BOXING DAY HUNT

Forest floor drenched with warm fox blood.
Harrowing red smeared over young boy's face:
archaic initiation into titled manhood.
Outdated, morally abominable, sickeningly barbaric.
Yelping hounds fighting over torn apart entrails.
Frenzied, out of control, while red-coated huntsmen on immaculate mounts

are euphoric. Animalistic. The sight of fresh blood
is their ultimate turn-on - ah, such warped eroticism:
an imbred instinct for slaughtering the helpless.
What does this reveal about our mighty Betters?
That they're lacking in conscience and devoid of compassion.
But, what goes around comes around. So hunters BEWARE!!!

BIN MEN

Midway up from Forest Road
and midway down from oak-bordered green
where children play and dogs frolic,
dressed in coveralls the bin men toil.
They drag our bins to the kerb edge
and then empty them into their truck.

                                          Rain soaks their clothing
and runs down the street in rivers.
On the road named after a tree, deep cracks
form matchstalk men in aged tarmac.
The houses are pink and uniform, their inhabitants insular.

While the operatives dispose of our garbage,
where do their minds travel? To sunny climes
I imagine, or Saturday nights with friends at the pub.
They discuss the weather, and admire a pretty girl passing by.

The rain eases, sun peeps through a cloud
and a shard of light encloses them. Weather beaten
faces break into smiles. These men

                                           in boring occupation
put me to shame. Uncomplaining, down-to-earth,
they teach the the pretentious part of me
an important lesson: be yourself - you are good enough as you are

and, anyway, everyone else is already taken...



Wishing you all Happy Holidays...with lots of love and hugs xxx

CARROT

Dedicated to the memory of Robin Davies...


Utterly irresistible to me, he was
my first ever girlhood crush.
An addiction that drew emotions
into utter paradise. This boy
was the ultimate archetypal lover:
beneath red curls, the face
of a fifteen-year-old Adonis.

Oh how that half-smile sent
my senses reeling
and heart pounding wildly.
It remains my untold secret -
the endless unfulfilled hankering
to touch such perfection.
Oh yes, I believed in miracles then!



In adulthood now, and "Catweazle" revisited.
Easier to trace these days - online - typing, typing.
NO!! Devastating shock - my Carrot,
nine long years beneath the earth.
I SHOULD HAVE SENSED. As the axle of winter
turns from the sun, I've lost what I never had.
And yet...grief runs deep. So very, very deep 😢

ACCEPTANCE

Day of uncertainty, day of frost.

With thoughts
apprehensive, I await
the judgement.

The crowded waiting room
is silent, except for

the TV mounted on a wall.

Through the window the trees
are bare, sky deep blue.
A muddy footprint
soils the pristine white floor.

No smiles in here.

Two tiny droplets poised
on the tap
of the drinking water chiller.

Lipstick mark on a plastic glass.

A woman emerges in tears
from the consulting room.

Today, I will not cry
if my consultant delivers bad news.
I will accept my fate and celebrate
each moment I still have left...


Written three weeks ago...I have now been given the all clear (at least for the present)! 😁

HEAD-TO-HEAD

Boris and Jeremy going head-to-head
both promising us the earth.
But can we believe a word they've said
when words can be of such little worth?

They're slugging it out upon our streets
campaigning door to door,
predicting for us fantastic treats
and an end to being poor.

They'll cut our taxes, provide more schools
and fund the NHS.
What? Do they really take us all for fools?
We've heard it before in excess!

Who'll pay for Jeremy's free broadband for all,
the five percent super rich?
I believe his plans will go to the wall
when he encounters a major hitch.

For how does he think these elite will react?
They'll simply emigrate
and then the burden will be ours in fact,
leaving us in a sorry state.

The rich will be ok and the scroungers carried,
under Labour it's always that way.
But what of all those in between who are harried
and their earnings taxed away?

And how about the 'affordable' housing he's promised?
Where will it all be built?
Many thousands per annum is the gist -
and on green belt - does he feel no guilt?

And, anyway, who will foot the bill?
Once again it will fall upon us.
The alternative is more borrowing that will
be no less than scandalous.

We'll be plunger ever deeper into negative equity -
plus our worst recession yet.
Oh is this man so lacking in pity -
aren't we already too deeply in debt?

When challenged, our Jeremy skirts the edge
of truth, half-truth and lie.
He uses metaphor and deliberately hedges
in order to mollify.

Now Boris is a different kettle of fish,
his replies are far more direct.
They're loaded with humour and cleverish,
and the referendum result he'll respect.

Outlandish pledges are not his style,
his are believable.
And I sense no falsehood behind his smile,
nor in his absence of meaningless babble.

Oh I know he's a bit eccentric at times
and some see him as a "scruffy buffoon".
But when it comes to our rising rate of crimes,
he's committed to reducing them soon.

Well, I've watched and listened and made my decision
through intuition and logic combined,
and my vote will go to the politician
who will honour all he's outlined.

So my choice is Boris the Conservative
'cos I know he'll uphold the tradition
of our once-great nation, and carefully sieve
out all of this negative sedition.

HEREDITARY

Lying here beneath my feet
is my story.
My history in these bones
gnawed by burrowing rodents,
relics of lifespans lived out
in unfamiliar lands.

These gravestones, lichen encrusted,
bear stark witness
to time's relentless onward march -
so irrelevant in my childhood -
that is slowly but surely grinding
my own flesh into dust.

Oh how they touch me, moment to moment,
these dearly departed!
My bemoaned loneliness becomes
hypocrisy. Just a glance around to see
they're all here and part of me.
Proof enough. And I consider now their lives:

the highs and lows of experience.
Swedish Great Grandmother, Danish Great Great Grandfather and the rest
reach skeletal hands to pull me in.
And an impression looms within earthy depths
of a gene pool, congealed into calcium deposits,
that once wore flesh and flowing hair.

