The Collected Poems of Chris Lucas

Index

On Metaphysics

Life

Life
An ephemeral thing
From whence it came ?
And where on death it vanishes ?
Neither created nor destroyed
But preserved in the flow of time
Transformed and ever changing
A sunbeam dancing on a barren waste
The fleeting flash that being seen
Runs shy behind a passing cloud
To reappear across the vale
In other guise and other time

---

Time

Eternal time
Whose constant beat is never done
Oblivious to all and sun
But no, transformed it takes its place
An one dimension more of space
And now in relativistic guise
It changes face with different eyes
While in our minds it laughs and shouts
Refusing twice to constant pout
As in a flash it flees and goes
Then when all still it drags its nose
The smell of death when nothing stirs
Yet still it flows as life recurs

---

Thought

Do you think ? I do, I think.
There, that proves it.
I am, therefore I think, as Descartes might have said.
But he didn't.

Does a slug think ? Or a weasel ?
An inscrutable Chinese ?
Is thought reason or intuition ?
Or both ?
Not blind following of procedure.
Nor conformance to rule.
Not action.

Quiet.
Detachment.
A space to ponder.
Thought must take two plus two,
And make five.
Value add, something for naught.
Creativity

A world of noise and rush.
Facts, figures, information overload.
Complexity, machinery, sensual assault.
The disintegration of thought.

---

Knowledge

When we are born we see the sun
Our search for knowledge just begun
At kindergarten planets bright
Accompany learning wrong from right
By infant school and the three Rs
We notice first the shining stars
On school for junior's final day
We've learned to see the milky way
In adolescent's ecstasy
We recognise a galaxy
In later life with constant gaze
Clusters form from darkest haze
But keenest, most persistent sight
Cannot exhaust the heaven's light
And so for knowledge very deep
A thousand lifetimes cannot reap

---

Ethics

The good life
A searching to conform
To timeless rules sent down from God
Or perhaps instead
Pure utility, the maximisation of pleasure
A personal view

From decisions made
Is born a stream of consequences
And each in turn gestates
Effects that flow out to eternity
To judge our acts

---

Reincarnation

A chain of causality we say
In science is the only way
But in the East effect as well
Results from causes magic spell
And as you sow, so shall you reap
When woken next from rebirth's sleep
Material things we speak of not
But moral actions last begot
In previous life than now do shape
Your future destiny's inscape
The endless cycle can be broke
Within Nirvana flee the yoke
By meditation and good work
To build good karma, light the murk
With restful mind and empty heart
Of God's own being we are part

---

Fate

Oh cruel fate what man has need of thee
Who bright enough to rashly future see
Through countless dawns and sunsets fading fast
Thy smirking deeds and random dies are cast
Our feeble hopes and plans are made in vain
Then move you make and all dissolves in pain

---

Triad

Like splintered through a prism's glare
A scattergram in quadrants three
Our thoughts and feelings, senses flee

It seems that none together dare
In flower whole and growing free
To huddle close for company

We would not think a blossom fair
Cold reason man two thirds exclude
If petals left the stamen nude

Or if a weed with strength laid bare
Self-centered mindless sense sole ape
In carnal sport proceeds to rape

When sentiment the rest foreswear
Emotion's dreams all life shadow
Then ardent spurtings feelings flow

And yet entwined I can declare
In person whole where three makes four
Grows Trinity that's at our core

---

Chasm

Deep despair pervades my saddened heart
And mankinds current plight fills me with shame
In two thousand lonely years they've grown apart
And nowhere can I see a common aim

The education process should have taught
A tolerance and comradeship I feel
But attempts to work together come to naught
Ignoring in their hate our best appeal

Stupidity and mindless to the fore
They sally into battle all the while
And if they have success they still want more
Their greed is so pronounced that all defile

If beauty ever comes within their sight
They may as well gaze blindly on a void
So sweep aside and turn instead to blight
The better any wider thought avoid

---

Rheomode 1

Conscious flowing
Ideas arising
Love outpouring
Life enhancing

Humans sharing
All enveloping
Earth protecting
Creative helping

Warming clothing
Hygenic housing
Filling feeding
Healthy growing

Artistic longing
Nature yearning
Knowledge building
Future world

---

Nova

From mind's fair void a stiring gathers form
A vaprous sense of movement in the light
Tenacious conscious inrush to a star
That glimmers bright with inspiration's gem
Imploding energy transforming into mass
That radiates its brilliance into space
Illuminating all with ceaseless love
Then fading fast and leaving not a trace
But in the dark new lifeforms can emerge
Touched and transformed by its seed
Exploring hidden depths in cosmic lust
To grow and conquer all around they see
Expanding to invade a million suns
Creating in their wake God's ecstasy

