Jason Morgan: ‘Raising a toast’, ‘Dreaming’ ‘Drunk’, ‘What memory tells me’, ‘Suburbia’

Raising a toast

To Vanity I drink and cheap hotels
within whose doors I pleasured my sad loins,
and heard the mattress creak beneath me with
sly laughter as dawn coloured those sad walls.

Dreaming

From death men rise like ripples on the sea.
So rose the poet from tranquility,
to see castles on the blue horizon,
where lured sailors sleep their perfect sleep.

Before the calm morn goes out with soft wings,
and sunlight flames the temples of first light,
vision flashed past his enshrined eyes, breathing
life’s flame into his cadaverous clay.

Here may I leap, love and die with prudence,
for in this inside space all is drama,
and so may pass real as the primal world,
pierced with the pains waiting for me at dawn.

What memory tells me

We talked about the past,
the eccentrics,
the normal ones now drunk
with the light of God,
the wild children
with stars in their hair,
and the old town,
both alive and dead
in the shrine of history
where dreams do kiss our eyes.

Father said, “Your memory
is brilliant, you were
so young.” I was, like
dawn through the keyhole.
The silence of stone
met our ears.
I never told him, I recalled
those times because
I was so happy then,
in Spring where happiness died.

Drunk

The hours began to blur.
The more I drank,
the less I was.
Even happiness fled

like most moments
that never die,
for most do not
exist at all.

And myself,
was mine to share alone,
an unlikely pair
we certainly made.

So I drank to Proteus,
but to myself returned,
until I ceased to drink,
for the drink did drink me.

Jason Morgan

Suburbia

Next door in the new apartments,
a Chinese man sings opera to the stars,
but everyone must be listening.
Out back, the tenant shouts with triumph.
His team has won and so has his bank account.
One more beer carton awaits.
From the supermarket come more
industrial sounds, greased motors,
warning bells pedantic as old men.
The wind swoops, flapping clothes
strung like flags of defeat
on the crumbling clothes line.
Perhaps these breaths from the sky,
carry gasps of powerful ones,
glamorous and wealthy souls.

The night presses at my window,
and the opera singer soon retreats,
for even songbirds must sleep.

Jason Morgan