Ah, these long lost relatives! They
are such a puzzling paradox:
perennially here, through births, weddings,
funerals and family heirlooms
and their blood pumping through my veins
takes me with them, like the undead,

into eternity, defying mortality
from century to century until I go,
a link in the hereditary chain of descent,
to rest beside them
and take root
while the living forget my name.

THE PIGEON

"It's only a pigeon," you said.
And the casual way you said it shocked me.
Through your eyes it was a non-entity.
Birds of any kind were merely things: unintelligent
and lacking the capacity to feel either pleasure or pain.
In fact anything feathered, in your opinion,
had no real reason for existing at all.
It was if they were some freak accident of Nature,
an experiment gone awry. Even common sparrows
were no more than an irritating nuisance.
Their chirping grated on your nerves
when you wanted to lie in. Impossible for you
to comprehend their discomfort
on frosty mornings. You were a camera
capturing images that lacked any physical reality.

I felt my world shift from yours.

The pigeon scrutinized us intently
like a scientist observing the multiplication
of a deadly virus, it's gaze fearful yet compassionate.
It's understanding
filled me with a powerful sense of connection
I had never experienced before. Enlightenment
came that day in the Nature Reserve.
Your intense aversion to pigeons:
"They are vermin that should be eradicated!"
Such rank hypocrisy! I saw red.
"No, we are the vermin. Look around you.
It's humanity who are killing the planet!"
The pigeon crooned in agreement.
Suddenly it swooped up, flew between us
and perched on a branch, still watching us.
And I could've sworn it shook it's head
as you carelessly tossed your cigarette butt
into a nearby hedge...

A GRAIN OF SAND

A short story for Remembrance Day...


    As the train drew to a halt, Daniel slung his
kit-bag across his back and strapped it securely into
place. Then leaning heavily on his crutches, he hauled
himself up onto his solitary left foot and limped out
onto the platform.
    A peculiar sensation of timelessness swept over
him, as he stood gazing at those old red-brick walls
dotted with advertising posters for "Pears Soap" and
"Bournville Cocoa". And there, just beneath the apex
of the highest gable, was the clock.
    It's black Roman numerals stood out starkly against
the white face, and for some unknown reason it irritated
Daniel. Yet, he continued to stare at it as though
mesmerized, fighting the sudden crazy impulse to climb
up onto the roof and stop those hands from moving forever
onward. How he longed to wrench them backwards.
Two-and-a-half years backwards, to that December night
in 1942, the last time he'd been here...


What a night that had been! Jeanette had clung to him
as if her very life depended on it. And even
after he'd boarded the train along with all the other
men who were enlisting that day, she'd still clung on to
his hands through the open train window.
And as the train had begun to move off she'd walked alongside,
still gripping his hands so tightly that it hurt, with
tears streaming down her smooth round cheeks and dampening
her soft dark curls.
    "I love you," she'd cried out, "Come back and marry
me, Danny!"
    A moment later, her tiny slender figure had been
swept away in a tidal wave of sobbing wives,
mothers and girlfriends.
    Daniel would never forget her last words. In fact,
if he hadn't had his Jeanette to come home to, he felt sure
he would never have made it through those terrible days
and nights on the battlefield. But although it had been a
living hell for them all - knowing that any single moment
could be their last - Daniel, at least, had managed to
hang onto his sanity. And all because of Jeanette.
He'd owed it to her to survive because she'd depended
on him.
    And survived he had. Even lived through that final
blow!

    It had been a sweltering August day, and they'd
all been tired, hungry and depressed. The Jerries had
them surrounded, and out there in the desert there had
been nowhere left to run. Then the Sergeant had spotted
two high sand dunes and ordered them to lie face down
between them.
How that sand had burned them through their clothing!
    They had looked all set to escape, but then Archie
Cummings had suddenly cracked and gone berserk. Before
anyone else had realised what was happening, he had jumped
up and run out into the open, screaming obscenities at
the approaching enemy tanks.
    They had open-fired, blasting him a good six feet
into the air, as a fountain of blood spurted out of a
gaping hole in his back.
    The next thing Daniel knew, there was a massive
explosion and he had been showered by the shattered
remains of his mates flying at him from all directions
imaginable.
    Too terrified to move, he had just continued to
lay there, face down in the rapidly reddening sand - in
spite of a mouthful of blood that made him feel sick
and threatened to choke him.
    The silence that followed had been almost harder
to bear than the thunderous blast itself.
    When Daniel had eventually dared to turn his head
and open his eyes, he had been horrified to see a severed
leg lying right beside him. It had taken him a full ten
minutes for the awful realisation to dawn.
It was his own!

 
 "You alright, lad?"
    Daniel jumped and spun round to face the station
porter. The old man's eyes were full of pity. That
was more than he could take.
Ever since that blast he had seen it in too many pairs
of eyes. He wanted to scream at the old man, I don't want 
your pity. Just leave me alone!
But he smiled politely and replied, "Yes, I'm fine thanks.
Just thinking." Then he limped away and disappeared
through the station building and out into the road.
    The sun beat down mercilessly on Daniel as he made
his way slowly down the narrow side lane towards "The
Pines".
    Dear God, he prayed silently, Please let her be
there!
    He realised he had been reported missing and presumed
dead, and now all he could do was live in hope. But he
wasn't going to expect too much. After all, the sight of
such a broken apology of a man could well put her off
him for good.