---

Potential

Shimmering jewels that echo off the lake
A thousand eyes that dance in limpid pools
Unknowing options that endlessly we take
A random spin that sorts the wise from fools

Galactic stars that match each one of us
All swirling flames that call on us to love
Vivacious growth that gains the earth a plus
In cosmic flow that mirrors God above

A moving feast of beauty under change
That stagnant minds unseeing gaze subverts
Exploding life explores all nature's range
Then laughing to the boundless void reverts

---

---

On Life

Poetry

Yes poetry is many things
To many folks, in many ways
Yet chiefly it's a splendid way
To gently pass our days
The shackles off, no boring prose
A verse form free and bold
Whose format can be weird and blank
Or rhyming lines of old
My subject matter transcends art
Of science too it takes a part
To this, to that, I'll flit and dart
But writing always from the heart
Communicating feelings deep
The best on paper then we'll keep

---

Birth

Warm stealthful onrush of life
A baby born
Still cloaked in protective disguise
Pink, wrinked ugliness
But soon a brilliant light emerges
Enchanting smile
And trusting eyes awash with curiosity
Eager to learn
A tentative step, then ceaseless energy
Unstoppable dynamo
A crash and endless tears
As other life resists
An offered sweet to first new friend
Social consciousness
Discovered joys of sharing play
Fantasy worlds
The adolescent fear of non-conformance
Self consciousness
Then calm descends, a partner's touch
Love making
The wheel turns

---

Stress

I cannot wake, I cannot sleep
My body aches, my mind is weak
Pushed on the stack are endless tasks
Whose deadlines won't be met alas
If but refreshed and one by one
These jobs would soon be quickly done
But piled on high and all at once
It asks impossible response
The nerves they snap, my hands they shake
A break for rest I need to take
Death

---

Once

For every life a special day
Bursts into gleem to have a say
'Twixt two new hesitating friends
Each to the other's look attends
To seek that flicker of a sign
That shows desire to lives entwine
Their deep eyes meet, reciprocate
He'll ask her out and make a date
The warmth of love it melts the dew
A radient me, I've found that you
The birdsong peals, the water plays
My heart it leaps in dizzy haze
Achievement soars it's reached the peak
And basking in your glow a freak

---

Devilish

Unholy row, God save us from the din
As I in torment, thus suffer for my sin
The hell today created in Thy name
On earth resides to chide us in our shame

The many gifts of mind and heart and skin
Can never fight the throbbing deep within
Assailed each day by thoughtless empty world
Whose useless noise is in our faces hurled

The 'copters pass, the dogs that endless bark
Pneumatic drills to which we can but hark
The traffic blare and dripping water seeps
Into our skull surplanting gentle sleeps

Yet when it's quiet and we our senses gain
Creation flows, we know no life's in vain
And thus we rise above the merely sane
Until it starts and down we fall again

---

Heavenly

Deep spirit awaken lift my aching heart
With tender strains of music worlds apart
Amist the glowing landscape of your joy
Whose gentle haze will cares and hate destroy

Incandescent beauty shimmer in my eyes
Ecstatic chimes that echo with my sighs
Exquisite vision framed by Cupid's lute
No power on earth could such a love refute

My very being aches to thee devour
Encompass all thy culture of the hour
My reason interwove with passions fire
A flesh made whole with senses and desire

Oh radient pleasure in thy symmetry
Where sound and light embrace in poetry
Pervade the glowing frame of civil man
And raise him up to grow by Divine plan

---

Live Poets Society

Intellectual as a rule
Verse form matters get it right
Warm, pretentious poet fool
Bask in written verses' sight

Sequestrina now that's hard
Sonnets too have many forms
Take the challenge you're the bard
Every verse his art transforms

Public read and puzzled look
Think the guy is on the weed
Turn instead and read a book
Wasting precious time indeed !

Thus rejected for his skill
Turns instead to verse that's blank
Thinks the public prat heads ill
Pity it's his verse that stank !

