Jonathan Beale

An Englishman's Poems

 

 

 

Scene from across the Moor

 

I pull up (somewhere quiet and secluded)

flick the base of my cigarette pack –

pluck a single cigarette – foot up on dash

window open my in my thigh for…. For what?

Like some sculpted objected with history or destiny.

The hyena selecting its victim steered

by thumb and held by fore finger

to my lips.  Zippo.  Flick.  Click.  Crackle.

I inhale the Moors are vast all consuming -

vast seas of apparent nothingness oceans full to the brim

I consume my cigarette flick the butt

out of the window. And so begin again

 

 

 

After Germinal (2001) by Mathew Ritchie

 

Its March 20th the air is ready

Ripe for revolution

They are help under a spell

Of a cloud of unknowing -  

What is just around the corner

What is the next, and the next…?

 

A massive weight of expectation

 

What is to come?

 

There is always the hope that hope that encases

Every seed…

 

…even the seed

Is among the driest dustiest blackest coal – life giving

 

Étienne Lantier that young driven idealistic engine

His red raw rage that drove him on and on and can be heard today.

 

 

 

Under the Northern Lights 

After Sibelius

 

It was Finlandia that occupied the uniquely Biblical landscape

That the characters – lost within the everyday characters ‘just like you.’

Behind the trash bins and the threadbare shrub devoid landscape

and beauty.  Seas of snow drown the creative mind then slap it back

to life – the northern lights compose a private symphony.

Unknown by the many except eagles and elks who dance the night away. 

 

 

 

Road to Narragonia II

 

Their steps in this ‘now’

          like typing names in a space

Forming on billboards

          on roads passed by millions

Seen by none. Then they 

          pause to think, a pause…

a pah…pah a pau se se

          a pa pa pause….

night dropped from the clumsy fingers

          of a clumsy god – not his error

of course.

          and why now they decline cigarettes

and whiskey and bourbon

          the casinos feminine charm allures

us away down this road

          some say ruin

the harvest reaped

          leaves nothing for tomorrow         

 

 

 

The Good Samaritan

By Vincent Van Gogh (after Delacroix)

 

They’ve turned their backs on someone

Who the fates ignored

(assuming some of the fates are positive)

As Wittgenstein commented

on being told ”that was lucky.”

“What do mean – by lucky?”

He struck back with sword like simplicity. 

Too much of life is passed by without question.

 

The Good Samaritan:

as they Samaritans are bad by implication

His vastness: his strength:

the donkey listens to the action.

Although unsympathetic and unable to help

The box emptied there in remains

the lining of hope

Transparent yet enough to support

the whole of humankind.

For all eternity.

 

That moment that Samaritan had somewhere to go

Somewhere to be and yet

in his own glorious yellow coat and blue trousers

Gave a fellow something immeasurable

Something unforgettable

By those who saw this act

Gold has no carat or bearing here

 

 

   

Jonathan Beale writes from England. He is the author of The Destinations of Raxiera (Hammer & Anvil Books, 2015)