    Daniel shook from head to toe as he paused in the
shade of the two tall pine trees which stood on either
side of the white spotless gate. The sight of that tiny
whitewashed cottage brought the past rushing back
to him in a tide of pent-up emotion. He could have cried.
He longed, yet feared, to see Jeanette again after so long.
To feel her arms around him, to see the love light up
her eyes.
    But the possibility that she might find him repulsive
was a phobia so strong that he almost turned and walked
away. But something in the depths of his Soul
forced him on. You've come this far, you can't turn
back now!

    Daniel opened the gate and walked slowly up the
flagstone path between the flower beds. To the right
of the front door a window stood wide open, and through
it came the gentle notes of music from a wireless.
    A tiny muscle twitched uncontrollably at the left
corner of Daniel's mouth as he approached the door.
    He took a deep breath, lifted the heavy brass
knocker, then let it fall.
    The resulting BANG almost deafened him, reverberating
around inside his head until he felt faint. And just for
a moment he could have sworn he was still laying face down
in the blood-soaked Algerian desert.

The door swung open and Jeanette's mother stood
there, staring at him in disbelief.
    "Aren't you going to ask me in, Olive?" Daniel
asked, not knowing what else to say.
    By way of a reply, she crushed him to her ample
bosom, almost squeezing the breath out of him. Then
she drew back and looked at him, while blinking back the tears.
    "Oh Danny, what a miracle! We all thought you
were..." she broke off, biting her lip.
    "You thought I was dead," he finished for her, and
she shivered.
    "Come on in and I'll make a pot of tea," she said
as though he'd never been away, and taking his arm
she led him inside.

    In the dingy little kitchen at the back of the
house, Olive drew up a chair to the unlit fireside and
Daniel sat down.
    "You haven't changed I see," he said, smiling, as
she filled a kettle. "Tea always was your cure for everything."
    The kettle on, she came across and sat facing him.
    "You've grown so thin, lad. What you need is some
of my stew and dumplings inside you. What happened to
your leg - oh I'm sorry! How tactless of me to ask that!"
she added quickly when she saw a dark shadow flit across
his gaunt features.
    "Courtesy of the bloody Jerry bomb that wiped out
our entire troop, save the sergeant and myself. The doctors
told us we were lucky to be alive."
    "Yes. And thank God!"
    The kettle boiled and Olive went to fill the teapot.
    Daniel gazed thoughtfully at her back for a moment,
carefully choosing his words.
    Then he swallowed hard and began, "Olive, you know
why I've come, don't you. Do you think she'll still
want me when she sees what I've become? Am I fooling
myself to believe she could still love a cripple?
I realise I'm no longer the healthy twenty-one-year-old
she knew, but I've never stopped loving her. I never
will. Do you know, if it hadn't been for Jeanette, I'd
never have survived that blast? Only my love for her
pulled me through."
    Daniel knew something was wrong the moment he saw
the sadness in Olive's eyes.
    "Jeanette was married last April," she said gently.
"I'm so sorry, Danny. Truly I am."
    She reached out to hug him, but he stood up abruptly
and shoved her aside.
    "Don't touch me. I don't want any of your bloody
pity. Not your's nor anyone else's. God, why couldn't
I have been blown to bits like the rest of them? I
might as well have been, because I'm already in hell
now anyway!"
    Unable to bear his anguish, he slumped down onto
the kitchen floor, great sobs of hopelessness echoing up
the chimney, as his heart finally broke.
    Olive knelt down on the kitchen floor beside him,
her own silent tears dripping down her apron, and for
the second time she held out her arms to him.
    This time he clung to her fiercely, his fingers
digging into the soft flesh of her back, until exhaustion
deadened his agony and he fell asleep.

    Daniel woke sometime later, still in Olive's arms
with his head resting on her shoulder. In spite of a
painful crick in his neck, he lifted his head and looked
up into Olive's face. She was looking at him, but she
didn't say anything, just smiled sadly.
    Daniel quickly snatched his eyes away from hers,
deeply ashamed of his earlier outburst. He struggled
up onto his crutches, picked up his kit bag, and began
to make for the door.
    Olive followed, frowning.
    "What are you going to do, Danny?" she asked.
    "Get the hell out of your lives and leave you in peace,
what else?" he replied, almost sarcastically.
He still kept his back to her in an effort to conceal
what he was feeling.
    As he opened the front door, she touched him lightly
on the shoulder.
    "Please stay a while longer. Don't leave like this.
Come back inside and I'll make another pot of tea."
    He turned round and looked her straight in the
eyes. "Tea won't cure this disease, Olive," he replied
in a choked whisper. And it wasn't until he was down the
path and out of the gate that he heard the door click to.

    Daniel wandered aimlessly down to the far end of
the narrow dusty lane, and finally stopped to rest at
the iron bridge which spanned the river.
    Leaning on it's railings, he stared down deep into
the swirling, gushing torrent below. It seemed to reflect
his own pointless existence, forever driven along by the
winds of fate.
    Suddenly a car backfired loudly, just up the lane
behind him. Daniel instinctively threw himself onto
the ground, covering his head with his hands.
    "Damn the Jerries!" he cursed, shaking with fear.
Then, with a strength he didn't know he possessed, Daniel
gripped the railings and hauled himself up onto his foot
in a cold sweat. He looked over the edge.
    Beneath a scorching sun, the grey sand was swirling
and flying around in front of him.
    Another bloody sand storm, he thought, but at least 
it will hide me from these murderous bastards!
    He was only mildly curious as to what railings were
doing in the middle of the desert, as he scrambled over
them.
    With heart pounding, Daniel threw himself into
the dense sand. But he was drowning in blood. He could
taste it and smell it. It filled his lungs. He was
choking.
    Loud, muffled voices drifted to him from somewhere
high above, followed by a splash beside him. Then a
pair of arms were reaching out for him.
    But, NO! The Jerries were too late. They'd never
get him now. Not here in this red desert. Here, he
could hide for all eternity and never be found.
    He was just a minute grain of sand. And it would
take them forever to discover exactly which one.
    

