New Column: My Favorite Works: Robert Maddox-Harle

Robert Maddox-Harle

(An occasional column that features select eminent poets, authors and visual artists and their favorite works, published or unpublished. Editor)

Five selected poems from my four books, poems which I think have special poetic quality and I personally like. Robert Maddox-Harle (aka Rob Harle)

Sandstone To Ink

Of sandstone dust my spirit formed

a love of stone and water in

the dreaming of the Hawkesbury rift;

I dared to shape this nature's art

to carve and grind and penetrate

and share the vision of our primal source

to fire the soul's of others.

Inspired by sculptors past

Noguchi, Michelangelo and Moore

driven by a sacred muse

whose face remains illusive,

This spirit of the stone in silence

demands an awful price.

To dance on high with spirits fierce

is fraught with danger's sword,

Though double is the razor's edge

when dancing with the naked ape

whose tongue is sharply forked

and heart is hardened with desire

for more and more and more.

Art circus schooled in sabotage

adorned with superficial smiles

you couldn't violate my dream

nor change one mallet's thrust,

But coupled with these fragile bones

disintegrating far too soon

a transmutation of the means

has traded chisel in for sharper pen.

Now once more the ink will flow

or is it boiling blood

to trace its tracks across a page

instead of through the sandstone dust.

***

Logic’s Thin Disguise

Professional exorcists grinning

sway to rhythms of primal harmonies

laughing loudly to discharge the tension

as the clouds cover the dangerous moon.

They recite the old magician's almanac

the rotting pages fall like shards,

as you listen to the sudden silence

you realise even choice is an illusion

draped in logic's thin disguise.

The shadows all wear lipstick

to hide their masks of pity

only powder white - you look like them,

and even though you hate them

they still control your mind.

Kneeling easily at the altar of ecstasy

bits of perfumed flesh and bone

penetrate the darkness of your tongue

as the world turns, your thoughts burn

and the slaves of passion perish.

You have paralysed yourself with beauty

thinking creation knows no end

but the lost artist runs naked

across the landscape of your soul

sketching you, that evil's night

is more desirable than virtue's day.

The canvas writhes with flying archetypes

as fate and free will crash,

only your tortured lips can save the world

so you discuss philosophy through the night

then read about your Daguerreotype of death

stained in black across the morning paper.

***

The Transfiguration Of Calliope

Welcome back great muse

morphing into fine pixels

existing everywhere, yet nowhere

taunting digital poets

code heads

key-stroking virtual bodies

wandering in unseen, unknown worlds

where reality turns reality around.

Your alabaster complexion

transfigured to digital geometry

the roundness of antiquity

transmuted into Android angularity.

Cyborg hybrid rage on.

Inspire those of digital provenance

oblivious to the evolution of thought

philosophical eunuchs

socially connected everywhere!

always on!

always available!

Yet without you they are empty

their utterances

empty lines of meaningless code

disconnected, disassociated

vacuous interjections of dust.

Great muse

show us how to turn this dust to gold

to glow again in timeless brilliance.

Oh Horace, Heaney, Homer.

Help us raise the dark veil

the “black dog” of postmodern hopelessness

so once again we can uplift our spirits,

to fly unbounded

with greatness flowering from passion

drawn from the unplumbed depths of existence.

*** 

Behind Closed Doors

The abandoned building beckons

paint flakes the wall

falling like downcast eyes,

an eerie dull light seeps insipidly

from a crescent moon,

a flickering dull-bright from

the cracks beneath the antique doors.

Shadows engulf me as I enter,

the long hall intimidating,

muffled sounds and screams 

escape from behind locked doors,

sentinels to unknowable lives.

Damp musty scents waft over me

the presence of coal gas menacing,

somewhere a clock ticks loudly

reinforcing the curse of mortality,

broken glass litters the cracked floor

jammed with bits of ambitious rust.

Ahead a door swings carelessly,

pushing my way into the fading yellow light

an owl shrieks in my face,

penetrating eyes perched atop a broken harp,

twisted strings entangle the future

like the tangle of a psychotic mind.

The room curves sharply,

in the dim gloom a figure sits aloof

she raises her withered arm and rings a bell,

the tolling muffled by a discordant dirge 

the broken harp incessant,

pushing aside the cobwebs and homeless dust

a naked hermaphrodite appears from the damp gloom,

s/he moves a chair and beckons,

I sit uncomfortably 

torn cane pushing into me like needles.

Welcome to the House of Herculine Barbin

croaks the ancient crone,

a scythe tattooed on her forehead,

the stone in her necklace pulsates

a sinister laser-like beam, bluish

hypnotises me, seduces me.

All dreams are possible,

a distant voice echoes towards me

all dreams are possible,

all dreams ....

***

The Printery

The door protests angrily at its rusted hinges

shifting gloom seduces my eyes,

cautiously I enter the abandoned printery

closed since the War – dusty and dirty

printing presses, ink vats, racks of assembled Type

like little dead soldiers

– waiting for commands:

racks of discoloured paper in their shuttles

– waiting:

cracked and peeling paint hangs motionless 

faded metal operating instructions balance precariously

bare electric globes sticky with spider’s silk

- waiting to be energised:

machines, tools, motors in suspended animation

- waiting:

Treading carefully I climb a steel ladder with rusted rungs

the mezzanine floor’s rusted checker-plate steel groans,

I step softly holding my breath

a red storeroom-like door arouses my curiosity

deathly silence rings my ears,

nudging the door to open – creak – creak,

pallid light descends from a yellowed skylight,

the room obviously a foreman’s office

dust coat neatly folded on the chair

cap and once-white-gloves neatly sit on the timber desk,

intrepidly I enter - adrenalin pumping

brushing against a large metal switch

the power of a tornado slams me to the floor

rolling over I gasp for air

I lay wondering if I am going to die

the electric shock merciless.

The light in the office glaring at me

I hear machinery starting

click, clunk – click, clunk – click, clunk

the printing press running up to speed,

I stagger to my feet

looking down I see the bare globes glowing,

the main press drags in paper

sheets of print emerge like clockwork

click, print, slide, stack - click, print, slide, stack.

Frightened I descend the rusted ladder

the press is furiously printing

mesmerised I stand waiting for the run to finish,

fifty pages have emerged ink stains on the edges.

“The Final Works of the Comte de Lautréamont”,

impossible - Isidore Ducasse died at twenty four

many, many years ago

a mysterious literary genius,

all extant works published and acknowledged?

Sitting on the filthy bench I read,

possessed I read faster and faster

indeed – must be his last lost literary work,

numb with disbelief I wobble to the door

the manuscript safely stashed in my bag,

slamming the old front door – thud,

I head for home shivering and shaking.

***

 

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Setu, June 2023