---

Phobic

Fear clutching at a shrieking heart
The unknown
Alone
No waiting shoulder here
Hostile natives
'Deviation will be punished'
Heartlessly
The untrained young social worker
Acts
With full backing
Of those who 'know', lawmakers
A child's story embroidered,
On demand,
Abuse !
Three lives destroyed
Political correctness
Imagined Satanism
Paedophilia
Assault
'Three out of ten children are in danger'
From whom ?

---

Passing Lives

Ephemeral time that etches day from day
Discarding lives with no regard for us
We plan so much and all dissolves away
On your encroach with neither noise nor fuss

We wait with glee for two weeks holiday
Prospective achievement leaves us with a buzz
Yet now it's here and five day had their say
And nothing done and we can only cuss

The sun is hot and tempers burn and fray
No progress made on any syllabus
Just music on and CDs play and play
Work this week seems so frivilous

I feel no joy in having feet of clay
And have no urge my textbooks to discuss
But very soon I'll really have to pray
Grab pompous time and make him truly rush

---

Nurture

Seeding, watering, potting, feeding
Greening, growing, budding life
Flowering, visiting, polinating
Zygote forming, cycling life

Grouping, forming, all contrasting
Skyward yearning, competing life
Dying, thriving, best succeeding
Weed infesting, sharing life

Planning, planting, view enhancing
Pruning, moving, changing life
Autumn, winter, sping and summer
Loving, caring, gardening life

---

Beauty

Iridescent gleam of sun streaked sky
Soft warm glow of sensual thigh
Brooding glare of mountains high

Green flecked carpet of nature's flow
Sweeping curves of rivers slow
Forest sounds entrancing low

Water falling sparkling fast
Snowflake forms by artists cast
Ancient oaks from ages past

Heartfelt music fills the air
Rainbow blooms bust open fair
Child's wide eyes a soul laid bare

Towers of spirit from churches soar
Fish that frisk round coral floor
Sea surf breaks on tropic shore

Mind expanding surrealist art
Celebrations, taking part
Global welcome in our hearts

Man and nature joint divine

---

War

Now fifty years from VE day
Has peace corps message had its say
The lessons learnt from holocaust
Alas so tragically are lost
From hate of greed in Bosnianland
To genocide by Tutsi hand
The powers of lust for nature's spoils
Mans better nature always foils
The innocents of every town
For leaders pride are cut right down
The heritage of centuries past
Is into rubble senseless cast
The blameless planets beauty fair
They into pieces quickly tear
The selfish despots arrogance
Matched only by their ignorance
The teaching of a global war
It seems that only children saw

---

---

On Love

Why

Sex is beauty, a lovely song
Why do some folks think it wrong
If two consent to share their lust
Why should others so distrust
Pleasures hurting not a soul
Why does this rock self-control
Together close and like a glove
Why do you hurt the ones who love
Tender passions, feelings sweet
Why condemn, starving mistreat
Friends, that sensual, drink their fill
Why lock-up, yet worldwide kill
Embracing bodies is never wrong
Yet your hypocrisy is strong

---

Life

Love, sex and beauty are
Mankinds fruitful aims by far
Other cravings though they're strong
Lead to outcomes that are wrong
Power grows only off others fear
Greed will likewise cost them dear
Self-interest will avail you naught
This world it lives on shared support
Your actions should increase the good
Like sharing pleasures, making love
But hurt no one and do not push
For beauty isn't in a rush
So procreate and you will find
Creations beautiful in kind
With slender grace and endless charm
That can at first sit in your palm
But grow so quick to be like you
For they are only children too

---

Near

I catch a glimpse in passing through
Of lovely, tall and blond girl you
With curly hair and skin so fair
Blue jeans so tight , no wear and tear
I cannot help but pause to see
If perhaps you still are free
But on your hand there is something
Alas it's gold, a wedding ring
My heart does sink, I slink away
A special girl I've lost today
Perhaps you wouldn't fancy me
Espoused, it's now too late to see

---

Distant

Delicious soft and tender lass
Whose name I do not know alas
When fleeting glimpse I catch of you
My heart doth bounce with love so true
I've sought you out but all in vain
I only see you from my train
As it speeds past a road though wide
Your beauty lights up all inside
You memory haunts me in my dreams
And my heart breaks because it seems
That I can't get so close to you
That I can show my love so true

---

---

Songs

Maybe

Maybe you would like to be
In my arms so soft and free
Sharing all those pleasant joys
That grow between all girls and boys