THE DISCARNATE

A tale for Halloween...😉

Messing around with the Ouija Board
that Samhain. It was a Halloween gift
from a well-meaning friend. Oh how it's letters
and numbers intrigued me.
Pioneer in the arena of stupidity!
That evening I opened mind, body and Soul
to who knew what. I cared not. I was a student
gluttonous for knowledge of all things occult,
the entire cornucopia. I began calling out:
I had to do it right, like in the movies -
I called out loud, determined to be heard.
And my Spirit, and whatever unexpressed need
it harboured, called with me.
I'd assumed I was strong enough - was well protected
against unwanted intrusions by the circle of salt
I had spread around myself and my board.
But, suddenly, something breached my amateurish defences.
The sweat burst out.
I was shaking. My head! I was accustomed to migraines,
but this was something else. Pounding, stabbing pain.
Then, that night, on my pillow
the drumming of my pulse in my ear.
Visions:
a strange land, another time -
playing Russian Roulette with my sanity. Weird
to be lying on my bed
and watching the room morph into the unfamiliar.
It knocked me to pieces,
as if my entire being was fragmenting.
And yet - I was still me. But, was me still I ?
This I, that had always got me through
life's challenges, that I knew inside out -
how could it fail me now?
It had been with me forever, a kind of inner Guru.
A sudden spike
through the left side of my head.
Or a sword? Horrific image of a thin blade
piercing my crown and continuing down through my neck.
Or a knawing at my brain
from the inside. Even worse,
the terrifying dizziness - instant slip
from infinite thought to mental paralysis.
Physical movement jolted into neutral
and awareness no longer under my control.

How many thoughts in a day?
Hypochondria screaming in a language I couldn't understand.
Was I going to die? I tried to give voice to my fears
with a tongue that tied itself in knots.
I tried to write it down, but hands refused
to obey - wobbled uselessly, like half-set jelly.
My waking in confusion. Going to bed
with a favourite book that I didn't recognise.
The invisible block of concrete
that came down on my head,
knocking me senseless.
Sudden impulse: staggering to the mirror.
Blood oozing from nose and ears
like scarlet rivers - a ghastly omen
of impending doom?
I became a battering ram. Pounding, pounding
against castle doors unyielding.
Then the golden Mace, battering the doors
of Parliament. I was everywhere.
And nowhere. And through it all,
the horrifying panic.
Disintegrating from the inside out,
I felt already posthumous.
Whoever I looked at, their names escaped me.
And they stared clean through me, seemed to feel
a breeze and shiver, and maybe catch a glimpse
of a flitting shadow out of the corner of an eye, looked again
and saw nothing.

My redeemer
was the exorcist they called in.
I recall very little, only the agony
of being torn apart and then re-integrated
with sacred water and sea salt.
And many words, meaningless words,
drifting in and out of my stupor - that cast out
that incapacitating dead weight...

My new research:
who had invaded my body? Who
had slipped in between the letters and numbers
on my Ouija Board, to inflict such pain
and confusion? And was it simply to amuse himself?
Who was this discarnate joker
who had come to share with me
his death pangs from a brain tumour?
Wearing my skin, his consciousness composed
my poem, using my hand to record the physical agony
and the mental torture of desperately seeking
this mirror or that mirror, for confirmation
of continued existence -
only to find
nothing.
Almost worse than the pain,
the sense of being cut off, of being
ignored by everyone:
total solitary confinement
with no explanation, no crime committed.
Only endless punishment,
and such ghastly apprehension.

Only now do I fully understand.
Not so much the joker,
more a lost Soul
in torment and despair,
anxious for acknowledgement
and a way out of his personal hell-in-limbo...

and I just happened
to inadvertently open a portal.

67 TILNEY CLOSE

Our first home still looks the same.
I realised when we drove past it
how time has changed us
but not it. When we first moved in there
it felt cursed.
Blown apart by a gas explosion and rebuilt,
it seemed to whisper ominously, "I am the Phoenix.
I will outlive you!"
It's previous owners had become phobic
after being blown through the window
while still in bed. So they'd decided to sell.
But fear's restless spectre still clung to the very structure.
It confirmed my idea of life: impermanence, uncertainty.
Birth, life, death -
and too little time in between to achieve our goals.

How I disliked being alone there. The walls
seemed to creak continually,
so I had to play music to drown them out,
both day and night.
Gas in the pipes?
Would history repeat itself?
A long way down to the garden
with the rolling hills beyond.

We'd taken possession
amid the newness of plaster and paintwork:
a facade that concealed all that had gone before.
Would our lives cease abruptly: roasted alive
in a gaseous conflagration? Holding my breath
to avoid inhaling the ghosts
that still clung to bricks and mortar.
Youth shouldn't be so morbid - and yet...
our first night there, I broke down.
The guilt almost killed me. You'd practically
bankrupted yourself to provide a home for us.
Then all I'd wanted was to escape!
The unfamiliar terrified me.
Beautiful furnishings, spectacular views.
Ostensibly, everything I'd ever wished for:
possibility of living the dream
of domestic and romantic harmony. Suddenly
we had achieved it.

You, yourself, were my whole life:
lover, father figure, and all the girlfriends
I'd never had. You were saviour and protector
who stood between myself and life's cruel blows -
and all the might-have-beens. I had accepted
that you knew what was best for me.
But a strange morbidity frequently rolled
across my consciousness,
engulfing me in it's dark shadow.
You pitied my inability to see past it.
Onward through the rainbow of darkness I stumbled,
desperately seeking a moonbeam to cling to.
So we struggled on, hand-in-hand.

