Lost Gods

(By Gub, Turkey)

Turkey astounds me
Mouths exploding with smoke
Lungs with courteous rhetoric
Landscapes bathed with ruined basilicas
Statues. Seascapes. Purple history
Greek, Roman, polygamous ottomans
Sensual kingdoms of texture, architecture, attire
And polymorphous deities - more gods than time to praise.

Surely the green, blue, grey eyes,
The cosmos rolling millennia into a granite ball
Has hurled its last from the Anatolian peninsular ?

What use for Olympians in the bubbled cellophane of
Tesco's fruit cultivation ?
And Heracles outside of the garden centre statuette ?

Man has sunk his gods
And with them, the deity of his nature.
He is bereft of soul
That vessel which one birthed
Whole cultures, civilisations
Is stranded
Locked into an iPod
An email
A tweet
His cosmos is software
Gods are apps
Constellations once stars in the heavens
Are contacts on Facebook
No longer lights to guide a ship by
But GPS signals - the dying of providence,
Of fate and faith in profane love

The ascent
Of man

More compassion
Less violence
And poverty
Maybe -
But in our souls we are bleeding
For civilisations weren't for the deification
Of man's right to survive at the expense of everything.

There were also admissions of humility, of limitations, of acceptances
The transient holiness of spirit breaking through generations and
histories
Until now they endured - absolute belief that all deities were greater
than we - that God was the greatest of all

The deities are all dead - 

God may survive but only in fanatical pathology
We are alone with our virtual kingdoms

our viral universe

our tiresome language of branding all worlds the same.

All worlds end: stars explode/implode, 

the rhythm of solar systems
still governed by unknown principles.

One day we may exploit the truth - but precedent shows only one constant.
Man never gets one over on the future.

Labyrinth

(By Gub, Turkey)

We float diaphanous
pillars of salt on a rising tide.
Wounded bleeds
Inflict torturous
Love

The battle to live
To die
Surrenders to the
Abyss
In which fear lies
Down with the ashes
Of wasted days

The dirt and the hunger
Of praise meanly passed-up,
soft words not whispered
Caresses withdrawn
Kisses unlaid.

Such feelings are children
Un-childrened

Averting the sentry's gaze
We pass by the colosseum
Orpheus,
The first Orphan,
Sees us wander
Recognises earth's
Loss - as we enter the underworld.

The land of the living lifeless
Man's god gotten selfish maze.

November Fauna

(Wapley Hill Fort, November) 
                                                           

Froth-frayed wings

Fizz against the light

November butterfly

Watch as they watch:

Human eyes

Cat eyes

An instinct for beauty

An instinct for capture

Movement enrapture 

Winged Psyche
Or prey

The split meaning

Embossed in our DNA

The cat will grab that bird in the bush

Alone, I walk 

Deeper into autumn

Startled by starlings

Unchained to the obvious

I'm balancing on the slippery
Scaled back
Of a giant red bream

Carried away by mossy claws
And invisible,
Birdless wings.

The Gun Carriage

(By Gub, London)

Police on motor-cycle mounts
Semaphore with shrill acoustic whistles.
The Aldwych’s Saturday bustle freezes,
As the London’s tourist infantry step back,
Survey Fleet Street’s empty horizon, agog.
A flat autumn city silence.
Empty trees.
A parchment road – folded in residue of orange and green
Littered leaves.
No turning back.
A slow rumbling thunder
Hooves on tarmac, growing harder.
Cupping the tapestried street
Like a thousand arrhythmic shells.
Then the coarse jangle of harness, of bridles,
Leathered cases. Men on the move.
Bright in scarlet and plumes, huge white equestrian
Beasts – a pageant synthesis in sound, smacking the ground – thud, whack and judder.
Magnificent – behind the ranks of pinioned capes, the flooding flow of crimson colour, the gun carriage wheels crack, wood on steel.
Towards the Strand this glorious phalanx of man, beast and monstrous machine rumbles – on their faces, the grim determined jaws of purpose, driving forth with fixed intent.
Tomorrow the salute.
At 11 – the same hour, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
Remembrance.
How could history ever deceive, or dupe memory – with such an unforgettable passing?

Universe and Chips

(By Gub)

Life passes through us 

driven by some cryptic calling, 

searching for worthier vessels, 

less fragile containers, 

that are more robust. 

Magnetized by deep faith and an insatiable need to trust, 

the infinite force can't rely on humans

to fulfill it's destiny - 

better leave it to more able beings in some corner of

the universe - 

creatures that don't rely on sex, crosswords, politics or

curiosity about their origins -

blind, dumb, sequins 

stars with indefinite

radiation 

I bet that's where God is stashing his chips.

Now

(By Gub)

Now you are now

The second run

The bullet spent

The blasted gun

The air breathed

The moment spun

You are now

Until Now

Is done.

November 11

(By Gub)

I have passed the middle of my life

bathed in light,

midway between the rising

and setting suns.

Your body, my clock, each hour 'glass'