Orcs

Behold, murder, rape 

violence, hate, robbery, 

destruction and death 

Search for hope in the depths 

in the outrage and despair 

can love really triumph over hate? 

Read talk of orcs, though human beings 

do such things as these 

no beast would think of them 

See the futile hate of my own heart 

clenched fists at the screen 

rage in safety and comfort and peace 

See our kinship with all humanity 

do not give way to the murderous heart 

do not join in with the evil 

Search for hope in the depths 

in the outrage and despair 

can love really triumph over hate?

Edward Rhodes (2022)

The Vigil

There is a place I go at night 

which thought cannot resist 

where all is light

and dark and quiet 

may not exist 

And old men scream for “Mummy” 

old women moan and weep 

and we take turns 

at holding hands 

refuse to sleep 

The morning brings the darkness 

a chaplain with a prayer 

gives you permission 

to depart, and 

leave us there 

And in the kitchen, I alone 

with akathist and rope 

keep vigil still 

and through the tears 

cling on to hope.

Edward Rhodes (2021)

Whispers

When every day appears the same 

as every other single day 

I sit alone, record the toll 

of those who grieve and suffer loss 

while I look on 

with weary eye and feeling numb 

binge-watch and comfort-eat my way 

through endless hours, stare at screens 

sometimes to see another face 

stare back at me 

and speak in whispers. 

 Edward Rhodes (2021)

Bees (continued)

Chaos into order
with a rusty spade
and a pair of shears
nettles advance
brambles retreat
what am I doing here
in this suburban wilderness?
courgettes in the kitchen
spuds in a bucket
the gentle crawling tickle of a bee
falls from a sleeve by the door
cry out in wonder
watch her fly away

Order into chaos
with a riser desk
and a computer
paperwork advances
the holidays retreat
what are you doing here
in this urban workspace?
documents in the cupboard
crisp packet in the waste bin
the penetrating sharp sting of a bee
falls from a finger in the office
cry out in agony
watch her crawl away

Are you as surprised as I am?
maybe in these last moments
of a fragile life
multi-faceted eyes
disguise the sad smile
of a rightful reckoning
I invade your territory
you invade mine

Edward Rhodes (2018)

Love and hurt

It is better to love and hurt
than not to love

If love hurts
then let me love
and let me hurt
rather than not hurt
and not love

If love is loss
then let me lose
to lose and yet to love
is less of a loss
than not to love

To love is to be
to hurt is to be
to lose is to be
in love
and, yes, in hurt and in loss
yet not loving the hurt
nor loving the loss
but accepting
the hurt and the loss
as enough
if this indeed
should be the cost
of having love

It is better to love and hurt
than not to love

Edward Rhodes (2014)

Defeat

I have not yet accepted defeat
I have not
I have not yet accepted defeat
there is fight
there is fight
in the old dog left
let the young pups
who smirk
learn to cower instead
I have not yet accepted defeat

There is rage
there is rage
in the old dog yet
there are eyes full of fire
long ago
while I licked at my wounds
I was weak
while I pined at the moon
now I stand
now I roar
at the night
at the hour
I have not yet accepted defeat

When it comes
as it will
when the moment of truth
the decease of all posture and lie
and I, naked
exposed
at the end of my power
it will come to me fighting
it will come to my cry
I have not yet accepted defeat

Edward Rhodes (2014)

Southwick

November or so, no fire in the grate, only flowers, dead and dry and beautiful. The art by the stairs is unfamiliar, yet the welcoming windows remind me that, while too old for lollipops and too tired for the taunts of the magazines, I am not so alone here as I often am in company. I note the odd smell of the chairs and the curious fear of picking up the wrong hat or the wrong head

But I am not my thoughts
nor the chair in the corner

I will worry at twenty-six minutes past three that I may be alone, or unknown, or afraid, or be numbered among the reprobate, or among those not invited to the Christmas party. For I have spoken to my doubts, now escaping to fantasy islands and fallen moons - she lies unburied still in my oceans, staring back at me without speaking - and I wait for the bus and I wonder if she might be there (she isn't) and I ask myself why are the buses going the wrong way for Thursday, and who's going to pay for it all and what's in it for them?