For me, that first home was our identity,
our first Christmas,
when I felt safe just being with you.
For you, it was a form of independence - and a good investment.
A solitary electric fire was the only source of heating,
apart from the laundry closet.
But I think you were happy too, just
being with me
and cuddling up on the sofa to gaze out over the town.

There, externalized, was our destiny foretold:
the distance, the passing seasons, and images of our older selves,
still together, in an uncertain future of laughter, tears
and devastating tragedy...

CONTINUUM

"Top Withens"...believed to be the inspiration for Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.


Who could be Heathcliff incarnate? Only you.
Cathy? Only me.
It's how we were. Yes, quintessentially us,
from the very first reading. Our lives
playing out in the printed pages,
chapter by chapter.
Eavesdropping on parallel lives
that never were: just reflections
of us, mirror images. My passion
was demanding too much, an impossible ideal:
the Soulmate that never existed. Beelzebub
prodded me night and day.
The furious clashes were our nature.
Beelzebub was our master.
Both of us were driven
to dominate, to be top dog.
And both failed miserably.
The wild moors and crags
symbolized all we were: wild,
obsessive and half-crazed.
We fed off each other's paranoia.
My jealousy, your greed
terrified us both, like Emily's fear
of her own creations.

So who, then, was Isabella? Any one
of many: anyone young, blonde, blue-eyed -
naive, yet appealing. Oh I despised
as much as you lusted. You had
that power over me, could drag me
into the pit of self-loathing.
So I sought Edgar, to staunch
the bleeding of the deep wounds
you so carelessly inflicted. Nelly Dean,
alias my best friend, attempted
to make me see sense. Whose novel
were we living out? Too late to go back
and reread. Wuthering Heights in ruins,
a gaunt shell. Your rejection,
a shocking revelation
of shallowness. The mocking laughter
of Hindley became raging winds,
a destructive tornado. I hurled
the truth at you.
A molten thunderbolt, an avalanche.
The full moon's face
bleached the moor. I watched your features
distorting, fading into silver nothingness -
or were they mine?
Mine. It was I who was fading
and I blamed you.
But the true culprit was the pen - Emily's pen -
speeding across the page,
that had long ago sealed my fate.

LOVE'S METONYMY

Now, time has come full circle
back to where we began - these words
unwritten, but spoken face-to-face.
Ah, such joy - truth is, last night I invaded

your aura in search of belonging,
my only bearings a juvenile obsession.
And, there, in imagination's furthest reaches
we touched - just for one mad, crazy instant.

It was the silence that provoked me -
and the absence of your physical warmth, as I lay curled
like a foetus, haunted by our shared history:
shrivelling here, cold as winter's frozen wasteland,

until daybreak...'til this...this torment
that defines my future in it's entirety took over.
And from the depths, what self-survival withheld
in compassion was brutally revealed.

For separation is our love's cruel metonymy,
and ours is this barren real world's
hollow persuits, that can neither comfort nor fulfill
the heart's endlessly brooding, desperate need.

THE DRIVING LESSON

I first learnt to drive in my brother's bedroom,
sitting on a Meccano box planted in the middle of the rug.
"Back straight, head up!" Feet resting on Lego pedals,
I drove awkwardly: hands ok, feet twisting around each other,
as he barked out instructions like a cross Sergeant Major.
My knuckles turned white as I gripped Father's spare gear stick.
"Look ahead up the road!" I stared into the dark space
beneath his desk. What at I wondered?
He positioned himself in front of me. "Imagine I'm an oncoming car."
He swerved as I approached him in the middle
of a non-existent road. "Remember to check your mirrors."
He held them up, but I could see only the ceiling in them,
as I drove on the rug against invisible traffic
and concentrated on changing gear.
"Don't forget the clutch!" he yelled.
It was so much to remember
for a ten-year-old's constantly wandering mind.
But I persevered, all the while
dreaming of getting my PSV license next, easy,
and driving a school bus - or a coach ultimately -
further than the high street, the far side of Surrey even;
the farthest reaches of Europe...

ARIES

How she loves the glowing embers
in the dying of the fire:
those luminous pictures, ever changing,
that fascinate and tease

imagination's wild subconscious
into a prophecy foretold
of fiery nature and jealousy's curse
that characterize all she is.

Plucking Mars from constellation
to justly worship, she absorbs
His qualities: powerful will and masculinity,
condensed into female form.

The embers now fading - a childlike lament:
the pulse between ashes and Soul.
Reawakening of something older than time -
Destiny in the flickering of final flame.

So sorry everyone...I am currently in an area where the internet coverage is extremely poor. 😬
Will visit you all when I return home, in around a week.
Do hope you receive this...

INSIDE MY HEAD

You're here again,
inside my head when I'm trying to sleep.
You're here again,
smashing my confidence on a level deep.
Harsh words echoing around my brain
'til I feel like stepping in front of a train.

You're here again,
tearing me apart layer by layer.
You're here again,
as always the central player.
Bruising, belittling, crushing self-esteem
because I failed to live up to your dream.

You're here again,
shouting, criticising, putting me down.
You're here again,
ensuring that in tears I finally drown.
Oh why am I here if I'm worth so little?
You are so cruel and my ego so brittle.

You're here again,
reminding me of how flawed I am.
You're here again,
insinuating what a failure I am.
You insult and wound with every word
and yet keep me caged like a helpless bird.

You're here again,
only this time I'm finally closing my ears.
You're here again,
but you've no longer power over all my fears.
Oh I'm sorry, Inner Voice, that I've cramped your style,
but now let me be me, without being on trial.


Written on World Suicide Prevention Day...with deepest compassion.

THE CAR ENTHUSIAST

He adored her
but their bond was fraying.
They flitted between being lovers and strangers.

