TOO MUCH BLUES

 

Too much freedom,

Too many choices;

Too much to heed

From too many voices.

 

Too much consciousness,

Too much thinking;

Too many hunches

And too many inklings.

 

Soon you lose touch:

Too much is too much.

 

Too many factories,

Too many plans;

Too much supply

And too much demand.

 

Too much to buy

And too much to sell;

Too many doors

With too many bells.

 

Who can you trust?

Too much is too much.

 

Too many applicants,

Too many jobs;

Too many options

For too many mobs.

 

Too many values,

Too many lifestyles;

Too many roads

Stretching too many miles.

 

Ashes and dust:

Too much is too much.

 

Too many visions,

Too many schemes;

Too many ways

And too many means.

 

Too many channels,

Too many clues;

Too much to gain

And too much to lose.

 

You gasp and clutch:

Too much is too much.

 

RICHARD THE THIRD’S HUMP            

  

You can step off the train at Penrith,

And the first thing that you see might be

The ruins of Strickland’s Tower--

Or the McDonalds’ golden arches besieging

The hungry ghosts in the castle’s keep,

Urging them to lay down their shields,

And get in line for a Happy Meal

Of flesh they need not see dismembered.

 

O Stalwart bastion against the Scottish raids!

The roots of bracken, feckless feet of tourists

Disintegrate the sandstone into red dust

That swirls about the advertising campaign

Squatting heavily upon our shoulders,

Like the hump of Richard the Third--

Leaving us to rehearse that role,

And exit the scene tragically.

 

CHRISTINA’S WORLD

  

He labored on that wintry hill for months,

And contemplated her in her pink dress:

Her crippled arms and hands against the grass,

Just like a faded lobster shell or conch

You might find on a beach somewhere. Her strength

Has ebbed forever from the useless legs

That drag behind her, trailing like the dregs

Drained back into the bottle from one’s mouth.

 

She never reaches home across the field

That mocks her with the world’s infirmity

With which desire claws and crawls to be,

Yet faints before a gulf that is too wide

To conquer. Framed against the ashen sky,

The farmhouse stares away from what she feels.