensual taunts.
In the tense climax, Jack has to face his relentless enemies head on, risking not only his own life but also those of his colleagues and loved ones.

Flesh of the Gods

“For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.” Matthew 13:12

His wish was for eternity, flesh
of the sun to mask his corruption; yet
he got his wish the instant Carter’s
torch shone through that chiseled hole: An afterlife
lived only through posterity, outshining
his ignominious end, all
made possible by legions of lackeys who worked
and then died.
Fast forward the centuries
and see little has changed, though
the flesh of the gods
is in bars, hidden in vaults underground, never
seen— like the hopes and dreams of peace,
these rigged scales of elusive justice. We are
left to scrap and save what we can
in a manufactured, finite
world, this theatre underfoot
none like us shall inherit. There is, after all,
only one sun in the sky
and Osiris lies in pieces, unable
to be mended again

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