He'd bought a vintage Cadillac.
He sang in the garage.
She shouted at him

and a spider dropped from the rafters
as if he, himself, was fair game.
He incensed her. It snowed.

The Cadillac got polished. It shined.
She threw her hairbrush against the wall.
He sat in his car, in pure ecstasy.

"I'll enter her in the Concours d'Elegance" he said,
"I'll clean her engine parts!" They gleamed
from all the loving care and attention.

The engine purred like a contented cat. He was in his element.
She wanted a night out.
He was checking the oil.

They attended a friend's wedding.
As he threw confetti, his eyes never left
his beloved car out there in the street.

The Cadillac won 1st prize in the Concours.
Winter mornings cast long shadows
across all except the garage.

She stayed in bed. She was fed up.
He was fine-tuning and tweaking the points and electrics.
She threw his breakfast in the bin.

And when her home made cakes flopped
and when she failed an important exam
and when their son moved out

he was lying under the car
and tinkering with the exhaust system.
The car looked brand new

and the aroma of oil and polish permeated his clothing.
He stumbled upon her this morning, sobbing in the garage.
She thought she'd lost her keys in there -

at least, that's what she claimed...

BREXIT SYNDROME

Are we or aren't we going to leave?
No one is sure quite what to believe.
The nation has elected to be taken out.
Yet now the decision is in grave doubt,
courtesy of the minority "remainers"
oh such irritating complainers (!)
who've thrown the country into disarray -
civil unrest can't be far away!
They're demanding another Brexit vote,
although the majority chose metaphoric moat
between ourselves and Europe's State,
intending to firmly close the gate
on laws imposed from a foreign place.
Embarrassing it is and such a disgrace
that elected members refuse to honour
the people's wishes and so dishonour
all that made Britain great:
democracy and fair debate.
So come on guys, don't you think it's time
to finally behind Boris stand in line
and support him in a united front
against dictatorship's power hunt?
This is our domain and not theirs,
a precious inheritance to leave our heirs.
We are not German, French or Irish,
but independent and singularly British.
Just think for a moment all you who doubt,
what has our culture always been about -
a self-sufficiency and inventiveness
that makes us unique in our Britishness.
And how do you think we managed before
to survive through more than a single World War?
Before the Union we could hold our own -
and now, deal or no deal, we'll be stronger alone.

LORD OF THE TREES

In Sherwood Forest's filtered sunlight
a shadow darts - a moving tree (?), elusive,
that you never quite completely see.

The Green Man's prophesy from centuries past:
splintered bark. Dying leaves. Poisoned earth.

Passing through the densest part
of the little that still remains,
a woman in pink pauses, shivers,
then hastens on her way.

She's mistaken Him for the rustling ferns
and wind-sigh in the trees. What did she just hear -
and feel - brushing past her sleeve?

Nothing to see.
No outlaws poaching the King's deer.
Not a sign of Herne's secret realm
where He guided all the animals, 
Elementals, and Robin's Merry Men.

Antlers of stag upon his head
and clothed in wolf skin cloak,
He's seen by only a handful who
believe, who've never lost
their connection to the green.

Herne moves swiftly from thicket to tree,
unseen by the idly curious -
those novelty seekers ceaselessly gabbling,
who never stop to listen
to the gentle murmuring, barely heard:
such mournful cries of the living forest,
whose demise they have carved in oak.

Because He is survival's metaphor,
we need to heed Herne's call:

to halt the felling of the trees
and poisoning of the waterways too,
before we find it's all too late
and into the abyss we fall.

For headlong we're boring our relentless way
to that ultimate precipice. Oh Herne,
please reawaken in our time of dire need

and rewire these numbest of skulls!

HOLIDAY ROMANCE

Yippee!!
I'm free
to bask in the sun
and have some fun.
No more bosses
fretting over losses,
or devious shirkers
posing as workers.
Let them tie each other in knots
'cos here they're only minute dots
out of sight across the sea,
far enough away from me:
out of vision is out of mind,
at least that's what I always find
when lying on the golden sand
of Egypt's legendary land.
And when I'm done with lounging here,
I'll be taking in the atmosphere
of Sphinx and lofty Pyramids, where
the Pharaohs' treasures are laid bare -
oh I hope their curses aren't for real!
But, then, I'm not here to steal,
just to experience the foreign culture
of baking heat and desert vulture.
The camels, too, are quite an attraction -
although, trying to mount one I'm driven to distraction!
But that's all part of the thrill I seek,
especially when riding with a handsome Sheikh
to his bedoin tent as his special guest,
where we'll stop a while to take a rest
and dine on eyes of sheep in aspic (??)
(oh do please find me a toilet - QUICK!).
The bubble pipe is more to my taste,
to all inhibitions it soon lays waste.
I'm carried away on flattery's tide -
it feels so good being by his side.
And, before I know it, he's proposed to me,
wants me to be his wife number three!
Oh I'm very tempted, I must admit...
but think I'd be jealous more than a bit
of his other two beautiful wives,
don't fancy a lifetime of crossed knives!
So I tell him his offer I must decline,
'cos I'm much too fond of my life being mine! 😊😊

ASSASSIN

Are you aware you're being stalked by an
                                                              ASSASSIN?
Will he put a gun to your head and pull the trigger?
Or maybe run you down as you cross the street?
Oh no,
        not he,
               not this ASSASSIN -
his unique modus operandi is far more subtle than that.


He will creep up on you by degrees.
You'll have no inkling he's even there -
                                                         he's much too wily to be rumbled,
                                                                                                           this ASSASSIN!
(And much too clever)



And please don't fool yourself
that you can hide
                        from the likes of him:
for he will find you
                           wherever you go,
                                                  make no mistake of that.



