Poems Black Princess - by Anthony Steyning novelist, essayist, playwright, critic.

Black Princess

Walk, she walks

As breeze through reeds stalks.

Slide, she slides

As swans on ripples bob.

Glide, she glides

As bluebirds by airtide rise.

Drift, she drifts

As some through others walk.

Talks, she talks

And all through masses cut,

Hunt, she does.

to flight clinging, hips swinging,

A winged river cat

making me pray

today

I am not mere prey,

like on the days

that I don't care

to mention

On Richard H.

He drank

first to luxuriate in,

then to hold off life,

followed by slowly

shoving the whole show

up his arse

and

die

Monday

I waited for Monday

as seldom I seem to wait

forgetting how quickly

black'n white days alternate,

after

someone stole soft Sunday's air

with me going round in circles

and sometimes in a square

Icarus Accused

It’s nice to be shameless. It comes in handy when finding oneself, formal as always, highly dressed before judge or committee set up to inquire about one’s ways. It gives one the opportunity to lie through distinguished teeth, faking how one cares while dodging real truth brilliantly through vain brain nimble and memory for utility drilled

To be looked upon as sincere when in reality one's a devious, pin-striped whore

Such honourable voice, deep only at its shallowest, and, success justifying the means, being real or authentic never having held one back. One's acquisitions, profits and gain furthermore, incidental only to one’s need for much esteem, seeing as at the end of each day the one for oneself is so profoundly... thin

But still, attacked, outrage and denial one's best friends. For skimming not outright stealing and self-reward not robbing, one convinced oneself long ago. And never mind if one leaves the disadvantaged scrambling in one’s wake, it’s not killing is it, as in tyranny and violent crime? Much obliged in other words, small murders not murders at all

It’s nice to be shameless. It comes in handy when flying high and forging ahead

But remember the sun and wings of wax

And Icarus neither victim nor hero,

but ignoble,

greedy fool!

A Wet Day

Poor rain!

Circular water

lowered into

the river into

the sea,

rubbing oozing salt off wings unseen,

float to float upward unperceived,

drift to drift back and

hang over barren earth

and thirsting souls

ready to moisten and caress again

All

with

fluid

loneliness...

Poor Rain!

Her Face

A rich

and angular

ondulating field

graced with two flowers,

two eyes

unfolding slowly

each day, each moment

lit by warmth from deep within.

Heat oft hidden, yet never quite gone, nor dark,

even when imperiled by fogs

of doubts or fears.

Doubts if yesterday's hurt

will come again;

Fears only disappearing

when kissed by

Heart's fresh outcry,

suddenly nearing.

Her face,

a celebration

once more

now clouds swept 'way,

Unfearful after

love's tender thirst

and dawn's new dew

rose

first.

THEM

What's them

is all talk

and marry well

and travel far

and talk some more

and talk

and take

and never give,

especially

a damn

HER

Sometimes I embrace her body

Sometimes I embrace her mind

And when I embrace them both

it tends to be divine

OF TOMORROW

Evening,

lace of moments

round my neck still beating

from your interrupted embrace!

Darkness,

awaiting

the dawn of your touch!

Nearness,

only night-defeating light inconquerable,

it seems,

without inflicting

Hurt all are known to hate!

Morning,

prelude of tomorrow

and the final certainty

that while embrace unwillingly sometimes,

Darkness also breaks!

EVER MORE

A profile hewn from light and shadow

under umbrella-rounded hair

so fine,

I tremble before my hand outstretched,

awe nearly causing I withdraw,

except now her eyes burst open

and her mouth curls sweet

and her teeth speak bright

'What are you doing? What are you thinking?'

Irony! How is one to keep melodious

innocent breath from knowing

it has through its own mouth divine

to an enthralled ear traversed,

giving life twice, thrice...

and ever more?

MOMENT

I want to keep it!

It is not dirt!

She said,

refusing my hasty kerchief,

placing her hands protectively

against the upper insides of her legs, wanting this part of her

moist and warm and fertile

a good spell longer,

while

the other shook;

weak, weaker slow spasms

ebbing, way below layers

of clothes in disarray,

deep inside the dusk

of my car,

now

speeding off.

How utterly loving! I thought,

touching her hand;

but too stupid

to slow down

and

stop

that monstrous vehicle!

A FUNERAL FOR IMMORTALITY

(Subtitle: Sodomy and Velvet Hats)

There is no sweeter contingency

Yet consider the promise of endlessness and finding all things good, become all hell

So that the possibility of immortality's own death sneaking up, to this deception we should not over-react,

cuddled as we were

when still in need

of all her nurturing

Indeed, if immortality were a woman who had a certain way with us, holding herself out, making us go and go on, when otherwise and long ago we would have given up: yes, such is the power of suggestion and the degree to which our fears and at once the self-preservation behind our beliefs, do stimulate

The terrible power of fantasy, as it is called

For as it turns out her generosity always exactly mirrors our generosity towards ourselves

Now one day such a lady surely deserves a warm-hearted obituary, seeing how so very suddenly she grew so very old, and cold, before our very eyes. Or was it slowly, but nobody paid attention? The cause of death, since you ask, usually ignored in as formal an outpouring as an obituary, futile bringing the matter up, except perhaps for the benefit of those themselves blindly moribund. And having loads of time coming up with a suitable epitaph, there rarely existing need for impatience or thrusts of other sorts

