Poems by Hugh Timothy

Contents
EXCHANGE ON THE OLD BENCH
Just a Moment Please
My Understanding
Seasoning
THE CHIMNEY

EXCHANGE ON THE OLD BENCH

There they were
sorting through the past
a trail of reminiscence
the sharing and remembering
of demonising the villains
of laughing at the fools
of matching tale for tale
desperate that these moments
should never be forgotten

Their childhoods so different
but somehow so the same
set with that engraved clarity of youth
shining with summer days of experience
yet to be jaundiced by familiarity.
But these tales will go with them
as they're the only ones that care.

Hugh Timothy
20th June 2006

My Understanding

I watch the colour draining from your face,
your mind now paralysed and sinking
into viscous darkness.
But I can say nothing.
The other me within you now
is still too small:
For you, too large to bear
And grown immense - beyond proportion.
I see you leave the surgery,
Rattling with icy terror,
And so alone.
Stones of helpless thought
Begin to crash and bounce in chaos
Pummelling all your hopes to dust.

And I can't take your hand.

Another day of pain,
Your body torn a thousand ways
As natures greatest gift arrives
And has to be denied.
Your face is turned away.
You learn love must be quashed
Its pain too great to stand.
For baby's cries don't cauterise
But salt and scald the opening wound
The start of promised amputation.

And still I watch.

That final day, I see your torment
As you fight the only truth -
The Parting.
I long to dry your tears,
To touch your heart and say,
It will be all right,
It will.

Hugh Timothy
17th October 2001

Just a Moment Please

Jagged time screamed

Unrest as fierce demands

Slashed unforgiving

Tearing at life's tempo.

Again I face a new beginning

Moratorium on the past

Once more ways part

My indecision pecks at possibilities

Eventualities duel in my imagination

Nightmares sweat the day

Treasures must be thrown away

Peace lies in change

Letting self be self

Exiling lies

Awakening buried dreams

Setting them in frames

Enhancing life with different names.

©Hugh Timothy
25 Mar. 2002

Seasoning

Young he is and shooty green
Full of bounce and sexy preen
Leaping up, he must be seen
Paints a world that's clean and keen

******

Hear the rhyme of buzzy-bees
Carry soft the summer's ease
Bluey sky-dreams float the breeze
Flirt amongst the dusty trees.

******

Ripe and fruitful time to reap
Feel the icy fingers creep
Summers stripping off for sleep
His Joseph coat lies in a heap.

******

The wind he is a whistly blow
The cloud he grey, he float and flow
The sun he slink and glumly glow
While winter whites his world with snow.

Hugh Timothy
June 2005

THE CHIMNEY

Time's messenger arrived.

His name was Dissolution.

Emasculation was his cry.

Chill and still the waiting day -

History's fragile grip imperilled.

Initial to the sky, you stand

Making your final statement.

Now betrayed by rooted detonation

Echoing around the sound of Babel's fall.

Yesterdays' are now your only truth.

Hugh Timothy
June 1998