John Siddique

Ivy Moon

At the end were only words.
The words survived our flesh.

The you said, let it be dark,
and it was dark,

and I said as long as there
are words we go on.

There is no separating out.
Speak in to the dark and it is good,

and we made a firm promise of
those words, there will be no division.

We took back the day and night.
Undid our concepts of heaven and hell.

Spun the day and the night back
into the clock.

Let us be dark, without image.
No longer trying to see what is good.

John Siddique Recital Salt Publishing 2009

John Siddique

I discovered John Siddique's poetry in mid-2010 with his fourth collection Recital, An Anthology (Salt Publishing 2009).

I must admit that a major drawcard (at first) by his use of a Genesis lyric as a poem title, but then I was drawn into his world of gentle observation and commentary and found that reading his poems felt like reading his heart. 

You've got to get in to get out
The world will impinge into your need
for silence, into your prayers. In the hardest seconds
of your life, your neighbours will be drunk,
booming hip-hop through thin inconvenient walls.

At the lighting of your candles, in the moment
you need to focus - the apex of your flame,
the voice of the Holy Spirit, someone
will be vacuuming, talking, ringing up change,
a bin wagon bleeping as it reverses, builders
swearing into the distance you put by pulling into
yourself. It sounds like they are calling your name.