{"id":324,"date":"2025-05-01T10:10:26","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T10:10:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.openbook.org.uk\/chainlink\/?p=324"},"modified":"2025-05-01T10:10:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T10:10:26","slug":"roy-marshall-three-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.openbook.org.uk\/NLR\/2025\/05\/01\/roy-marshall-three-poems\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Marshall – Three Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Definition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Elon Musk\u2019s appearance at a Trump rally this afternoon is garnering
significant attention due to a<\/em> one-armed gesture<\/em>.\u2019
BBC News<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tool for digging. A sharp metal blade attached to a long handle.
Often has footrests to help drive it into the ground.
The Irish<\/em> version is thinner, and the sharpshooter,
<\/em>used for cutting post holes, is long and narrow.
The fishtail<\/em> with its flared triangular head, is as versatile
as the Dutch hoe, as powerful as the round point shovel.
Small ones are used by children to build sandcastles with.
Anyone who sees one knows one when they see one.
Anyone who has learnt the name
can call it what it is.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Murder<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I used to kill them in their hundreds, I told
a Buddhist, hoping she was Buddhist enough
not to judge. For entertainment in the long
school holidays, I stalked my grandparents\u2019 house,
smashing flies to smithereens. And, in the garden<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stamped on wasps, tipsy as they crawled
from fallen apples. Later, in Greece, I hunted mosquitos
with a rolled magazine, my own blood exposed
on white walls and ceilings. And regiments of ants
I kettle dowsed; streams of bodies washed across<\/p>\n\n\n\n

patio slabs. But never did I slam a moth between
the covers of a hardback, or rain chemicals down
on an aphid-bejewelled rose bud. Nor, as I\u2019ve seen
others do, did I ever nail a spider with a slipper or a shoe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for sharing your illusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Albert Einstein said time is an Illusion, presumably one
that eventually killed him. Time is the thief of memory
according to Stephen King, who says nothing about how
the thief returns while you sleep to unpack on the bed
a case of what was taken. Time (for those who love) is
eternity. I quote Henry Van Dyke, who merely repeats
what John Donne knew. Time is a storm in which we are
all lost. That\u2019s William Carlos Williams, whose poems were
his compass, or shelter from the storm, or both. Time is
the measure of motion, thinks Aristotle from across an ocean
of time, as he sits motionless while his wife boils his breakfast egg.
Time is the enemy of identity, wrote Simone de Beauvoir while
in the process of losing herself to time. While we kill time, time
is killing us. A good one this, though I forget who to credit.
Time is money, no one ever said while the syringe filled with blood,
the catheter passed into the ureter, the curtains closed over the casket,
or as they stood, a teenager at a bus stop in the rain, blowing smoke
rings in time\u2019s face. In this moment, I am that kid again, for imagination,
as playing children find, holds sway over time. Thank you for sharing
your illusion, letting me share mine. This is your poet speaking, we are
currently inside a poem, a time machine running on breath and heartbeats.
We hope you will fly with us again. One more thing; It is a mistake to think
you have time. Buddha said that. Time saunters off, like a nonchalant cat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roy Marshall<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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