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NEW AUTHORS SHOWCASE (Barrie James Literary Agency) |
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21-09-06 6M p9 |
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Last Pint in England By John Murray |
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World Trade Centre I ate a meal once in mid-air, boeuf mignon and fiddle-neck ferns. The wine was good, something Californian, velvety red. On the menu was a request that one should not smoke, the blackest joke, it now appears. We rose so fast, a hundred stories in a flash of time and gazed upon the Hudson. The Crash took place just round the corner, 1929, tears and cursing, then the awful fall into space, no message for the wives they could not face, eerily pre-echoing the dying leaps of their successors in the broking game, that September day when the elevators stopped forever. I try to pinpoint where I sat and drank my red unaware of fate written into the walls and of those dying falls and of the unborn soldiers lately dead. After love After all the years a point is reached when every aspect of the personality has been drawn out, exposed and leached till all that's left is dull banality, a skeleton of all one once revered, beguiling layers stripped away, the sour residual face of love teared and lined with loathing. What to say to irrigate the barren landscape of remaining years, to freshen deserts of despair stretching far ahead? Explaining nothing, reaching out with care, seeking adulations new, fresh ground, an unpredictable response, a mind unknown, a gentler softer being found to love and love refind. My Life My life will end the day you go, whether in the silent snow of winter or in the birthing Spring, the day you cease to bring your love my life will end. My life will end the day you go, whether as the summer flowers grow or in the autumn fall there will be nothing if you do not call my name, my dearest friend. My life will end the day you go, whether as the winds of sorrow blow or as the Reaper swings his scythe, I shall remember our days of blithe happiness and will pretend you there. |
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Sunny day for war Was it a sunny day when the bomb dropped on Hiroshima? The Somme was mired in mud, in flood as thousands felt their last sensation, hammer pain then cancellation of their strife, no life. What was on the wireless in Japan that morning as the blinding light began and screams were not in dreams? A mother feeds her goats in Troy while Grecians spear her darling boy in fields of hay not far away. A suicidal deafening blast disturbs the businessman's repast in sunny Palestine, fine wines at hand, he doesn't know his son will never grow to be a man. Bombs and mines as the harsh sun shines. He watches them go, the burning sun, he bides his time, sees them leave, returning daily, checking survivors, who has run their course and who remains to grieve. Futility No use in wondering why the grass is green in Spring. Just stretch yourself and lie there. Or why the sky is high and blue between the cloudy spells. Just rest and stare. Just swim, your mind far out, sifting through your schemes, those never-ending dreams; the thoughts float downwards from the blue leading to indeterminate conclusions. Seems to make no difference how you plot to cheat your fate, friends still fail and sadly die, happy moments frozen in the mind, no repeat permitted. Just gaze at the wordless sky, there is nothing to be said. They are dead. Futility bears down, a pall of unbearable weight burying our hopes . We can only wait, impotently fearful. Tearful. |
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50 elegiac rhyming poems describing love, anxiety and death. Published by Pen Press, 2006, in hardback with sketches and paintings by the author and local artists in France. Michael Weigall, prize-winning broadcaster writes 'from roadside flowers to the World Trade centre, from friendship lost to one-night stands, Murray in this remarkable collection bares his soul as few have done in public, even on television. He takes us on an extraordinary journey across the peaks and chasms of love, remorse, nostalgia and preparation for death. I'm not usually one for poetry but frankly I was enthralled' |