Two Poems By Christy Brown (3)

Abel

My brother Cain the afflicted likes to sit
brushing softly my shoulders by the water
at nights edge, or in a cinema dimlit
where scenes of peace turn to scenes of slaughter.

Sometimes he will tlk to me; his voice
murmurs the commotion in his mind
and begs me to delay my final choice
and I obey, for he is wise an kind.

He shall choose the last long pain for me;
he knows the thing that must be done, my brother;
it is not treachery - our love was free,
it is no will of his or mine, but rather

the timeless tyranny of things ordained
makes life seem death and love refflected hate;
and full my heart, my sacrifice unsustained:
"I wait for you, my brother, at the gate.".

Now and Not Then

Shall the dire day break when life
finds us merely husband and wife
with passion not so much denied
as neatly laundered and put aside
and the old joyous insistence
trimmed to placid coexistence?

Shall we sometime arise from bed
with not a carnal thought in our head
look at each other without surprise
out of wide awake uncandid eyes
touch and know no immediate urge
where all mysteries urge?

Speak for the sake of something to say
and now and then put on a display
of elaborate mimicry of the past to prove
that ritual reigns where once ruled love
and calmly observe those bleak rites
that once made splendour of our nights?

Dear, when we stop being outrageous
and no longer find contageous
the innumerable ecsatcies we find
in rise of hand or leap of mind -
not now or then, love, need we fear thus;
those two sad people will not be us.    

A Poem By Christy Brown (2)

 Wishful

I would be free of pavements
newspapers with no news
clocks that bully my existence
cars that whisk me away like God
descending unannounced upon me
buses that move like lugubrious elephants
horse fettered to the stupid hands of men.

I am tired to tears of the mental life
of my room full of the ghosts
of never known things
this spluttering monster machine
creaking into rusty senility
its hammerstrokes deciphering for innocent posterity
my heart's sudden audaciousness

I would gather about me soft-sandalled things
shadows on a burning lake
trees bending to the earth in love.
Where oh where are the beautiful people?
-the quick of wit
the clowns who spit
on life's sanctimonious countenance
the insolent
the indolent
the fey and gay
with sunlight dripping from their limbs?

I would pawn my hypothetical soul
to wake sudden in the dawn
and find a girls foot print in dew outside my door. 

A Poem By Christy Brown (1)

Come Softly To My Wake

Come softy to my wake
on pavlova feet
at the greying end of the day;
into the smoke and heat
enter quietly smiling, quietly unknown
among the garrulous guests
gathered in porter nests
to reminisce and moan;
come not with ornate grief
to desecrate my sleep
but a calm togetherness of hands
quiet as windless sands
and if you must weep
be it for the old quick lust
now turned to dust
only you could shake from it's lair.

Come softly to my wake
and drink and break
the rugged crust
of friendly bread
and weep not for me dead
but lying stupidly there
upon the womanless bead
with a sexless stare
and no thought in my head.