WHAT OUGHT, IS

by J.T.A. Reddy

“Why should I mourn

The vanished power of the usual reign?”

He who walks down among you has been written, yet resists,

This story is his - the man who ought, is.

That I should manifest 

Such aromatic fumes along my well-worn spine;

Would that I bend 

The knee of this libidinous text; 

They are rules of market stalls.

She matters not to place nor time.

Her matters are made for makers of mettle;

Angel wings should sell for tuppence, you know, and yet,

Could I not spring 

Into summer beyond your vainglorious spirit? 

Should that I skulk

Into some Bohemian thoroughfare 

And peruse the confectionaries 

Because I cannot afford confessions? 

Can I not break 

Amongst the paupers, the cokers, the woodworkers

Towards some Derbyshire steel mill

for men with collagen souls? 

For me, to wit, mine is to alloy. 

Should that I bend and not break, 

Give and not take, 

Should that I am to living for what 

You are to ‘having read.’

It is a word anathema to conformity;

Allergic to acerbity:

Should that I find it 

Let love reign 

Like paper leaves

From the yew of our ignoble plane.