“When Clay Weeps”
A poetic tribute to Gilgamesh and Enkidu

Beneath a sky of burning stars,
Uruk's high walls gleamed like scars
cut into time—immense, precise—
where kings were gods, and men were dice.

Gilgamesh, carved out of storm and sun,
two-thirds divine, yet wholly undone,
bored with power, drunk on might,
wrestled shadows in the heat of night.

Then came Enkidu, beast-born and bold,
with eyes like flint and hair like mold
of forest boughs, of untouched place—
the wilderness written on his face.

They met like meteors—fierce and fast—
and fought until their rage was past.
Then, laughing, stood where blood had pooled,
and in that moment, gods were fooled.

They crossed into cedar-scented gloom,
to fell a giant, shape their doom.
And when the gods struck back with grief,
they cleaved the world with disbelief.

Enkidu’s breath fled in the dark,
his voice a ghost, his limbs grown stark.
And Gilgamesh—stone turned to skin—
sought death’s edge to pull him in.

He wandered roads where no man goes,
spoke with alewives, fought with crows,
and found the flood that washed the land,
held time’s seed in his trembling hand.

But life, a serpent, sly and thin,
stole the fruit he held within.
So he returned, not with the key,
but with the tale of what can’t be.

He carved in stone his city’s face,
a wall, a name, a time, a place.
For though we die and dust returns,
a soul may live if someone learns.

They (and you know who I mean)
Claim (vociferously and accusatorily)
That
They (who lay their hands on and call on the Holy Spirit)
Are
Christians (funny to see that word in their lexicon).
They really do think that.
Is Christ that confusing,
Or
Is it Just Them?

Rest assured, my dear good Sir,
Your best intentions do infer
That what is natural for me
Could be, in fact, catastrophe!
That dribbling words, pedantically,
In stifled rhyme so frantically....?
Perhaps inhibits from the heart,
Perhaps detracts right from the start??
Perhaps defers the living song
Delivering what's rightly...Wrong!

If so... I humbly beg your grace
Emphatically deny deface,
Emphatically should state anew
That what's good for me's no good for you!
Tuff, but that's the way it runs
For I, friend, must stick to my guns!
Rhyme and rhythm pave my way
Without which...I would have no say.

With love...
[email protected]

Run, old man, the winter comes
Ice and snow impede,
Run, old man, impending cold
Will spur you on to speed.
Run, you fool, on brittle ice
For shattered shins to shard,
Run, old man, in howling gale
As pelting sleet hits hard.
Collect thyself O ancient one
Thy lungs have shred to bleed
Run, old man, on memories
Thy legs have turned to seed.
Remember then, in times of yore,
When muscled limbs would stride?
Alas, old man, your day is done
For physicality, died.

[email protected]

Cast thy nostril to the air
To sense the magnitude of change,
What was then is now no more,
The atoms, rearranged.

Touch thy fingertips to life
To feel, as difference lingers there,
For what was smooth and sensuous
Now calloused, in abrasive air.

Know, that in a passaged time
The trickled sands invert their flow,
For what was once a comfort stop
Becomes an unsafe place to go.

Skill, once held in high repute
No longer wields the mantle now,
Torn the chaliced riches, worn...
Gone, the wealth of sacred cow.

Vast, the might of new elite
Emergent in its chosen time
Fallen, now the vanquished
In the tragic wayside, left behind.

Gone, is the old world
In its jaded coat of faded charm,
Reshuffled, to obscurity
Whilst surging new blood, fast rearm.

Where once, there stood a working forge
Which fashioned mighty wheels of steel,
Now shifts, a field of windblown wheat
Which cares not, one jot, what you feel?

[email protected]

There's always a beginning
There'll always be an end
And no matter how you play your cards
You won't see round the bend.
For tomorrow is another day
The morning sun will shine
And the layer of potentialities
Is arrayed for yours and mine.

In looking back a long time
A little boy in jeans,
Check shirt on a pushbike
Amid the in betweens.
Nothing really mattered,
Each day came and went
and before the realization dawned
The infancy was spent.

Mother died of cancer
The agony in eyes
Just 43 years of age
In alcoholic lies.
The Old Man was likewise
Collapsing in my arms
He passed away at 43.
Evaporated charms.

Adolescence came and went
Forced to join the race
Of madness in the unknown
The world's a violent place.
Decision ****** upon in spades
Cut and ****** in life
It's Papua or Vietnam
Instead, I took a wife .

Disaster in the making
A sidestep in the way
I left the complication there
And coldly strode away.
Changed the whole complexion
Altered how it planned
Ended up with knapsack on
Afresh in New Zealand.

Strangely how it re-aligns
The order falls in place
Confusion dissipates to let
What clear defined, creates.
Somewhere I turned the corner
Took it all in hand
Built an actuality
Of promise in this land.

Pride and hard ambition,
defy the odds and graft.
Visualize a rainbow
From inspiration's craft.
Build it with your own two hands
With sweat upon your brow
And know, within your very depth
You're on the right path now.

Lady luck was with me
Somewhere along the way
I found myself a sweetheart
In chance creation's way
Then ragamuffin boychilds
Scrapping on the rug,
Engendered that which matters
In life's eternal shrug.

You touch upon the beauty
You taste the honeyed wine,
You walk on fields of flowers
In the nectar of your time.
Tenderness and kindness
Essential to the mix
Should you wish to be of value
In the blended world you fix.

Some you win, some you lose
Sometimes you just laugh
For as the years meander
There's humor in the task....
And a gentle satisfaction
In the way it all pans through
And in my eighty year reflection
I'll just throw a smile to you.

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