But I am not my thoughts
nor those of my tormentors

Meanwhile, the voice in the cellar grows quieter - how I worry for him - this re-scripted image introduced once again to his tormenters, too frightened still to speak unless I speak for him, too inadequate to escape even to dystopian dreams or the fears of the false, which, I note, I refuse to embrace, even starting to sing again, even worshipping in the absence of the things which I hope for

For I am not my thoughts
but simply a spectator

Edward Rhodes (2014)

Bees

Perhaps we bend our souls
to different divinities

You, with your tidy, ordered world
the garden neat, peripheral
uncluttered by useless ornament
haunted by discontent, concern
the rise and fall of house prices

Me, well, home's a place to live in
even if ramshackle, untidy and all
overgrown with lush and lovely weeds
content to dwell among the last
endangered hum of bees

Edward Rhodes (2014)

Bitter

This is a sample poem from my second book "Chosen vanities"

How bitter the hearts whose plans fail
The souls whose prayers breed disappointments
Whose thoughts find all their dreams too frail
And nurture in their stead resentments
Who let fall silent all their songs
And still the cry of all their longings

(c) Edward Rhodes (2013)

Cold coffee

This is a sample poem from my second book "Chosen vanities"

Dark dark dark dark
evening morning dusk day
all covered in blankets
to muffle the cries
and alarms in the dark
leaving no time for dreams
although dreams will be dark today

Cold coffee
left to go cold
left to grow old
to lie forgotten

Please wait until I've gone
before you kill me

(c) Edward Rhodes (2013)

Fallen moon

This is a sample poem from my second book "Chosen vanities"

Last night while the dogs were heard howling by
The perimeter fence, grinning, baring their teeth
At strangers foolhardy enough to look
At the fallen ruins of a guarded lie
In a burned-out building, haunted by speeches
By songs, by unrealities
By emptier words on an empty stage
By the pointless anger and the pitiless rage
By the news that the moon fell from the sky
On a calm, unhurried, mist-hidden night
In the winter time, storm-driven, disturbed
To lie drowning, half-naked, in an icy river
But as most of the city was sleeping, I
A wanderer, rescued her, lifeless and cold
Resurrecting her image once more to my mind
No more broken in vengeful iconoclasm
I dragged her from the water and silently
Saw her live again, still, she did not answer
Though I spoke to her softly as if in farewell
As if to forget all the agony seen
In her sad grey eyes and reflected glory

(c) Edward Rhodes (2013)

Dinosaurs

This is a sample poem from my second book "Chosen vanities"

Somebody must have asked the time
For I glanced at my wrist watch
Ticking and mechanical
As the youth around me stared
Bare wristed, phones in hand
At numbers on screens
Is this the sort of thing I mean
When I complain of being a dinosaur?
Awaiting extinction, on the wrong side
Of a generational shift it seems
Like those who still say “whom”

The generations come and go
Take one another’s places
And our world is passing away

It cannot now be long before
The LOL and smiley face
Will take the place left sadly vacant
By "yours sincerely"
By now, I should surely be afraid
Terrified of the old curmudgeon
The soon-sarcastic, grumbling complain
The cynic, finding safety in
The “been there, done that”
The “when you get to my age”
The “seen it all before”

The generations come and go
Take one another’s places
And our world is passing away

Perhaps it is good that it is so
Perhaps the new world will be better
Than the old world’s fond delusions
With its illusions of eternal wealth
The better life than our parents had
The hopes and fears of wasted youth
Youth glorified, exalted, feared
Whose dreams were bright a while then faded
As all dreams someday fade
When will I learn to rest my weight
On something less ephemeral?

The generations come and go
Take one another’s places
And our world is passing away

(c) Edward Rhodes (2013)

In absentia

This is a sample poem from my second book "Chosen vanities"

The silence leaves me with nothing to say
You have decided, it would seem, to leave
And all that I can do is wait and pray

For weeks on end in haunted disarray
My searching thoughts were left, I can but grieve
The silence leaves me with nothing to say

Remembered colours quickly fade to grey
Those days have passed, too far now to retrieve
And all that I can do is wait and pray

Forlorn the hopes with which I would allay
All my discomfort, I will not deceive
The silence leaves me with nothing to say

Too often our resolves have feet of clay
Fall by the wayside, no longer believe
And all that I can do is wait and pray

The darkness of the night will yield to day
But often we, too late the truth perceive
The silence leaves me with nothing to say
And all that I can do is wait and pray

(c) Edward Rhodes (2013)

Heroes

This is a sample poem from my second book "Chosen vanities"

