The Sacred Onion

I sliced into an onion,

and it wept a milky tear.

Then I wept and my eyes were cleansed,

my vision was now clear.

The onion bloomed like a lotus,

revealing many layers

She said " I am the universe,

and you are at my centre".

A Musing

Hello There! A Happy New Year to all my readers! That's both of you. I have a few new poems I really ought to upload but I feel sort of bereft at the moment as if the muse has deserted me. 2009 was rather uneventful in creative terms. I hope this year will be different. I know I don't write terribly accessible material but who cares? I mean seriously in this age of mediocrity the greatest sin one can commit is to be A: Well educated and B: Show it. Elitism is fast becoming a dirty word. Well what I right is a tad esoteric and for the people who don't like it: Ask yourselves this: Am I verbose or are you ill-educated.? So much poetry these days is written by pseudo-beatniks who wear entire outfits bought from charity shops and jumble sales, sport ridiculous haircuts and write poems which evoke their oh so troubled childhoods. My stuff Is intended to be different. Yes I'm a neo-Victorian and proud of it. I like mythology and fantasy and escapism. These elevate the mind above the humdrum. A good artist is a sort of shaman who leads people on a magical psychic journey, a bad one is like an ignorant guide on an open-top bus tour of somewhere uninteresting you didn't wish to visit in first place. I shall leave you with one of my favourite quotations by one of my favourite people which encapsulates my feelings at this precise moment: "An agreeable person is generally a person who agrees with me." Benjamin Disraeli.

Mental Cats

Mental Cats, a homage to T.S Elliot.

Mental cats are terribly clever

Mental cats are overly large,

Mental cats always endeavor

to evade the vet and remain in charge.

Mental cats loathe pet carriers

They scratch and scream and bite like terriers.

They climb the drapery and start to hiss

They arrive at the surgery all covered in piss.

Once out of the basket they run amok

Leaving trails of shite

On counters and smocks.

When at last she submits to the injection

I fear I'm the one likely to catch an infection!

R.M.Clarkson.

Dead Lions And Living Dogs.

It is oft remarked a a living dog

Is preferable to dead dead lion.

While on a battlefield this is doubtless, true

In art I cannot hold that view.

When the day has almost melted

Into cool embrace of night

It is my singular delight,

To visit the Lion's boneyard.

The ancient gates so easily yield

To a gentle well placed push,

That silent splendour, long concealed

Presently, once more revealed,

broken monuments and weathered stones

A climbing frame for vine and bush.

There upon their great, grey biers

Lie the company of countless years

Fly-flayed of flesh, bleached-white bones

In many pleasing arrangements rest.

Some sit with heads 'twixt erstwhile paws,

Still possessed of curling onyx claws

While others repose upon their side

A comfortable eternity to abide,

In undisturbed well-merited peace.

Though many more appear to writhe

With twisted spines and lolling heads

In extremis upon their marble beds,

Exposing milk-white teeth in chalcedony jaws.

The more recent ones are more complete

Though all are pleasingly free of meat,

the older ones are a mysterious jumble

Their very bones have begun to crumble.

For the elements

time's instruments,

have pleased themselves to reclaim

Their well proportioned remnants

Along with their golden manes.

For some have endured such a lengthy exposure

In this tenebrous enclosure

To the twin nurturers of playful rain and golden rays,

That lacking ribs and vertebrae

The only recognizable feature

Is the pitted skull of the stately creature

Whose hollow sockets are now entwined,

With creeping scented eglantine

Thus sweetness reclaims strength.

Alone now once again

Here in my hand the earthly remains

Of one of my gilded graceful beasts.

In closing a book with faded leaves

I close the gates of my beloved necropolis

And steal away before dawn,

lest I fall prey to the living dogs.

RM Clarkson.

The Ancient One.

I am the scion of an ancient race

custodians of a barren place

Slopes of jagged black obsidian,

like centuries we slowly pace.

Through clouds of sulphurous gasses

we feed on emerald coloured grasses

Our heads wrinkled and ophidian,

Project, beneath a heavy carapace.

Lumbering round the lip

Of a lazy steam spewing giant,

It is upon the breath

Of this dying god,

Our survival is reliant.

From my vantage I have seen

Along with my disappearing kind

Men carried in wooden leviathans,

The origin of species here to find.

Should I decide

to leave my world,

venture to another land

I'd plod down to the sand

And float out upon the tide.

Rather I choose, here to remain

Innured, to stifling heat and stinging rain,

Two centuries have I endured

In such a hostile, weird terrain.

We remaining wizened beasts

Are an order of monastic priests

For whom each new season brings,

Fresh rituals and feasts.

Though litanies we cannot sing

For we are mute.

RM Clarkson

Greetings Fellow Voyager

I have decided to create a blog for some of my work as sites like Fb and twitter do not really cater to the needs of a verbose artist like myself. My first post is a recent composition entitled

The Gnosis

I am greedy for the gnosis,

which is my manna.

The bread of Sophia,

The Eucharist which sustains

My assent of jacob's Ladder.

Each rung is of a different hue,

Which affords the traveller

A clearer view,

Of the world below.

At the top there stands a firey Seraph,

Are you an angel of the light?

You're a Divine messenger?

Does this mean we have to wrestle all night?

No? Then what should I take away from this encounter?

He replied: "The distance from Malchut to Keter!"

RM Clarkson.