That Messianic Feeling
I am not waiting for a messiah
This is not a messianic age
Delightful though it is to live
Among nuclear devices primed
With climatic catastrophies
Set on automatic dial, and where
Ten million infant lives each year
Could quite easily be saved
But this is our collective will
Our tragic play in aggregate
Not providing proof of revelation
Or demanding divine arbitration,
The intervention of a saviour -
It's just the end, inexorable,
Of bad human behaviour
And there's no coming absolution
We'll have to deal with the mess we've made
And not be lazy or too proud
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poem by Frank Bana
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Memories and Dirty Knees
A straight-backed bike
Bone-shaker, with a broken chain
Sunday p.m. at the Rabbi's home
For Hebrew hour, just down the lane
Buried deep under the twisting vowels
Waiting quite patiently to see
The Monkees singing on TV
Loud boys invade the bus from school
After class with 'Fish' and 'Ning'
Rugby games, warm winter showers
Wearing short pants and dirty knees
Latin midweek, on Saturdays
Futile dallying with Greek
England from her goddesses estranged
Rude, she begs to be refined
I study her peculiar ways, as if
Infatuated by a witch
Who draws strong circles, cleans the spring
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poem by Frank Bana
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Russian Family History
I was born in a peaceful time and place
My father just out of uniform
The draft and ration books thrown away
Abundance grew in our English garden
The empire was dissolving but its ties
For worse or better would long endure
As a future traveller to many lands
I would discover and learn to explore.
From the port of Odessa they had come
Leaving Smorgon village, carrying its name
Settling down to toil, in London's East End
Never to talk of Russia again
Jenny, Louis, Violet, Peg,
The children of the ships of 1904
Building a platform of support
For the generations to follow them
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poem by Frank Bana
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Visits in Beijing
The buildings are stacked for miles in rows along the wide main street
All new, erected in the last five or ten years. It must have been a frenzy
Under grey skies heavy with pollution or mist or fog we pass Tiananmen Square
And reach a cultural centre carpeted in red with dragon clocks and chandeliers
I acquire the gift of a rolled silk tapestry, a huge name tag in English and Mandarin, and then a guide and an interpreter to direct me to my place, to where
at every moment
The plan calls for me to be. I sit, my capped bone china cup of tea is filled
And as I sip, topped up again. My turn comes in the playlist, my microphone switched on for me
I deliver speech, then off we go for group photo, every seat pre-prepared with a name tag attached
Over coffee and sweet bean cakes I engage the student girls who guide and interpret, their real concern
Is for my viewing of historical sites, for advance of cooperation and the march of social harmony.
Apartment blocks emerging from the heavy haze
Ever more Ring Roads as migrants swell the city
Cars replace bicycles over the years
On the way to visit the Great Wall
At Bada Ling, snowfall around the feet.
I am freezing up high in the early morning!
We were the first, before the daily groups of students came.
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poem by Frank Bana
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Globe in Darkness
Almost round, outlined in blue
Too lonely to be understood
Intimate to her tenants' touch
The globe in space is effortless.
A bulb of light for the dim expanse
Rotating, hovering in grace
Her dance a step unknown to those
Who claw and scar her surfaces.
Scientists of restrictive laws
Know that life and sustenance
Flow only from her hidden core
To which all worshippers are called.
I touch her grass and trees with care
From her I learn that all I am
Will grow and eat and age and die
On earth and waters she provides.
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poem by Frank Bana
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Returning to Jerusalem
Once we could be justly proud
Our place marked in the human maze
By devotion to the sacred books
And diligence of prayer, upon
Steady accretion of analysis
Once we could be satisfied
To live by what we understood to be
Identities the Lord bestowed
Upon our humble lives, our lines
Measured by the centuries
Once we were made wise
By sufferings in wide variety
Borne in reverence for His Name
Consolations of our family embrace
And the long perspectives gained
Once we almost were content
To speak the name Jerusalem
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poem by Frank Bana
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The Bring-down and the Fall
On this rough pole, your grip is tight
Your hands are chafed and torn
But if for just an eyeblink, you let go
You will be keeling back, a gravitational pull
How far you seem to fall....
The absent landing ground
The barren farm of what is left in store.
For no-one is secure, the ropes are frayed
The nets are stretched beyond capacity
The passers-by withholding their concern
The money-lenders' period of grace
The judge brings down his hard robotic fist
Directed by the law and lobbyists
It is time now to go down
To leave children and spouse behind
No use to beg - do not pretend to mind
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poem by Frank Bana
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Caught Up in Magic
You do believe in magic
You can see the eyes that watch my sleep
The spirits that would suffocate or shine
The priest issuing from his hilltop shrine
Predictions and calls that bind my actions
Forces that navigate my warring factions
Unmasking the face of my tormentors
As I cradle deep in your incantations
You say you believe in magic
I have no reason to disbelieve
And every inclination to surrender
To spells of entreaty you cast for splendour
On worn stones that make me curious
As I sit at my healer's feet
Paying him to banish deceipt
And to summon my reluctant energy
Because you are my magic
When I am bewitched, walking tightropes in my sleep
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poem by Frank Bana
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In Africa's Night (A Lament)
Death in Africa's night, she's 38
They bear me from hospital grounds
Our home is empty, except for me
A rented shell where loss abounds
I read Psalm Number 121
Memorial closes the Book of Plans
They stand in line for a moment's embrace
She lies under embalming hands
The box with permits of expiration
Weighs in the belly of the plane
We fly over saltlands of Kalahari
I descend into the heartless flame
To the yard for the last time, laid out low
In the rondavel they had thatched for us
Here we laid on our wedding day
Here we come to the terminus
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poem by Frank Bana
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CAT Scan Routine
Every four months I sit, patient
On such hard wooden benches
As are thought suitable for bearers
Of many kinds of cancer
Without complaint, in companionship
Waiting for a scan
Thinking of the days when
Pensions, even indigestion
Were issues of concern
When there were no prompts or spurs
To consider the golden nature
Of a moment, an embrace
When I was not yet impelled
To weigh the meaning of the past
To attempt to crack the poet's code
To hold life so lovingly
In carefully cupped hands, as if
Nursing a wounded bird
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poem by Frank Bana
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