11th November 2011

Today, I will remain a while
In this silent act of gratitude
And there remember them, and there
Remember you, who did not die
Returned alive to this land fit for heroes
Speaking little, although we heard you still
Your reticence bearing its own quiet testimony
To the courage and the tragedy
But you were not spared your own share of sorrow
You bore the losses in your uncomplaining way
Until that last indignity
Some unkept geriatric ward
Where old people go to fade away
But today, my wordlessness bears witness
Of debts that I cannot repay
And so, for this short time today
I will be still and remember

(c) Edward Rhodes (2013)

Foreboding

This is a sample poem from my second poetry book "Chosen vanities"

These fleeting moments of happiness
Are tinged with foreboding
And tainted with fear
Fear at the coming day
We shall treasure our passing times
However short their duration
Their taste shall be sweet to us
And when they lie broken
We shall learn from their fragility
And stoop among the ruins in which we dwell
And gather the broken fragments of our joys
Of all that has been given us
That none may be lost

(c) Edward Rhodes (2013)

Edge-of-the-city beat

This is a sample poem from my second book "Chosen vanities"

The dreary, dull, edge-of-the-city beat
Which occupies the weary, sleepless hours
Of early morning, drains away my powers
And so makes me acknowledge my defeat
And as these solemn, distant sounds repeat
They drown the dreams and joys, which should be ours
The hope which all the bitterness devours
The time is unfulfilled and incomplete
Here, lying restless, trying hard to sleep
The ancient fear of sleeplessness awakes
In me that old despondent lack of peace
Enough, it seems, at times, to make me weep
Enough to raise, once more, the hate which shakes
Its fist in futile rage and will not cease

(c) Edward Rhodes (2013)

Lawless

This is a sample poem from my second poetry book "Chosen vanities"

In obvious homage to G. K. Chesterton

Ordered words for an ordered world
Such is my day-time image, my echo
Of the calls for soldiers on the streets
To shoot young looters, and defeat
Also the looters-in-chief
And yet, my lawless heart desires
As much, the sound of breaking glass
As any "high spirited" Bullingdon boy
And so I break my own reflection
My ordered, peaceful self-deception
Which makes me wonder where we'd be
If all the world were just like me
All burning fiercely in their rages
Yet doing nothing more than penning
Windy words on feint-ruled pages
And grumbling rather fruitlessly
About some sheltered griefs and pains
But whose is the hand that holds the reins
Restraining all this lawless behaviour
Self-willed rebellion, greed and hate?
What is wrong with the world today?
What is wrong with the world?
What is wrong with today?
I am
I am
I am

(c) Edward Rhodes (2013)

The end

This is a sample poem from my second book "Chosen vanities"

This is the end
This long over-familiar day
This is the end
With no time left to heal or mend
No time to change or to pretend
I take my bow and walk away
This is the end

(c) Edward Rhodes (2013)

Delirium

This is a sample poem from my first book, "All my masks"

It was cold that morning and I shivered
Walked the familiar path to the bus stop
The rain, undecided, fell almost as snow
And frozen breath melted into the fog
In a wintery half-silence of morning
Disturbed by the murmur of distant cars
The click-clicking of high heels walking by
The sound of all my hopes and fears and sighs
The vague illusions of a sleepless mind
Racing and raving in dream-fuelled delirium
While I remain in these cloud-covered lands
Where delight lies hidden in everyday things
Like the comfort of familiar walks

(c) Edward Rhodes (2011)

Kuyper Belt Object

This is a sample poem from my first book, "All my masks"

This may well be my last word on the subject
Stolen, as it is, from an earlier theme
From an earlier time, there misapplied
Here captured and thrown in a different cycle
And focussed at last on you, fair laughing sun
So false a star to guide me by
Yet, in reality, so true
And once I was so drawn to you
By the effulgence of your beauty
Unwittingly, perhaps unwillingly
Seeming to wander a while from my proper orbit
From my proper station
But now, in the shadow of the greater spheres
Those bolder and fuller of majesty
I am no longer blinded in my gaze
Here, where it is quiet and calm and cold
Here I remain
Where I, in truth, have always been
Save in delusion
Out beyond love, beyond friendship even
Out where polite acquaintance holds its sway
Its gentle gravity to keep me from drifting
Out before my time, out into night
Where it will no longer matter what I say
I am, and always will be, too far away
For you to notice
Perhaps too far away to know
My own next move
My own next motive

(c) Edward Rhodes (2011)