The Western Gate

I once wrote a poem on same subject, so copied ‘n’ pasted ;-

Ask me for one thing to change—
one trembling petal plucked from the brambled rose of myself—
but one is never enough for the clamouring soul;
the self is a greedy cathedral,
ever echoing for more, more, more.
For the one I choose is never a lone star
but a whole constellation—
a heaving mass of want and wonder,
of indecision swirling storm-milk in a cracked jug—
and I, pilgrim of my own making,
cannot help but name the many
when asked for the one……

Let there be hair, a thatch of dawn
sprung from the bare-boned moon of my crown—
a soft uprising of self against the skull’s cold sermon.
And this nose, broad as a Dublin door,
let it narrow its river only slightly,
a tributary trimmed, not tamed.

My lobeless ears—
little curled cliffs worn smooth by the sea—
fair well, leave them be,
for they’ve heard enough of the world’s warnings.
But fade, crow-lines, those dusk-feathered scribbles;
and marionette curves, unhook your tugging strings
from the theatre of my mouth.

My neck—
Gravity lead, hung wattle of years—
tighten your gobbled sag
into a swan’s quiet question.

Give me muscle, big muscle,
balconies of brawn for the wind to lean on.
Straighten my tall stoop,
that overdone bow to the littler folk—
no more bending like a guilty saint
to sip their smaller syllables.

Teeth: line up gang.
But not too white—
no lighthouse grin to blind the night,
just honest bone returning to its first plain shine.

Let the aches unhinge their claws.
Let the pains cancel their subscriptions.

Down below?
Leave the blessed altar be—
as praise has poured a hymn
I hope not lies, though do I care,
from convinced and contented lovers.

Eyes: make them twin suns again,
20/20 in the bright-time of morning.
Begone the clouding saffron veil,
Return the brilliance white.
And one is blue and the other green,
The eyes of a witch Blessed Be.
Ears: awaken the deaf cathedral,
let stereo swing back its double doors,
two choirs answering each other
like lovers in a long corridor.

Heartburn, hush thy fiery gospel.

And my accent—
Cockney kettle-boil and market-song—
that’s me.
Though when I sing, I lurch
A drunken landlord beating time on oak,
let that be weathered, not erased.

My Arse—
chiselled flat as a gravestone—
give it a roundness, a poet’s punctuation,
a curve to hold a rhyme.

Skin, smooth your devil-teats,
your lunar craters of small calamity.

Legs:
Long lanky pillars of the Slender Man’s chapel,
fatten ye with the horse’s thunder,
thighs like drums for marching storms.

Stomach: draw back from swollen tide;
and if a six-pack must rise,
make it a secret,
a quiet cellar and I would not adore the wanton stare.

Feet: great hooves of prophecy—keep your size;
I know what they say.
But soften the leather of your pilgrimage,
and temper the brittle toenail roof-tiles
into humbler shingles.

Lower legs bare as abandoned fields—
keep their hairlessness;
I’ve made peace with that pale astonishment.

But grant me then a mane,
a lion’s choir in my throat,
and strength to stride the long, long winding road.

And on that road,
somewhere between the once and the yet-to-be,
I’ll meet myself—
the man I am now—
and bow to him,
this singular pilgrim of bone and breath,
this unrepeatable wanderer.

For he is individual.
And I—
with all my wishes, woes, and workshop-dreams—
am but the product of becoming.
The reflection of vanity.
Humanities dish, not natures Wish.

So leave me as I am.
What would I change, about myself, not one thing,
but nothing. My mothers blessed creation.