Real Poems

A poet,

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:15:00 +0000

lost in words, sits on a train’s

deluded rails that seem to converge

like wrinkles on his hands and face

- before and back - through time and space.

Avoiding headlines

but chasing a hunt

for every letter

- like sperm - in word - and sound.

Riding rails,

narrow minded,

cliché trip

up a track:

wondering and gazing,

secretly alive

One morning, lost, he

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 07:43:00 +0000

sits exhausted in an airport
hoping for a pretty sky;
hearing words from nations’ update,
jumble into purple sky.

Every word intends connection
- hopeful – casting line and fly.
Once outspoken, lost in motion,
kisses in a pretty sky.

Yes

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 07:34:00 +0000

When the world's abundant

I pick the flower, yes.

When the world’s connected,

I reach for a handshake, yes.

When the world is loving,

I hug the answer yes.

When the world’s deciding,

I bet the answer yes.

When the world is dawning,

look up, the answer’s yes.

When the world is learning,

sorry, the answer’s yes.

When the world is teasing,

yes, the answer’s yes.

Brother

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 08:03:00 +0000

I looked into my brother’s eye
and saw a tree there waving.
I passed beyond a garden gate
and heard a mountain calling.
I walked a long a stony path
and tasted waves a–spraying.
I looked into my brother’s eye
and felt a fire – burning.

Deep beyond the black, black sky,
I looked into my brother’s eyes
and saw myself there waving.

Shakespeare knew

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 08:22:00 +0000

a word blows into time

with every glittering chance

to heal our headspace, heart, and fly;

lifting humans by the hand,

dancing under Vincent sky

- in one chord and the next.

Traveling Man

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:25:00 +0000

Train’s tracking north,

when he spots barren trees,

feels an ancient pang

- missing a special child.

Even disconnected – like the coldest

winter twigs - he hangs on – and hopes

another summer lifts and melts the ice

on hard converging tracks.

Alone, in time and space,

one glance of hares in spring,

the sound of a child laughing,

could dissolve his eyes

and turn rails - left and right -

– out, away – and back - into a beating heart.

Hot breakfast

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 09:22:00 +0000

Half forgotten’s only half remembered;

something niggled out beyond awareness

today as we were busy cooking breakfast

and though I stood there frying, looking steadfast,

a monster kept on swimming under Loch Ness;

- so scary I can hardly dare remember.

It’s getting darker early mid-November;

best to watch I do not get too careless,

slip the anger out in all its vastness!

Better hold it in by staying stuck fast.

(Despite the smiling looks, I couldn’t care less)

and I will sure ensure that I remember

to get you back, you bastard, this December,

even though it’s adding to my hair loss

to plot a future payback for this breakfast.

It’s over – you and I will quickly get lost

in swamps and rivers, take another compass

reading out, away, from this old breakfast.

As memory assembles – we’ll remember.

Choices

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:17:00 +0000

If ever you play Scrabble

with one arm over a loved one’s

shoulder - then - and only then

will you smile down at a board

- that universe spread beneath breaths

and get a sense of the next letter

- your strategy -

that is – what - and how - and when - and whether

to bother to feel for a next little word

- your play.

Midnight Slovakia

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:50:00 +0000

Tiniest flakes

spatter our windscreen;

moonlight catches

lumbering giant fir trees,

limbs drooping snow

and, as we clutch and gear change,

I swear a giant wakes

with an out-breath – sssssshh –

and a fulsome white heap

swoops to hammer transient glass.

Breakfast

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 07:31:00 +0000

Eating his breakfast
alone, young Andrew sits
and sings a shanty as he eats.
Shall we look and listen as he munches,

tears the air around
with Music of the Night?
Divisive toast and Marmite
- cut with sound!

No Star ever sang out from the heart
more truly,
or chorus-singer flowed with sound
so thrilling.

No blackbird called for light-on-earth
so earnest,
or wave crashed out from sea-on-rock,
calamitous.

Does it matter what he sings?
- of love or battles,
sorrow, loss or pain?
Does it matter?

Oh yes, it matters as long
as hearts jump glory in that song;
sincerity, exuberance, no care:
rare.

Hubbub

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:54:00 +0000

Noise inside this room is loud:
no voice seems ever quite as bold as Andrew,
my autistic son
- his voice is missing here.

He can sing – louder than a horn –
as long as loved ones standing near
listen to his rising tone,
resonate a chest, a core

and now I walk out through a door
to stand in rain, suck the breeze
and clock a waving tree;
beat my beating heart.

