The PK
Featured Poet 9 M. A. Griffiths (grasshopper)
"I hope that with all my
poems, whatever else I am trying to communicate, I will
communicate some of my delight in language and the magic of
words.." M.A.
Griffiths
M A Griffiths is probably better
known to list members as Grasshopper and it is this persona that
has developed a unique style and voice. Grasshopper tells me that
poems should stand on their own feet without preamble and
explanation. The poems in this set clearly do that. (Jim Bennett)
Featured
Poet 9 M. A. Griffiths (grasshopper)
How/when did you start writing?
I think I started writing as soon
as I learned how to write,but I was making up stories even before
that.
Was there anything that particularly influenced
you?
I was born and raised in central
London. I think the cultural and historical wealth of the city,
and the varied areas like villages, in close proximity make
London a great place in which to grow up.I also spent quite a bit
of time with my father's family in South Wales, an education in
political history, folklore and the countryside. I suppose the
biggest single literary influence on my childhood was one of my
father's friends, a writer of elegant social history, who bought
me books every time he visited. They were wonderful illustrated
books about the Greek Myths, Tales from Shakespeare, the Arabian
Nights, Perrault's Fairy Tales. Later he brought me classic
novels, reference books and dictionaries.I would often pick a
dictionary as bedtime reading, as I found words so
fascinating.
Do you have any
strong influences on your writing?
I love the Metaphysical poets,
Donne, Marvell and Vaughan in particular, for their sinewy use of
language, and I also admire the sort of poetry with the deceptive
simplicity achieved by George Herbert and Wm Blake, for instance.
I don't try to imitate other writers intentionally. Whether they
influence my writing subconsciously is another matter. I bl**dy
well hope so!
How do you write? Do you
have any particular method for writing - time of day?
I find ideas for poems pop into my
head all the time. I write them down whenever I have time. I have
umpteen scraps of paper here and there on which I've scribbled
parts of poems, quite apart from a bulging Drafts folder on my
HD. I've just got myself a very small tape-recorder so I can
capture the ideas that occur to me as I wait for a bus etc, and
are usually forgotten. All I need now is the courage to use it in
public Perhaps I can disguise it as a mobile phone. I often write
'dramatic monologues' which start off with me hearing a certain
phrase in a particular voice in my head. The voice doesn't shut
up until I write down the phrase, and write the other lines
around it.
Why do you write poetry?
I don't know. All I know is that I
can't stop writing it. I think I'm a junkie.
Is there anything else you
would like to add?
I hope that with all my poems,
whatever else I am trying to communicate, I will communicate some
of my delight in language and the magic of words. If pressed,I
will admit that I wish I could write a poem that would make
everyone really respect the world and all our fellow travellers,
whatever their species.
THE POEMS
I am asked to choose poems that
represent my work. This is so difficult, as I find it hard to
identify any unifying style or voice in my poems.This will be a
bit of a lucky dip. Please be warned that many of my poems are
for adults only.
I enjoy the discipline of strict
forms:
-
Staccato for Lovers
-
-
No blades were sheathed, no target spared,
-
Throughout the cut and thrust we shared.
-
The bitter words like songbirds snared,
-
And love was winged, as if lust cared.
-
-
For pleasure's course, you needed pain
-
To salt the cooling dish again.
-
I was too greedy to complain.
-
When love is bleeding, lust may reign.
-
-
Like starving wolves we'd quickly rise,
-
And feast on flesh with hungry eyes,
-
With wanton tongues and carnal cries.
-
Love ran the race; lust stole the prize.
-
-
No blades were sheathed, no target spared;
-
Dark wounds too deep to be repaired.
-
Our skin was flayed and bones were bared.
-
Lust sucked the peach that love had pared.
****************************************************************************
-
- The first line of this poem
is taken from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra:
-
-
Egypt
-
- I am dying, Egypt,
dying
- and all the weight of
night
- and Nile is on my
shoulders
- and my brow, The helmet
- breached, the armour
cracked
- open like a wounded
turtle
- the carapace of jewels
- is scattered on the
flood-plain
-
- I am dying, Egypt,
dying
- The constellations
whirl
- children's tops
whipped
- singing like green
crickets
- the lilies droop, the
lotus
- lifts his heavy head
no more
- armies retreat,
blinded
- by battle and Ra's
brazen gaze
-
- I am dying, Egypt,
dying
- and Rome sinks into
darkness
- the age of heroes ends
- as Antony paints the
desert
- with his blood. Ice
and metal
- seal the sorry future
- the heat and passion
drained
-
- I am dying, Egypt,
dying
- cold Augustus will
calculate
- the cost in columns
- our defeat his triumph
- our bloody loss his
profit
- he will grey the world
- and bleach the coinage
- we die without glory
-
- but glory dies with us
- look, my love, in the
East
- the brightness fades
****************************************************************
A dramatic monologue:
-
Quartering
-
- Sir, I was taught to
write
- by a former master when
I was young.
- He had enlightened
views they say
- but he died childless
and his estate
- fell into other hands.
- I was not needed so I
took the road.
- I could have fallen
into crime
- but by God's grace I
found my calling.
-
- When I am about my
business
- sometimes I hear the
tinkle
- of fine china and
silver
- from the open windows
round the square.
- It reminds me of my
days in service.