In fact, he's killing you slowly
                                             even as you read this,
                                                                            your ASSASSIN.
"Well, does he at least have a name?"
                                                     I hear you ask.
                                                                        Indeed he does.

It is..............."TIME."

REGRESSION

Appointment on a hot afternoon:
the way to mend a broken mind, they said.
But it felt like Judgement day had come.

This was scarier than anything that came before.
He instructed me to relax, to just think of nothing
to begin with. Then he counted me down into deep hypnosis...

Instantly I'm crouching in the midst of raging fire, my hands
raw with burning weals. Bombardment of flying brick fragments
hitting me, unseen in the suffocating smoke

of cannon and musket fire. The window panes
shatter inwards. Men dying all around me,
shouting, screaming. Cromwell's army

grossly outnumbers ours. It's a hellish
nightmare, to be helplessly witnessing the fall of Basing House.
A hat feather lies crushed and broken on the ground beside me.

With terror-numbed fingers, I carefully take aim.
He's so close I can clearly see his brown eyes and his spartan armour,
cold and impenetrable as his Puritan Soul.

BANG! Dazzled eyes see rainbow stars.
Then shredded flesh gives way to bone
of bloodied skull: beautiful, like ivory.

More and more come to take his place. I'm out of ammunition.
My sword, the final life-line. It's cold steel
animated by hatred for these perpetrators of high treason.

Grey eyes now, and I think of the King
as I stab and stab, frantically seeking armour's slightest chink.
All I see are feet, vague cameos, and faces

contorted by sheer malice - now fading into agony
and dimming consciousness. Row on row
encircling me. Strange how dying now seems

so easy. A mystical transformation, deep and slow.
Sorting corpses into lives, making sense of how
they all fit into place, as if parts of a huge jigsaw puzzle...



NOW I understand
my incapacitating terror of crowded places
and bearded faces, of clamour, of fire, and of battle sites.

No therapist can erase my Karma:
only LOVE holds the key
to the whole meaning of reincarnation's experience.

I, alone, have made my choices, both good and bad
and there is no going back, only retrieval of squandered Soul parts.
Rising from the therapist's couch, my Akashic Record falls wide open.

I feel unbelievably LIGHT.  So much still to achieve
with this new knowledge: atonement,
in the language of Spirit,

is FORGIVENESS.


This post was inspired by a recent visit to the ruins of Basing House.

CLOUDS HILL

Whenever he was away
Lawrence pined for Clouds Hill more than any other place on earth.
He'd wanted a snapshot, taken in summer
when the rhododendrons were in bloom.
And he'd longed to share it's tranquility with Auda Abu Tay,
his closest friend, who had introduced him
to a myriad of Middle Eastern culinary delights, as they'd sat together
watching the sun set over the desert's vastness.
He had taught Auda warcraft - and taught him well.
It was so good to be with him, there at the oasis.
But he still couldn't help wishing to be back home...

And, now, here they finally were.
Arriving in the dark small hours, both in Arabic dress,
with Lawrence carrying a jar of sand as a momento,
and goats cheese, and his camel's harness in a hessian bag.
And it is like being in Paradise: introducing Auda
to his hidden retreat from the world, to his few close friends -
laying on an informal party in Auda's honour, relaxing again,
and lying in until well past noon...

But the old restlessness possesses him once again.
So he does what he has always done
when he needs to process his thoughts -
takes his beloved Brough Superior for a spin
along the twisting Dorset lanes: pushing,
pushing her to her ultimate limits - topping
eighty, ninety, one hundred...

There is no advance warning.
No horrified shouts in Arabic or English,
just two errand boys on bicycles.
No time to think, only
a screeching of tyres as the Brough upends,
followed by a pink explosion of rhododendrons.
And the hands of time stand still.

THE SHOPPING TROLLEY

The bridge beside Jubilee Park
stands barred like a fortress.
It's reflection, broken up by the current below,
jiggles and dances on the surface of the water.
A woman with a dog
pauses here daily, to shake her head
while leaning over the railings
and peering into the water.
Her gaze shifts searchingly
until it alights upon the shopping trolley.
Occasionally,  she scrambles
down the river bank to reach it,
sliding fingers between the bars
now beginning to rust from contact with the water.
She attempts to pull it up
as she imagines again the group of teens
with their loud voices and manic behaviour
taking the trolley with them,
then shrieking with laughter as it falls from the bridge
with an almighty splash.

But, alas, her best efforts are ineffectual. The thick mud
of the river bed refuses to surrender it's prize.
The shiny, silver, alien treasure is just too great a status symbol...

THE CANNON

Standing by the old army cannon,
linear time visually shifting.
I'm drawn here again to touch the past,
my hands resting on metal:
an organic sensor. Through it
I'm back there in the thick of battle,
dodging the explosions all around me.
Been here so many times I'm part of it all -
will probably physically cross the barrier one day
and be generations back, on the Continent...

I'm in military uniform, firing at the enemy.
The noise is deafening, the fear overwhelming...

No one notices me standing here -
I'm already fading into the history books.
Only a lone gull is curious and approaches
the strange time-traveler only partly here.
The ether shifts around me, above me,
but I am utterly still. Observing the wraiths, listening
to the muffled shouts, until I feel dizzy.
Then I shake my head and push them back.
And I am, once again, alone.

LINES...

written on 28th June, 1989.

These sterile walls are bare, except for a framed representation
of a nursery rhyme whose title escapes me.
Apprensions dwell within it's symbolism - and my worst nightmare.
The mouse's burnt dress is a portent of my destiny.
The sun creeps across these walls, dazzlingly white.

Darkened walls now. Blank, devoid of hope. Utter desolation.
Wish I could escape my own mind: thoughts
spiralling down into a black pit, with emotions swiftly following.
There is no way out of this place
of perpetual profound agony.

