POETRY IS LIKE TAKING A DEEP BREATH

Wednesday 12 May 2010

VOICES







Grey goose and gander
Go with cranberry sauce.
I can understand the
World without remorse.
Tombstones are a trouble
Others must endure:
Nothing that a double
Brandy will not cure.










Whither shall we wander
After we are dead?
Sometimes I wonder.
Open up my head.
Take out the Alphabet.
Make me forget.


Upstairs or downstairs
Is not our concern.
Deep in your armchairs
Burn, boys, burn.
Drowned sailors clutter
The hovels of the sea.
It's no great matter.
They can't drown me.


In my lady's chamber
Once I found a skull.
It helped her to remember
That she was beautiful.
If I find the moral
That is all my wish.
Men have fetched up coral
When they trawled for fish.


Dom Moraes
Goan poet
July 1938 - June 2004