AUGUSTUS YOUNG        light verse, poetry and prose


  a regular webzine of new and unpublished work
‘There’s no such thing as a poet. Only people who write poems.’




NEW POEMS
 


Trompe-l'oeil

Laps of Honour

Misanthrope

Pipe of Peace

NEW PROSE

The Grace of God

Can't Help it

Axedent

Vigil




MISANTHROPE

Tous Azimuts (topsy turvy)

Too wet to water the garden.
So the flowers will have to wait.
But I managed to feed the dog
to the cat, the cat to the birds,
so everything is not all ov-
er the place, or up in the air. 

C’est Moi

I am the town revenant.
I ride the streets in the dead of night
on my chariot of steel.

See me coming round the bend
with my red flashing light
and hear my brakes squeal.

You were the accident that was meant
to happen. So show at least some fright.
Thank you. I need something real.  

The Poor Soul

I’m not hopeful, being weary.
Still I struggle on. Where is
my heart? I put it somewhere?
Have you tried the pocket
of your breastcoat? How can I?
I left my wardrobe at home. 
You chose to wander naked
in a world that’s made for clothes?
I thought it would embrace me.
You have to be dressed for that.

Conceptual Flowers

I am a painted flower.
A cut above the others.
Not dead. I am immortal.

Nature may be wonderful,
but art is a more serious
proposition. Instead of
colour and smell and such,
I’m conceptually yours.

The stalk is dried out and will last
in the seeds of memory.
The starched petals presented
to the world, crushed between pages,
live in the imagination
like last summer’s butterflies. 

Leave Me in Peace

There is nothing to celebrate in
the superfit veteran body.
Scrawny and mean and doomed to decay.

Once I had one. It made me aggressive.
Perfectionists find nothing right
in others, or themselves. All suffer.

You’re a one-man, stretch-tone, high-impact
nylon body activated by strings
of misery. No-pain, no-gain. Springs

clock-work you into an artificial
paradise or hell, hyphenated
to pack you into parenthesis,

and break up unwieldy conglomerates. 
Get down fat to less than two percent,
and the blood says to the skeleton,

‘Keep it like that for ever. I’m dead’.  

Otherly Love

I like people I don’t know
better than those that I do.
That will lose me a few
friends. Though most already knew.
But I’d rather it didn’t show.

That to myself it applies
should mitigate the trope
which figures I’m a misanthrope.
Self-knowledge, of course, is wise.
But like love it’s a vain hope.

I cannot say that I’m sure
how much I know myself or not.
And so I cannot allot
sufficient of rope to knot
my propre to the amour.

Eavesdropping a Bad Night

To write is to live some
on paper. If someone
comes to read it, well and
good. But give them a hand,
says Nuki, who is my
friend. Still before I die
there’s so much to débarrasse
I haven’t the time, alas,
to make myself as clear
as would be popular.
You’re as incompetent
at it, boy, to the end
as you were in life. Ouf!
Low-placed lightning lacks proof.

Say No to Negativity

Does not being able to do what you like
mean not being able to like what you do?
If yes, I think you’ve got le grand ennui.
Most people just like to do what seems right.

I’m no longer able to ride my bike,
play my violin and swim on my torso.
Still what I like is moaning, something new
to complain about always brings delight.

Everybody to their own personal hike
in the by-ways of pleasure. I don’t know
how you feel when your spirits are low.
Mine are not exactly flying a kite.

Having enough money is to be reich
under any regime. Still the healthy glow
in the dawn cheeks of your get-up-and-go
is pure gold in giving necessity its bite.

At four o’clock when you wake at night,
save your soul by being your own servant so
you are liked, and do what you’ve got to do.
A good Bon’s job is to fight the good fight.