Find Your Bit of Universe and Other Poems

Find Your Bit of Universe 

(for Geoff) 

Find your bit of universe 

carry it 

blow down it 

see if it’ll hum for you 

see if you can 

blow a tune out 

before it 

sucks you back in 

1999 

Only a Little Humming 

No Iliad 

and no Troy to unearth 

only notes 

and small messages from here 

doodles 

on the edge 

of something else 

broken pieces 

off something 

once complete 

or off something ordinary 

you rub the dirt from 

and it gleams 

no Helens either 

only glimpses 

through the crowd 

of the unknown face 

that briefly unanchors your heart 

no symphonies 

only a little humming 

as if a window’s 

thrown open 

and some music’s 

suddenly coming 

no beginning 

and no real ending 

but then 

just occasionally 

a transcending 

1993

Words for Pete

You do the words, Pete

So who can do them now?

You always lead us from the middle,

Though after the white mice died

I still see your angry fist pounding the wall.

You do the words, Pete

Your words came to me out of London

To clear the gloom of my Eastern mists

Then warm laughter in those cold western times

But Dad’s cigarette ash was still carefully preserved.

You do the words, Pete

A constant presence as we grew,

Apart but still blood bound close,

Laughing at the ghosts in the Thatch

Yet I still felt your fear in that dark place.

You do the words, Pete

I couldn’t even catch the crab for you,

Yet your smile still looks at me,

Your words are still with me,

Your love will stay long after me.

– Gid, March 2012

The Bristol Poets Society (for Pete)

It is the golden hour.

The sun bestows its tipsy glow, its love of absolutely everyone.

Backs against the warm wall of the Arnolfini,

the drinkers on the cobbled quay

raise their faces to savour this benediction.

An evening wind ruffles the water, but the people remain calm.

Plastic cups of beer, a few quid left.

Pete says, “Let’s be poets.”

Rog says, “When shall we start?”

Pete says, “We need to experience things first.”

Rog nods.

They sit there for a while, watching the lengthening shadows.

Then Rog says, “Another pint?”

“Good idea,” says Pete. “Get one in before the sun goes down.”

– Roger Williams