VIOLETS IN LONDON

(In memory of those killed in London on July 8th, 2005)

Walking the misty London streets in the sixties
I recall the flower seller with her hungry face
Asking me to buy clusters of fragrant petals
Lushly purple. A Cockney woman crying out her
Wares and my empty purse.

I was beginning my life or so I thought.
Seventeen: filled to the brim with innocence,
Grinding poverty: the rationing gods not kind.

Now in this ocean of abstract years I again smell
the delicate waft of violet
Remaining in the bank of recall
As I metaphorically pluck each separate
Tiny flower that delicately fills space.
It was just a fragment of time - then

But I didn't know it
I thought it was All time.

How strange the mind can recall a memory
Of a real memory
And think of the profusion of violets since then
(And before then)
Dying in and out of dimension

Same space inhabited by new
And yet identical

How many flower sellers have been born
How many me's stood and loved the start
Of their life in the streets of London
Far from the land of flax and manuka
In the bizarre idea that this
Was the start and end of life.

Each petal now on offer to the dead.

THE TEMORARY ATHIEST

Once
I had thought him a bit of a fool
As he professed his atheism.
That is what I am he said


At this moment
But the day will arrive as it will
When I shall have worked out a god
Whether real or not doesn't matter
As I cannot face dying into nothingness
So far none of the ones I've met fit my
Temperament or make sense
With their meaningless gabble
However, I keep moving around
'Much of this strange globe
Ftading new deities
To discard one by one
As they are unfathomable

And when it's time to die
I will have utmost faith in the chosen one
I will go with anticipation
Otherwise existence is untenable


(to me)

So, my dear friend, he says to me
I must away.
My emptiness keeps me wandering
And is difficult to maintain
As I witness this barbaric world
Keeping my atheism intact.

Do not be concerned, he whispered,
I shall find a god who mingles
It is a necessary illusion.

Let me know, won't you? I said
As we kissed goodbye.

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