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)