For it is nearly impossible to write a well-reasoned prose treatise on something that isn't quite real, something like a real enough obituary for immortality and the reason lady-embodiment serves us well. For in defense of things it must be given a try as life only valued as a constant 'raging against the dying of the light' so often leads to the de facto denial of one. Like the stating, as so many do, that wisdom is 'accepting life's limitations' and from there swiftly going on to suggest how terrific and infinite and unlimitated the next one is. Commencing the search for the holy grail of this immortality, even when there is not the faintest hope of finding it, the real, organic universe unable to function in this manner

But let us return to the task of burying a lady: it is not easy celebrating someone who never was and could not be, someone comforting and fanciful, alive superbly in our desires, one we only recently and to our great shock learned no longer lives among us. Gone, defunct, dead and needing to be buried with great pomp, out of respect for what we perceived were her extraordinary accomplishments: dishing out limitless, beguiling reward as recompense for our own perceived victories and qualities. A spell-binding, an overly generous lady, deserving an elaborate grave, a solid grave, for she was uncommonly elusive and thought to be extremely tall, with all of us knowing her but none of us ever really seeing her, even though, incredibly, we would kill for her if we had to, chips down and seemingly in the service of some deep need

An obituary then that could say a lot or not so much, because she meant a lot or not so much, depending on to whom one spoke. In fact there could be more than one obituary, the irony that she knew so many and survived a long, long time in so many minds. Longer, and get this, than all her admirers, adherents and good friends put together. With The Daily Telegraph probably celebrating her service to King and Country. The Times her estates. The Guardian her fellow man and Radio Four her forceful voice. And that is because we are all so very much inspired by anything or anyone confirming what we already stand for, making every obituary rich... because... in fact... our own

Though strangely, dead or simply disappeared, she keeps on popping up, sighted by those who can't give up, wanting to have a fresh go at her. When the only thing the poor dear wanted was to be remembered, not be seduced again or in the other extreme driven to exhaustion. Or ridiculed by some, because that's the way we are: sometimes good, sometimes nasty, just don't push and as long as either way we bag some rich redemption. But seriously and swiftly removing tongue from cheek, is it not the premise of promise of such another life, the one after the one we know to be so short, precarious and cruel, the sole element of change that possibly makes sense? For what is the point of extending life with one just as fraught with uncertainty? And therefore making the dreaming up of one that is neither, such a perfectly natural endeavour? Putting to good use the one faculty making us differ from all other living creatures: Need something you cannot have, thus badly want? Why, of course, invent it!

Then buy it! And need itself then, so very facultative. And artificiality on the surface so very beneficiary. For it certainly seems to work in other parts of our existence, like matters economic: half the world lives decently by the fabrication of products that are useless or invisible. Goods and services based on fear and contingency. On mere impression and suggestion, with them crazy or smart enough to provide the stuff and us daft enough to buy it. Yes, along broad lines it works, just like the cold war. The economic catalyst without which we would all have been eating dirt and for decades fostering industry upon industry keeping us directly or indirectly in a job. Though nothing ever happened, no shots fired, only those empty, angry menaces and threats. And what did Yves Saint Laurent ever do for Joe Pizza? Sodomy and velvet hats? Just what everyman was pining for? Of course not, but let the poor designer be, you do get the point: he successfully employed thousands of us in hundreds of stores in a dozen countries, or more. But in the end, both Yves and the Cold War tired and went. Yet fatuous immortality, despite all funerals, ever so kept her allures

For on a further level it seems self-evident that there can be no life without death. So why then eliminate death? It is like trying to steal the horizon: it cannot be done and to begin with does not make sense. But by insisting on doing so, by trampling on others in the act, by being blind to every breath-taking landscape on our way, what are we achieving, anyway? To a growing number of us the secret lying in staying away from this sort of thing, by overcoming existential fears and silly ambition. Not craving immortality and reward the answer, ignoring that innate vulnerability to incentives of the kind. For it may be that in this ignoring and the human dignity it engenders lies the only timelessness that matters. Additionally and as a by-product, a delightful element of discovery left to our children, a stretch of road truly their own, nothing handed down or for much longer. The case before. Yes, not having their existence cut and dried after the ignoring... no longer ignored

Is this not the very least we can do, bequeathing them life's magnificent sense of adventure, the one that we are busy claiming on the late side? Therefore, besides her obituary, the funeral for immortality, our lovely but somewhat sly and once ancient lady, should be an extremely joyous and even repetitive one. Itself an unending New Orleans jazz funeral with laughter and dance flowing through the streets of five continents. Listen! Listen to the sway of that music, slow drums rolling, brash brass and soft reeds blowing, all feet moving, all man's skins aglow

What a way to live

As live we must,

with this load of time

the party

far from over?

(conceived just prior to FairyTales, the essay)

IMPUNITY LOST

There is

every chance

a body

buried illicitly,

meeting its end

less than fortuitously,

encountered

the kind of justice

it once dished out

If not,

a new crime's master

likely

bequeathing

impunity's second,

much more mortal

toss

Paris Streets

Pas de Deux says one affiche

Pas de Chiens says another

Pas du Tout said I

Quebec

O, glorious autumn

of red, burnt falling crowns

What more

can one ask for

but to lie

among

its Indian spirits quivering

below

its eloquent winds, wings!

Among

black tender tree trunks

and near

the gathering squirrel of the wary glance

Just

as long as

it protects

from

rushing polar frost

and leads towards

another rebirth

another shared exhilaration

another un-anguished confrontation

with God: ourselves;

another Spring

Loneliness

and

a moment of

inspiration

In the breeze of her,

across the ocean,

in my hotel's room,

washed my hair

and wrote it dry,

through my pen

finding her,

and with its flow

all this

peace

paper

MOTHER

My mother

likes blossom on a tree

much better than

apples,

growing later,

usurp,

disturb,

she says,

like some of us

steal spring,

spoil

everything