Chorus:
Come my darling move up close
Then we'll be as warm as toast
Feel our hearts they beat as one
As we share our sensual fun

Maybe you really love my face
Yours I think is just real ace
Lips for kissing, eyes that glow
Pleasures hinting, oh so slow

Chorus

Maybe your movements tell me all
Softly swaying so slim and tall
Hips gyrating, breasts that pout
A tiger dying to get out

Chorus

Maybe tonight I'll take you home
And there our hands can freely roam
Exploring passions growing fast
Our love machine along at last

Chorus

---

Wooing

Lovely lady tender teen
Together let us both be seen
Walking out just hand in hand
Discovering our promised land

Chorus:
When you're near me I feel good
I would hold you if I could
It would be so very nice
That I'd want to do it twice

Come on out and be my girl
Give our love a tender whirl
Feel me close and cuddle me
See how good that it can be

Chorus

Listen to my words of love
Come and be my turtle dove
Let your eyes look deep in mine
Then for ever I'll be thine

Chorus

I'm devoted just to you
Please my darling don't pooh-pooh
Pleading deep from in my heart
That from now we'll never part

Chorus

---

War

Stupid people have some sense
Don't destroy your innocence
In God's image you were made
Who remains now your comrade

Chorus:
Stop the fighting, drop your guns
Save your daughters and your sons
Kill the hatred, kill the greed
Heal the wounds that constant bleed

Earth is lonely out in space
Covered by one human race
Yet you split it into spoils
When frustrated passion boils

Chorus

All are equal, all are free
Yet you make it purgatory
Cease your craving for more power
Least this planet you devour

Chorus

Feed the hungry, heal the sick
Clothe the naked, teach the thick
Bring them water where there's drought
Plenty where there once was naught

Chorus

---

Miseducation

Education's such a joy
Free to every girl and boy
What we teach it matters much
For our children's minds we touch

Chorus:
Darling don't talk to strangers
But I haven't any friends
Darling don't talk to strangers
But my lonely heart it rends

Teach distrust and hate and fear
And promised land will ne'er be here
Fill with want to love and share
And paradise will soon be there

Chorus

From life we can't protect them
Perhaps sick ones abuse them
There's a change that we might lose them
But strangers can befriend them

Chorus

Our neighbours are our brothers
Companions and our lovers
We live on earth together
Through fire and stormy weather

Chorus

When young we must build bridges
Break down dividing ridges
Plant seeds of trust to ripen
Not hide from thoughts that threaten

Chorus

Understanding it will help them
Compassion it will feed them
Tolerance it will build them
Throughout the world unite them

Chorus

---

Dark Continent

Darling let your body move
With this lovely township groove
Let your hips so sensual swing
Chill out cool and do your thing

Chorus:
Africa's a jazzy place
Black musicians are just ace
Keep that rhythm pumping slow
Heartbeat music makes you glow

Breasts are bopping up and down
With that heavy jaunty sound
Let you feet so gently tap
With this fresh new trendy rap

Chorus

Arms that push both in and out
Lips that do so freely pout
Let your legs so slim and long
Gyrate to this jungle song

Chorus

Music makes our lives go well
In sunny beat there is no hell
Let your sorrows wash away
Seize the sound for one more day

Chorus

---

Apartheid

I pure white and you jet black
I do know right from wrong
It's obvious you can't be right
By definition wrong

Chorus:
There is no grey or tolerance
In conflict or in war
No sharing of the power of love
Between the black and Boer
The colours of their skins it seems
Excites their prejudice
Yet three months in the tropic sun
Can change from that to this

You will conform to what I say
Obey my will right now
For I'm in power, and you are not
Bow down you swine, kowtow

Chorus

You want the vote, you want to share
You would dilute my power
And water down the good I feel
Bad man kneel and cower

Chorus

I have God's given right to rule
And exercise my truth
Control the lives of lower men
Suppress their lives uncouth

Chorus

---

Thoughtless

Thought, oh rare and wondrous bird
You fly so high, yet rare are heard
Within this age's frantic race
Where profit makes such joys absurd
In striving to the business pace

To ponder deep on wider things
To listen to the bird that sings
Is drowned out in the roar of trucks
A pleasure lost in cash till zings
Then syphoned off by endless crooks

If to the mutual good we crave
These people think we merely rave
We should revert to number one
And feelings for our bank wad save
Before the rip-off chance is gone

