Tuesday, December 12, 2006

what use are words?

YE GODS!

When Luddites lost, industry created
Pea soup smog and acid rain.
When humans lost, IBMIMFBill Gates Google created
Central control, atrophied brain.
While Muslims rant and Christians wail,
There are new seekers of the Holy Grail.
Unknown by most, unseen by all,
A new religion is rising tall.
Content with being nursed,
Content to be coerced
We bend our knees, kowtow and dip
To the Great God Silicon Chip.

Ψ

THOUGHTS, OF AN ANGEL 1990

Sitting; gently rocking on the evening swell,
surrounded by the bell of golden evening air,
musing that if there were a stair
to heaven, it must be near.
The chitter and chirp of birds I hear
conversing in the nearby trees;
an eagle soars high up and sees
a loop of golden beach, recurving
away behind me, placid - and serving
to remind the senses of a bygone peaceful age
when mankind was at one with the world.

Then two fishermen roar past in a tinnie,
each denizen of the sea dives deep.
A flat top ferry
engines roaring, making merry,
thrusting through the water,
spray spurting, rooster tails erect, sorter
bull-nosing the commuters home to see
what magic the microwave has prepared for tea.

On my left hand side two pelicans sail
the shallows close inshore;
and the pale, white-silk clouds slowly drift
in a deep blue see-through sky, and lift
my thoughts way way high up in the air.
A passing jet roars on to who knows where;
High up, high up in the sky,
and then I wonder why -

out of a translucent, pallid blue -
my thoughts return to you.

Ψ

WORDS

Words
swirl and swarm through society
like insects.
Some bite -
bloodsucking the mind.

Some words buzz
like bees,
cross-pollinating ideas.

Others crawl like beetles
across the grass
crass, and black backed,
necessary pests,
for in absence -
Void.

Some flutter by like butterflies
spreading colour and joy.

But always
amid species, phylum, faction,
at word’s end
all that counts
is action.


Ψ

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Umm, it's late, I'll try to get back to you.

Anonymous said...

Love them, and especially the last lines about action. Aren't words action too, though? Otherwise what the hell am I doing here?

Davoh said...

Am not a very competent poet, Yves. Not really sure, now, why I posted them. Probably because my thoughts have been revolving around "communication".. which is a very complex subject.

Every living entity "communicates" in some form or other .. some with action alone, some with a combination of sound and action (and smell). I often wonder whether humans become a little confused with written words. English is a glorious language, but fraught with double entendré, and needs lots of words to clarify a meaning.

Good poetry should say much with few words. :-)

Anonymous said...

You look like a damn competent poet to me. I was wondering who wrote these! Scrub off that talent and let her fly!

Anonymous said...

Hi Davo

yeah I'm one of those people who easily gets confused with English written words. I loved your poems!

Anonymous said...

Love the last one on Words! :)

Davoh said...

Perhaps a little background. The first was written sometime in mid-1980's, when I first noticed computers speading their tentacles through society (do not spike spindle or fold, fill in the little boxes). It just seemed to me that there was less emphasis on imagination, individuality and "free-hand". Am not sure whether things have changed much.

The second was written during a brief flirtation with a beautiful Austrian air-hostess named Angela.

The third, also written in 1990, is particularly pertinent today. Have to admit that I prefer reading and listening to words, rather that writing them. I spend far too much time reading other people's stuff - and have my car radio tuned to Radio National, no (or not much) music - all words. Mostly interviews with fascinating people. It gets me into trouble, as spend far too much time sitting in the car listening - instead of actually getting out and doing some work. Income is getting a bit sparse .. heh.

(anyone know of a job as Proofreader, somewhere??)

Anonymous said...

:)

Davoh said...

(and as a postcript to a postscript .. didn't get Angela into bed with that lot.. arrgh!)

Davoh said...

PS. .. heh.

Anonymous said...

LOL