-
- The hardest thing I
find is not the hanging
- nor the burning nor the
gutting
- but the first cut that
takes
- the manhood. I cast it
into the fire
- without delay. I keep
them on the rope
- longer than most and
have been censured for it
- but my purse is no
fatter however much
- a wretch suffers. I
take pride in neatness.
-
- Often the press and
sound of the crowd
- hit me like a fist. I
smell the stink of rut.
- I wash my hands and
arms and return
- to my family, leaving
the work behind.
- Once I told my
Confessor
- that thoughts trouble
me at night.
- By Our Lady, he
said,crossing himself,
- Without the rule of Law
- We would be as beasts.
- You are God's
instrument, man.
-
- Now I must excuse
myself
- for the fawn cow is
big-bellied
- and close to her
unburdening.
- Last time I had to
remain all night
- beside her. She bore a
white calf
- as dawn rose over the
beechwood.
- My eldest daughter
called it Puss.
****************************************************************************
I often write short poems. Here
are three in different forms:
A
cinquain:
-
brown thrush
-
shattering shells
-
slick naked snails glisten
-
for a moment like severed tongues
-
then sing
***************************************************************************
-
The Drowning Gypsy
-
-
Flamboyant
-
Clairvoyant
-
Unbuo
-
o
-
o
-
o
-
o
-
y
-
a
-
n
t
********************************************************************
-
Walking Canford Heath
-
-
I am writing this with gritted teeth
-
and hope I don't sound bitter,
-
but I'd like to see more blasted heath
-
and far less blasted litter.
***************************************************************************
The next poem is one of several
I've written inspired by my love of the
cinema:
-
-
Snakehead
-
- Me and AJ Taylor
- in his Daddy's old
white pickup
- chasing the high hot
dream
- across the ragged range
- we used our cocks like
weapons
- the triggers pumped
more slowly
- from one soursmelling
motel
- to another asshole room
- across the dusty miles
- the nights ambled in
laconic
- swayhipped like the
Duke
-
- searching for the
southlands
- sensing sirens on our
tails
- we stole a silver
mustang
- parked open by an
outhouse
- and filled it with the
stink
- of tacos, Camels and
cheap beer
- in the glovebox a faded
roadmap
- a baby's rattle and
five photos
- of a woman sucking hogs
-
- last night by a crooked
churchsign
- AJ found a starving
skeethound
- fed it cheeseburgers
and Pepsi
- scritched its ears and
called it Angel
- lying in the backseat
- on his painted leather
jacket
- it scratched and burped
and farted
- then slept like distant
thunder
- as we rode the the
desert road
- scrunching potatochips
and peanuts
- waiting for deadeye
Dawn
- that old hick Sheriff
- to nail the desperado
Moon
-
- AJ lit another Camel
- found Jim Reeves on the
airwaves
- and I was kinda
drowsing
- when the highway
- reared up like a
snakehead
- and spat us into town
****************************************************************************
The next poem is about childhood:
-
five fingers
-
- Lord, they say I have
one soul
- can that be right?
- perhaps I am made wrong
- for I feel many things
in me.
-
- most, says my
grandmother,
- I resemble a monkey;
- that is when I chatter
- and play and do not
listen.
-
- sometimes, my brothers
tell me,
- I am like a brown deer,
- when I run fast, so
fast
- like the wind stroking
spring grass.
-
- then there is the owl
of me,
- Lord,- my eyes round
- with looking and stories
- and things to be
understood.
-
- stripped for the water,
- I become fish, not
thinking
- or considering, but
warm
- in the river's fist,
forgetting.
-
- when I stand under the
stars
- there is something
more,
- a sharp brightness
- on tiptoe like a
spindle.
-
- when you take one,
Lord,
- do not leave the others
pining,
- it is one hand, five
fingers.
-
- monkey will ride deer
- owl will sail salmon
- and light will guide us
home.
****************************************************************************
The next poem is about childhood
betrayed:
-
- a
song for Lucy
-
- Lucy bold and Lucy shy
- Lucy laughing at the sky
- Lucy small and Lucy neat
- Lucy playing in the street
- Lucy low and Lucy high
- Lucy learning how to fly
-
- Lucy warm and Lucy cold
- Lucy dreaming rings of gold
- Lucy false and Lucy true
- Lucy knowing what girls do
- Lucy priced and Lucy sold
- Lucy young but feeling old
-
- Lucy dark and Lucy bright
- Lucy needing needle-bite
- Lucy raw and Lucy scraped
- Lucy beaten stripped and
raped
- Lucy short and Lucy sweet
- Lucy redmorphed into meat
-
- Lucy black and Lucy white
- Lucy dances every night
*************************************************************************
I've included this final one by
special request. Thanks, Christina:
-
birdroom
-
- somewhere in this room
- there is a dead bird
- four plump Java finches
- perching yesterday
- on the curtainrail
- today an odd number
- somewhere in a corner
or
- behind a piece of
furniture
- there is a dead bird.
-
- I should look for it
- but not yet
- the green canary
- bubbles with song
- sends out a tendril
- of notes so beautiful
- it touches pain
- one of the doves coos
- with tender lust
- a parakeet flirts
- its vivid wings
-
- I know somewhere
- there is a dead bird
- but I will not seek it yet
- in the room of my mind
- there are dark corners
- where thoughts lie
- desiccating like dead birds
- I will not disturb them yet
- not while sunlight
- smells like honey
- and canaries worship Pan.
-
Thank you for flying with
grasshopper airlines.
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