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Best Poems Written by Rosemarie Rowley

Below are the all-time best Rosemarie Rowley poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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The Mad Secretary

THE MAD SECRETARY

Hunched over the computer, I am  mystical,
With mental white gloves and a karate belt - 
A daylight cursor, but on my bicycle,
A word and energy transformer, a flickering Celt.

Such metaphysics I can make into sensation,
Turned into binary formulae by the boss,
My passion is for punctuation- 
But the lingua franca doesn’t give a toss.

 I see the point.  I accommodate the pause.
I rinse the cups and make the coffee sweet,
I am saving myself for this man of laws,
Of Brehon provenance, who will entreat

Me to be his love, his partner and co-genitor,
Of a life graph, where he can trust the monitor.

(c) Rosemarie Rowley
From IN MEMORY OF HER (2008)

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Juliet

JULIET

Your long black hair, set in a velvet bow
Your well set shoulders tell me all I know 
That you and I are no betoken age
As  you take your bounding place upon my stage
So glad your grace, so lovely you of limb
That counting clans of discord does not dim
Your radiant eye, your gentleness of touch
Which show how I need you and how much
I read your looks with love in every line
Dream all night, and in your arms incline
Such gentleness and looseness all is won
Our beleaguered families  need you as a sun
So much so, that you and I are all
The world needs to cleanse it of its gall.

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Cold War Artist

COLD WAR ARTIST 


The art of such intention is fatigue
At living lies outside the scope of death,

To wear in the last blitzkrieg
A shroud meaning artist, a wreath

Of columbine in the hair, but the kitchen eyes,
Carbuncled knees betray the giver’s art.

Down on the doorstep,  she’ll scrub your lies:
To her gift of total self she’ll add a part - 

Your own tongue sliced and severed on her plate
Of 20th century design –  taste

The dust of pointillism, the cubist fate
Of newspaper and cello here embraced –

The emptiness filched from the master’s past:
Mankind’s death wishes, home to roost at last.


1964-1987
published IN MEMORY OF HER, Dublin, 2008

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Woman Writer

WOMAN WRITER

If interviewed on the subject of the sonnet
What man has brought me endless cups of tea?
They’ll say I’ve got a Queen Bee in my bonnet
The male groupies will not type my poems for me.

What golden mother lives without inspiration?
What sister can be truly herself, and tackle
The canon in the patriarchal cold, the purgation
Of miles of libraries with the truth a hackle?

The worst thing is that there’s no male muse - 
I don’t feel the marginalisation or the neglect
Quite as much as the possibility I might lose
The reader in the absence of his call-collect - 

And I must be very careful with my man - 
I lose a husband if I kiss a fan.

by Rosemarie Rowley

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Sixty Eight

SIXTY EIGHT

For years I’ve lived with being a soixante-huiter
Although my wardrobe’s more fastidious and neater
Those heady days are not beyond recall
The nights and days when we first did it all
But sober work and ethics have combined
To make a settled bed  my truest mind
And catalogues and dictionaries my woe
To understand what happened long ago
Far flung days have their own allurement
But nothing beats the logic of procurement
And adventitious loves have gone the way
Of all youth, to say it’s had its day
I daren’t even call myself a woman sweeter - 
Past perfect indiscretions tend to tweet her.

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The Temple Prostitute

THE TEMPLE PROSTITUTE

The God came  to me in the guise of a stranger
His gold body scent was of great sublimity 
His arms were marble pillars,  and his embrace
Melted the whole world on my belly.

He tuned me to the refinement of my own nature -
Pitched me so exquisitely I fell from heaven -
Totally vanquished, till I remembered
All there was of paradise, and the number seven.

He has the unfolding of centuries since
To worship me as a goddess divine,
But they couldn’t build churches fast enough
To deny our union in the votive shrine.

The salt of humble pilgrims for my wantonness
I, who had everything but blessedness.

(c) Rosemarie Rowley
From IN MEMORY OF HER (2008)

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Demeter At the Chinese Opera

DEMETER AT THE CHINESE OPERA


So, I invited you to the Chinese Opera impulsively
Thinking of masks and dragons and triumphant mystery
I though it was time we threw off our coats
Of mourning, you for your  daughter

Stopping one night, on the way home from a party,
So randomly, cruelly, killed by the monster
Who has slain more than all the century’s wars
And my private sorrow for which there is no funeral.

I remember your straying husband also
Loved the Chinese Opera.  What will happen
If we all meet between the acts?
Surely forgiveness will come like snow on the mountain

And we will live in a harmony that can never be suppressed
In a slow majestic music that takes account of grief. 

(C) Rosemarie Rowley
From IN MEMORY OF HER (2008)

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Anchorite At the Gate of Heaven

ANCHORITE AT THE GATE OF HEAVEN

Not heeding brute reality, nor matter’s bane
I kneel at the door of heaven, a suppliant,
Transcribing words of wisdom, like the rain
On wild flowers; the garden’s hierophant:

Anointed, a habit on my body’s beauty
I lie in the threshold of my tryst with God -
The first flight from earth being my duty
Becoming His perfect mean and golden rod,

I cool my heels in a dank, dark cell
Where half-light becomes my element
God’s plenty in motes, with the music of the bell
A love feast of the penitent.

I rise on wings of thankfulness and praise,
Sing out in silence the glory of His ways.

from IN MEMORY OF HER 2008

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For Mary Magdalene

FOR MARY MAGDALENE

Between necessity and freedom I was crucified
Perceiving Himself endlessly on the cross
Yet aware, as an onlooker, petrified
My vision that never was, would be His loss.

I mimed too, as they hammered in the nails
Once more assuaging myself  in His deep tears
Once more my heart rallying where my speech fails
To give His lips the vinegar it fears.

Sun eclipsed,  I dallied with the vision of day,
A multi-chromed banner the old enemy was twisting,
Till I could no longer read in stone and clay,
My flower-head lopped, topped to the moment’s listing - 

I shone for Him like a speck in the glory of the sunrise
Waiting for twilight, the beauty of the stars’ surprise.

by Rosemarie Rowley
from IN MEMORY OF HER, Dublin 2008

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Mother's Little Killers

MOTHER’S LITTLE KILLERS

She hates them, the unguent power
Which sticks her fairy wings together
Making impossible the ivory tower
Of disinterested passion, the if and whether

Of generic names, the ultimate aloneness.
The honest answer is to unstick
The loathsome epithets accompanying the mess
Let her soul free with a lexographic brick

As she goes on her desert train to limbo -
Grant her freedom to ride into the dusk
Without turning her into a soulless bimbo,
Pills shedding the epigrammatic husk,

Cavorting in the lunar satellite,
A spaced monkey too drugged to fight