Phew

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 07:43:00 +0000

The moon’s a cube tonight
- so square I drop back in my
house – terrified by corner, angle!

I have another look outside,
pulling back my floral nets -
thank God the corners have revolved
- the moon become parallelogram,
a few new stars chipped off!

And, as the moon descends,
it turns and squashes
back into that perfect O
I used to know
and sinks, a lonely tear,
down into a slowly rising sea.

King

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 07:03:00 +0000

Here’s a hand from the right side
holding a tangle of cotton.

Finger and thumb from the left side
(turning before the wind catches)
take up the end of a blue one
and master it into the sun.

The sky of sixty nine

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:35:00 +0000

look up at a screen,
and the black and white sparkle:
Armstrong strides the moon.

On a train

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 08:35:00 +0000

it’s only when
another tunnel comes
that darkness falls
and her old face
reflects back in
the window pane
- smiles again.

When foreheads meet,
that moment’s when
she integrates
her eyes and ears,
mouth and nose;
blesses back
her misty angel soul.

Slovakia in Winter

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:51:00 +0000

‘Buy my perfume – BOSS – boss?’
asks a dapper at the station
- graffiti hits on every wall
(graffiti reaching carriage windows)
and desolate, slate-grey, the journey
out from the city, smoke hard as nails
until the ground rises and fields

heave in view and the river we follow
twinkles and sparkles, turns with our train,
and the mist in the valley
climbs to the hills with a first glimpse of snow
and the far distant mountains flume out a welcome,
tinkle my heartstrings in hopefulness,
amber and russet and black and then go.

Andrew Spice

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 09:26:00 +0000

When he dances

in a turn, a jump,

a killer smile,

he has a plan

more cunning than

a Broadway star,

more ancient than

a Stratford Bard.

Whatever they’re thinking

he’ll make them feel

more human, more real,

from the depth of a wellspring

‘Remember. Remember; yeah, yeah!

They will remember me!’

Superman

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 07:49:00 +0000

goes back to the wife and kids,
drives through amber on the way;
ready for his running club,
then a final drop of lids;
snoring like a dozy bear,
snorting like a horse in hay.

One day he’ll come back home and blub,
- wail - as every baby can:

missing sunrise, waving corn,
huddles, eyeballs, nothing more.

Pantomime

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 07:33:00 +0000

Granddads and grandkids,
bald heads and roundheads,
teenage cavaliers
snorting at the prospect.

Grandmas with twinsets,
princesses with crowns on,
teenage femme fatales
sneering at the scene.

Open featured actors,
passion of the children
clean our dirty heartstrings

and fledgling troubadours
cheer with all the action,
clap until they’re sore.

This train will stop at

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 06:32:00 +0000

seat or sofa, stop in bed,
stop for coffee, beer and bread,
stop at nothing, stop my head,
stop that nonsense, stop the blood,
stop the bottle, stop the spread,
stop the car, stop sign ahead,
stop all the clocks – my stopwatch said –
stoptap, stop light, stop off. Stop.
Stopcock’s stopped. Step off. I’m dead.

Hunting

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 07:39:00 +0000

On a train to London
he goes a-hunting
between coffee cups,
iphones, apps.
Outside, backwards, fly
- green fields – blue sky.

He’ll need a large pool of luck,
all his courage,
to look out - into
faces;
longing for eyes in the glass of a window,
hoping to catch a truth.

Vincent

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 06:36:00 +0000

Vincent, are you pretty matey?

Vincent are you beautiful?

Passionate as any pirate,

mad and wonderful?

How can throats not sadden

to think of how you showed

standing at an easel, dancing,

heart as pure as newly melting snow.

In the East,

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:01:00 +0000

one green blade of grass

far beyond the horizon

catches morning light.

Andrew

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 06:44:00 +0000

Over multiple years

of separated poles – alone –

the sun has melted Arctic ice,

Antarctic crackled stone.

But, tonight, when you stood there

using only quiet breath

to sing ‘I wanna be like you oo oo!’

a white bird flew out from the warmth

of dancing turns,

Elvis hips,

burning eyes,

waving hands;

circled on the verge

of waking sleep

and drilled a crevice in my heart

that only children reach.

Robert Frost wins at Scrabble

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 07:12:00 +0000

I walked along a farmyard wall and saw

a face that I had seen a place before

- as gnarled and wise as any harbinger

but when I turned and walked another way

his face had changed into a howling wolf

that forced me, pinned me, savaged me with love;

conditioned to the wordless bard I am

- the final piece – which letter to put down?