Emptiness

by Spike Milligan

I've learned mine can't be filled,

only alchemized. Many times

it's become a paragraph or a page.

But usually I've hidden it,

not knowing until too late

how enormous it grows in its dark.

Or how obvious it gets

when I've donned, say, my good

cordovans and my fine tweed vest

and walked into a room with a smile.

I might as well have been a man

with a fez and a faux silver cane.

Better, I know now, to dress it plain,

to say out loud

to some right person

in some right place

that there's something not there

in me, something I can't name.

That some right person

has just lit a fire under the kettle.

She hasn't said a word.

Beneath her blue shawl

she, too, conceals a world.

But she's been amazed

how much I seem to need my emptiness,

amazed I won't let it go. 

Two Children 

Two children (small), one Four, one Five,

Once saw a bee go in a hive,

They'd never seen a bee before!

So waited there to see some more.

And sure enough along they came

A dozen bees (and all the same!)

Within the hive they buzzed about;

Then, one by one, they all flew out.

Said Four: 'Those bees are silly things,

But how I wish I had their wings!' 

Eurolove 

I cannot 

and I will not 

No, I cannot love you less 

Like the flower to the butterfly 

The corsage to the dress 

She turns my love to dust 

my destination empty 

my beliefs scattered: Diaspora! 

Who set this course - and why? 

Now my wings beat - 

without purpose 

Yet they speed.