Stephen Kingsnorth
My title, Jude, you understand?
If but a hardy soul, you should.
Perhaps my verse is not your space
but yours the access – trace my mind.
Why can you not hear what I voice
and, taken plunge, still get it wrong?
I’ll write, gazing in crystal ball –
if yet unseen, your wiring’s poor.
I’ll use the info learned at school –
for poetry found learnèd brains.
Perhaps I’ll translate, common state,
and then you’ll celebrate as found?
Now what I share is something known
or else the poem’s not owned, mine,
but common knowledge, commonwealth,
and recognition not my deal –
the common touch still calls for breadth –
but as I’ve finished, up to you.
“But, friend, we seek a commonplace,
that least you write, available,
not easy grace for trampling swine
but observation, chiming bells.
So, application to the task,
my answer only if both work,
and then the page that typist typed
has archetypal emphasis.
So, come together, pilgrim road,
discover what’s new in our world,
inherent posers, if we ask –
an entry point, art comprehend.
If bounded, wedded, stewardship
it might be both, best understand.”
Stephen Kingsnorth, retired to Wales, UK, from ministry in the Methodist Church with Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces published by online poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies. He maintains a blog: https://poetrykingsnorth.wordpress.com/