tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49749619876317067662024-02-20T04:37:05.595-08:00fergushamiltonallenfergus allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09935501287759364267noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4974961987631706766.post-62390116568661333022009-09-24T06:09:00.000-07:002009-09-24T06:21:30.868-07:00SOUTHERN OCEANForce ten antarctic gales are shrieking<div>And tearing the crests off giant waves</div><div>While leopard seals are down there treading water,</div><div>Alert for anything alive and vulnerable,</div><div>And pods of killer whales, too, or orcas,</div><div>Cast about in the enveloping coldness.</div><div><br /></div><div>Meanwhile in Berkeley Square the nightingale</div><div>Sings on as he has done since nineteen-forty.</div><div>They tell me the angels at the Ritz</div><div>Are backing musicals this year; our smiling</div><div>Cocktail maestro, serving among the mirrors</div><div>And strip-lights of the modish buttery, pours</div><div>Desensitising slugs for the well-to-do</div><div>And nicely spoken; they all laugh softly.</div><div>In a room off Wigmore Street some fiddlers</div><div>Practise the scherzo of a string quartet,</div><div>Berg, possibly, and a fragment of Webern.</div><div><br /></div><div>But the Southern Ocean is still there, you know,</div><div>Far off, boundless and screaming to itself</div><div>In the darkness, with Paolo and Francesca</div><div>And turbulence beyond our understanding –</div><div>And still alive with leopard seals and creatures</div><div>Eternally eating and being eaten.</div><div><br /></div>fergus allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09935501287759364267noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4974961987631706766.post-87601811699752586002009-09-13T11:48:00.000-07:002009-09-13T11:50:08.627-07:00SURPRISEThat marshmallow kiss you gave me in the car park –<div>So unlike the sublimated pecks</div><div>From the thin chapped lips of my acquaintances...</div>fergus allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09935501287759364267noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4974961987631706766.post-41240531745468400322008-02-09T06:10:00.000-08:002009-09-17T07:28:43.733-07:00THE THINKER<div><br /></div><div>She took her ideas to the esplanade</div><div>On Sundays for a breath of salty air.</div><div>All the time they kept dragging on their leads,</div><div>Frenzy curbed by imminent suffocation</div><div>And whining like mythical dogs of Fo,</div><div>Though whenever they were given their freedom</div><div>They were revealed as the slaves of their noses,</div><div>Ignoring all commands that they return</div><div>To the confines of her Guide to Philosophy.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Fergus Allen</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Most recent published collection: 'Gas Light & Coke', Dedalus Press, Dublin, 2006<br /></span><div><br /></div></div>fergus allenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09935501287759364267noreply@blogger.com1