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Three
Poems
by
Bob Nimmo
Personality
in Parenthesis
His
boots are empty, maws of black
gabardined and galvanised
waiting for the woollen flesh
to tread them into bovine
haunts
of peat and pasture, byre and beer.
Stiff-neckt
and stubborn-toed
stout-heeled with chunks of wear
where
resolution met resistance
and neither came to compromise.
Yet in the surface can be seen a
cragginess which with a
whispered
word or stroke melts into rare gentility.
The
boots stand just inside the door
a paradigm of modern
womanhood, her
world within my own. Calf-length,
lopped
over hare-like, stilettos incisor-sharp,
doe-lined and
tap’ring to the point though
velvet-smooth; fashioned
from calf-belly, a
touch of culture and coffee;
a pied
urbanised, aroma of Arabia,
soled and heeled by brush of
Bremworth,
parquet’s fing’ring. So much of her is
there
I never noticed when she went; I smoothed
and
tongued the boots.
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India
India
is a magic land
with cultures rich and buildings grand
but
most will never understand
why her poor remain untouched!
The cut of dawn rolled into day;
tang of breakfast on
his lips –
crisp bacon, peach plump and ripe-pickt –
he strode beyond the rifles and the suits,
heat-oppressed,
target set,
the wet air clung ‘long Embassies’
Walk.
He dived between the taxis and the trikes,
markets
spread ahead.
She slipt from out an alley cross his path
a skinny bird more stork than nightingale,
her winsome
face implored, wing outstretched;
the tang of breakfast
glistening still
he blushed, then flushed her needs away.
On he went, made purchases as planned
for India, tis
a magic land
with cultures rich and buildings grand.
Again
she crept upon him, was ignored,
a little lighter and with
less reserve
but still he left her short.
Suddenly a
crow flapped, claws outstretched,
and cawed:
“You
think she not so good for you?
Then watch and see what I can
do.
I know how to free her charm….”
And with
those words she broke her arm.
He watched in horror,
mortified;
the taste of breakfast gone.
The girl
screamed like a stricken bird.
Such a shriek he’d never
heard.
Her arm hung like a broken peg,
a yellow stream
coursed down her leg.
He hailed a cab and took her where
a
doctor told him not to fear since now
the girl’s
career was much improved.
But twas a bitter pill. The
markets had no more allure
and he could scarce endure
a
stroll down that familiar walk.
Years hence the scene
turns dreams
to nightmares still.
Yet India, tis a
magic land
with cultures rich and buildings grand
but he
will never understand………
No, he will
never understand!
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Tripping
with Coleridge
He
takes the honey dew like wine.
Elixir of the distant muses
sucks him
round the vortex into caves of dark
desire and
intellectual indolence.
He sparks and flares and momentarily
manages a glimpse of genius, a
chance to build that dome
in air;
then boards the craft and travels with S.T.
down
Alph through caverns far beneath
the slopes of Mount Abora.
Yet ere he hits the sunless sea
or hears the woman’s
desperate prayer
he bursts from out the darkened realm:
a
demon-lover, wild of eye, unkempt of hair
and finds himself
afloat and musing.
Alas, his dulcimer-less damsel has
no
vision; unrefined, she cracks
the sunny dome with caves of
ice
rasping rough: “Beware! Beware!”
He
smiles and muses, does not care
for he on honey-dew has fed,
has lipped the milk of paradise;
now with his pen he’ll
pay the price.
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