Real Poems

Banker from Yorkshire

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Thu, 24 May 2012 05:33:00 +0000

When train rattles south

- warmth - it is - we face

and warmer still - we might arrive

kipping with an open mouth

and b’hat self-pity

leavin’ snow behind a pace

into a sleepy London city

and t’other willful acts we may conceive.

Just now

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Mon, 21 May 2012 07:50:00 +0000

inside a notebook, on a table in front,

I wrote lots of words - with letters revealing

something not around before; I suppose

a relationship - paper and pen and tipping nib

- and I’m hoping that between the scratchy paper,

turns and lines, a spirit-charge of

electricity could light a shadow,

unleash a note, arise from a dream

that I scribbled in a word in a

notebook on a tabletop out there.

Double Dream

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Fri, 18 May 2012 06:01:00 +0000

One day I dreamed a tiny dream

and dreamed of dreaming up a dream,

conjured from my brighter side

dancing in the high-day sun,

sand between my tiny toes,

hands and fingers up and reaching far,

far out into a web of stars.

But, in the dream, my dark side rose

and howled a wolf onto the moon,

chased a rabbit down a hole,

savage supper all I caught,

until I woke up in this dream

and jumped into a well - to cool -

before I woke up in my dream.

Facing Andrew

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Tue, 15 May 2012 07:14:00 +0000

It’s not too easy

facing a boy

who looks at you sideways

without fear or anger

but softly and friendly

wiser in brainbox

and subtle in secret

hearing the feeling

rhythm and obvious

you and him here, now,

drilling no damage

softening edges

beating the beating,

tip, of your hardening heart.

Talent

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Fri, 11 May 2012 09:52:00 +0000

Body and voice seem hunted

throughout a haunting performance.

Sometimes a song,

a joke and song,

an instrument, song.

Sweet and strange

to tip-up as dancers

(not minotaurs)

but as people from streets

with hands and prints

and, here and hopeful, an older man,

teenager spinning, a green

moment, lifting red

to blue; lifting them selves,

us, up, up and up. You’re on – you’re up.

Spreadsheet

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Tue, 08 May 2012 04:34:00 +0000

Tap into a cell again

- far too hard for me, old chap, this sum

arithmetic is way, like, too much pain

- I need to hit the wine bar, stagger home.

Subtract and multiply and add

- I do believe it’s time - another round:

ask my PC, Apple, iphone, ipad;

move the cursor up - along - and down.

She is a rather super looking mare

- Paypal up an order to the bar

and we can be what, we, forever were;

self important, humbled, pissed and poor.

Fool

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Fri, 04 May 2012 06:55:00 +0000

About the tarot trumps, masters claim, the strongest

is the fool.

This morning, when a long-eared nut

confabulated out from my fingers into long, long grass,

away I flew! Oh no – my car – won’t start – the time! Come on!

Old melancholy whacked me hard inside like a pillow fight

and pity wrapped me in cloaks – like a sad, old clown

Andrew would laugh! In front of engineer, red king or purple pope

he’d use a fool’s strategy;

dance or smile,

hugging forces – like a yellow rose

exuding the garden for a while,

innocent and knowing – nothing – zero- footloose,

free and funny, stranger, stronger stuff – more like – inside,

deeply inside – out.

Lewis Carroll

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Wed, 02 May 2012 06:29:00 +0000

‘jump down’ said Alice;

‘here’s a colourless rabbit

I followed for hours’

Down's Before Birth

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 04:42:00 +0000

Down’s before birth

If you could change this life

for a real one,

- say - with a fuller story

wherein you have a new handle

marauding through a spanking world

maybe in a place more lost

- would you go?

And how would you feel about your new life?

Imagine you’re ready,

standing moments before birth

in pounding rain

shivering with all anticipation

and calmly

turning down your little dial of mind

to nothing – wanderer -

with such a lot to give:

perhaps it’s not so dark and cold

as you fight your way into a sweeter handicap;

rebirth

as fool, magician, simple creature, king.

Are you going?

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 06:13:00 +0000

I put Andrew to bed

remembering without fail

to sing Scarborough Fair

eyeball to eyeball

head to head

and I know he’ll probe

– honest as a boy –

for one more burst

- a final verse -

of mutual joy.

Writer's Block

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 06:28:00 +0000

A mystery – this blank page with blue pen –

and my duty to write a grand poem;

without engaging hope.

Instead, melting into zero,

atom by - fizzing - atom

equal and equally dissolved:

me, a pen, ink, page:

blank – nothing.

Jed

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 07:01:00 +0000

My father-in-law – Andrew,

was a Ukrainian refugee fighting the Nazis,

and got frog-marched into Russia to salute Stalin

passing - on a steam train - then - also on the next

- 30 minutes later – upright and mustachioed

- and he saluted Stalin yet again - after another half an hour.

It would be cold there on the steppes waiting for the true or false

man saluting - three times - at the front.

Cold. He survived fighting the Nazis and came to England

where he learnt new words like hairdresser, bus driver,

security guard - but it always was the drink prevented him

holding down a job – and the singing in Ukrainian – loud,

like a Cossack, and the comrades he left in the snow.