In literature and in fine art
And science too, we stand apart
Beauty wrecked in greed's lost cause
Yet steady to our course we'll chart
For soon in death they'll surely pause

---

---

Haiku's

(all November 1996)

Open arms clawing
Warm ideas melt ignorance
Sunlight in the trees

---

Moon ripples off lake
Our last truck leaves the quarry
Sad Earth rests awhile

---

Ah so, Grasshopper
Zhuangzi say "Man without love"
"Is big pain in arse"

---

Third world looks to us
Yearning for a decent life
Left Right Centre, sigh

---

"Hello" breezed Hare "race ?"
Tortoise scanned the keen jogger
"Arriving is naff!"

---

Dove like lovers gaze
Conflict lost in shared rapture
A sniper takes aim

---

Sad eyes show a tear
Clock striking, last orders called
Child beating father

---

---

Miscellaneous

(poems posted on the Open University's Wigwam Conferencing system 1996)

What do we do ?

We fly through the air, go deep underground
All shout out at once, but never a sound
Our magic it seeks the Virtual Stone
By antics that make old alchemists groan

We play with our words, transcend space and time
Our spells can be prose or sometimes they rhyme
If you have a mind then nothing else matters
So pull up a stone, take tea with mad hatters !

---

Customisation...of a home for the Coven conference

From coven's all we'll take our scent
You'll wonder where the alcoves went
To this fine cave they have been lent
Now feel at home they're wizard sent !

and Let's have a cavewarming

A case of red, a case of white
To start the party off alright
The cauldron on the heat is high
Our casserole of lizard nigh

The Demon DJ ups the beat
Music makes the feet so fleet
Take your partners give your all
For our caves inaugral ball !

there's more...

Come Wizzes and Princes and Worlocks an all
The grub it be served to start our fair ball
Take queenies and mages and witches all fair
And gather up all of their warts that you dare

Once supper is over and moon rises high
Our coven its works shall on hell's fire rely
We'll conjure the demons and keep them in check
Else all of us here will become quite a wreck

---

The Death of the Wigwam Conferencing System

Its over, its over, you heard the rabble shout
The Indian is dying, as rushing they got out
Yet in the dark all simmering
Of which they had no glimmering
Lay first class Bluecoat swaggering, but OLR without

( OLR = Off Line Reader - replacement system was less efficient!)

Once upon a party neigh (closing down party)

Let the festivities begin, and all regain their wands
And fill the air with magic spells for righting all those wrongs
The cauldron filled with lovely things to bolster up our feelings
And raise our spirits oh so high they meet our vaulted ceilings
A Gothic horror would it be to leave our cave so empty
So come on down both friend and fiend, of grub there is aplenty !

and a Swansong from my Coven conference

The end is nigh...
The fire grows low, the cave walls cool
For memories past we all can drool
Our time in here has been such fun
But now alas our lives are done
Perhaps in time like phoenix bird
We'll all rise up and spread the word
That coven people cannot die
But in their hearts just wait and sigh
Until a future first class day
When once again we'll have our say
And can regroup to give a whoop
And cast more spells in Merlin's soup !

---

Taste in Wine

Spatlese, Spatlese, sickly sweet
Gives our darling such a treat
Those with taste my little pet
Prefer a tasty Kabinett !

If like me you're widely read
Perhaps a Stellenbosch instead
The Pinotage is some fine grape
The red of blood and Satan's cape !

---

Ode to an Angel Shining Bright

Warm and soft and tender girl
In whose arms I yearn to curl
Slide up so close and let me feel
Such smooth fresh skin from head to heel
Gaze into enchanted eyes
Touch me lightly on the thighs
Let your long fair silken tresses
Brush my form with their caresses
...
( the rest is private you guys :-)

Really Thoz ! (a response to a comment on the above)

A Dragon so naughty but nice
May turn my new love all to ice
By crudities strewn
She may this day rune
Acquaintence with Wizard of vice

My motives are here quite Platonic
In no sense can I feel so demonic
A cuddle I offer
I don't want to boff her
Til Cupid our lives makes harmonic

---

Three Selves (1999)

From our genes the beginning, an organism, a naked self.
A world encountered, experience molding a neuronal net, self two.
And on through time our place in society found,
The final layer, cultural me. Ephemeral self.

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Page Version 1.1 March 2003, Original July 2001