Andrew, his grandson, snoring in a bedroom next door,

equally struggles with English – to be understood –

but can lead a sing-song, get an entire bar

up on its feet in a jiffy. Likewise, he’ll never

hold down a job and he’s loud as a Cossack

drinking lemonade in a closed-eye dream,

wiping his mouth with the back of a hand.

In both men’s lives, spent and spending,

they have simply sung more notes from their heart

than other fools and magicians, genies and kings.

North Star

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 07:52:00 +0000

Dreams, of course, - are something –

(but shadows)

compared to green grass or thorny roses,

froth of hawthorn in early spring,

summer’s lazy river bank

or cooling hedgerows brown in fall

when a nightingale rouses and carols;

(but, growing older)

not wiser,

I found a shining

- constant –

certainly you,

my love.

Easter

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 06:50:00 +0000

Some regard

life as hard –

but when a snowflake, catapulted

from a cracking storm, falls and

settles on an

open palm,

beneath

a cross;

it’s also soft.

Transformation

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 06:47:00 +0000

Dear Andrew, Thank you

- all of you – the other evening,

for a pub of drinking men,

drunks and fat boys, teenagers:

all a father needs when out for a pint

with his wife and special son,

walking up cobbles and drinking down

lemonade, fosters, ice and a slice,

but it was dancing at the juke box

- retro rock – loud as a propeller

that got the locals up on the dance floor

- oh yes, and the Down’s boy

smiling like a sunrise

turning. With love. Sincerely yours,

Auntie in the nursing home

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 04:32:00 +0000

Laughing Buddha, red as a baby;

laughing nurses waddle bottoms;

battering rainspots – let me in boys,

window patter, nurses patter,

‘have a drink, love’, ‘turn you over’,

fateful fingers, losing touch.

Romancifying Vincent

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 07:28:00 +0000

There was a young Dutchman called Vincent

who painted the postman and peasant

living in hovels,

loving the brothels,

relationships always unpleasant.

In Etton, his father, a preacher,

his mother, a climber, a reacher:

starry, his passion,

conflict, a mission,

intensity always his teacher.

In ten years of painting, he shows

how to catch nature’s heaven, god knows!

Fighting his battle,

‘til a death rattle

arched him away with the crows.

That's a first

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 05:28:00 +0000

says Fred, the train guard,

when Andrew hands him tickets

and smiles ‘I love you!’

Work

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 07:23:00 +0000

My proposal was important

(had to be there tomorrow)

lots of kudos hanging off;

reputation, dollar, sweeter promise

and words poured out from fingertips

to keyboard-taps, heart of laptop,

blah, qwerty, blah,

until an old traveler

sat down, took off his hat

as a youth’s rucksack turned and caught

him on a grizzled head. I smiled

‘it’s all about awareness’ I suggested

‘yes, I never saw this train so crowded’

and off we go into hello;

hello my newborn friend,

before goodbye – we try – our best – and fly.

Expansion

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 07:22:00 +0000

Far out – nothing -

fancies everything

and (under the covers)

they fight each other

- spirit and form –

and then something is born.

Andrew's advice

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:38:00 +0000

Remember you - your new friends -

like the ones you met

sitting doing nothing on a train

when you refused to let them light faces

with laptop screens – no – you waded

in with a few questions – ‘do you like

marmite?’ – for example - and let

them glisten themselves with light

of a new connection. Like a smile.

Remember you?

Birth

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 05:35:00 +0000

Did you ever do the same

as Andrew on that Christmas morning?

Sit up in bed, mouth dry from sleep,

holding a forelock of hair,

looking and feeling, slow, long and deep

for an old inner recess – gap between worlds –

so hard to access, where pulse can be felt,

and gaze out, blast

a song by the (eighty year old)

Sondheim – loud, discordant,

‘Being Alive! Beeeeeing Arrrliiiive!’

and scan round the room

awake with that sound now – and now with a question

profoundly Socratic, imp

of a stoat newly woken in Winter,

‘What’s Next?’ he asks and looks with intent

to urge out his question ‘What’s Next!?”

Well – did you ever?

White Goddess

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 07:14:00 +0000

Three times she came to visit me,

three times she looked into my eyes;

maiden, mother, ancient lady

singing pretty lullabies

and, on the fourth, in starlight dance,

she howls one wolf into the skies;

leaps astride another branch

and flies.

In the quiet coach,

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 08:22:00 +0000

a fellow sporting golden earplugs

with spaghetti down to a black snug

box the size of this packet

of playing cards in my jacket pocket,

- kings, queens, reds, blacks; faces and backs –

suddenly starts to sing ‘Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!’

in a screechingly smiley voice like a

backing singer – until I catch his eye

and grimace, turn to write a poem’s

smiling, silent speech – and hum.

2D or not 2D

noreply@blogger.com (John Lavan) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 07:27:00 +0000

I dream of old an old man in a boater

sailing East to West across a page

and, when I turn the paper he still floats there,

a silhouette, a china man, serene.

I dream a rocket takes off into space-time,

climbs across the page from South to North;

black, these silhouettes, like paper puppets

long to turn their souls into 3D.