The red depths wince continually:
a broken pump and two struggling bellows,
mechanically clinging to a pointless existence.
This is all I am now. This - and the terror
of glancing behind myself and seeing what I know is there.

Suddenly, outside, deafening thunder and lightening.
It's as if the World's very Soul, like mine, is being ripped apart.
All hope of salvation is lost on this ward.
Petrified, I turn and approach the incubator:
my tiny, helpless baby is still lying there,

but now she's no longer moving.
She is turning grey as a leaden sky.
She will have passed away in the next few moments. It
is only now all the myriad tubes have been removed
that I can finally hold her for the very first (and last) time...


I have more medical tests and treatments coming up in the next few weeks and months, but will visit as often as I can.
Do hope you can forgive my absences as and when they occur...xxx

THOUGHTS

We are shaped by our thoughts: we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves. 
THE BUDDHA

They permeate your every waking moment,
these warring factions, yet so subtly
you barely notice them. Until you're in crisis.
Then disquiet prickles your spine, precipitating
something akin to panic, and your health
gradually falls into decline. The nerves
beneath your skin contract and your heart
bolts away like a prize racehorse
into nightmarish scenario after scenario.
If you understood how you got there,
then you wouldn't be there at all.

It's the secret of anyone who thinks too much:
the impulse to cover their ears and try
to shut it out. The entire Universe
isn't vast enough to contain it's multitudinous
train. It fills your entire being,
totally controlling you. Never were you
more powerless: a mere puppet whose strings
stretch up into infinity. If you value your equilibrium,
don't think!

But, of course, every coin has its flip side:
that intoxicating sense of vitality in your core
when you're possessed by enthusiasm
and can barely believe the heights
you have reached. You love everyone, everything:
you now are infinite - a brilliant ball of positive energy
rising above all earthly nuances. And when you fall asleep,
you fall into beautiful dreams, surrounded
by fragrant bluebells rustling in a spring breeze
as if dancing to spiritual music. Your Soul is present.
You are whole and perfectly in balance.
Live it while it lasts. Think on...

I am taking a short break guys, so will be back in a couple of weeks or so. Missing you all already...😢

GHOST HOSPITAL

The Cambridge Military Hospital

                    photo:  The Hampshire Independent.

Watching the bulldozers from the roadside,

it's hard to believe my eyes.

What sacrilege is this? In a short time

it will be no more - not in it's present form anyway,

but will have become yet more housing no one can afford

nor ever really wanted. Greed. That's all it is.

And it's Soul will be consigned to purgatory,

taking with it all those who throughout it's long history

have fallen totally under its spell.

But what they fail to understand, these developers,

is the legacy of their actions: deaf ears 

to the heart-rending cries in tumbling walls, the old voices

that still catch in my throat.

And in the rising dust, I see a face

I saw in a mirror some thirty years back,

her blonde hair shimmering in a broken window pane.

Has she really remained here for so many years,

still clinging to these eerie darting shadows?

And when the devastation is complete, what then?

When the occupants move in, will she stay

along with all those others who languish still

within time's endlessly repeating loop?

There is so much they don't know

about this living relic they're tearing apart.

Materialistic eyes cannot see beyond their own avarice.

There is no respect for the multitudes of disfigured servicemen,

nor for all the rest of the battered and broken humanity that has passed

through these hallowed corridors...or those

like myself, one time patients who have left

traces of themselves in these ethereal wards

that will remain here, unseen, until the end of time.

                                    

ASTON MARTIN

Drive me with your skilled, sure hands;
keep me within the legal speed limits
displayed on the road signs;
make sure my tyre tread always conforms
to the ideal safety depth gauge.

Try to keep me well inside the margins
of the white lines and cat's eyes;
and please don't over-rev my engine,
just keep me purring easily
without straining my aged gears.

When it is rush hour, try to remain calm.
I have no desire to race - although I still could.
Let no one ridicule you for respecting me,
or goad you into a road rage mode
filled with deadly competitiveness.

If there are accidents, let it not be us.
My biggest phobia is blue and white tape
across a closed carriageway. Don't let that happen -
where a forty-two ton truck has devoured me
and we are enmeshed within it's pistons and drive shaft.

Instead, cruise me gently along quiet country lanes
away from insane motorways, crowded city streets
or treacherous mountain tracks.
Just let your phone ring,
don't answer it while driving me.
Please, bring me safely home to my garage.

CLAS MYRDDIN (Merlin's Enclosure)

I reach into my destiny:
the age when Merlin came
and enclosed this Island,

the rolling hills untamed
by man's delusion of ownership, still
engulfed in primal innocence.

A day like today, maybe:
a spring's blossoming
haunting the claiming,

as I am all-too-often
haunted by the void
I fill, or the sense of belonging

I have never experienced
in the company of contemperoraries
not of His spiritual lineage.

DRUMMER BOY

That endless baking summer in Wales, you vanished
nightly until the early hours
with a faceless, anonymous someone

who probably never even suspected my existence.
I could easily picture how you'd come across:
the vulnerable, hard-done-by, would-be lover

who desperately needed rescuing from himself
and his arduous lifestyle on tour with the band.
Oh yes, you'd have been carried away as you always were

by the romantic themes of your own songs. And I knew
she'd have been taken in, just as I had -
you could be so convincing in your philandering.

"Your eyes have captured my very Soul," you'd croon,
whilst leaning toward her and caressing her face.
Back then, I was consumed with jealousy.

Now, I wear armour six feet thick.

CARTOON

Is this really how he perceived me?
Could it be that she is me?

But that flawless face gazing out
filled my head with nagging doubt.

So I asked the others what they thought.
They couldn't believe he was self-taught

and said, "It's you, definitely!"
But still I couldn't actually see

myself in her up on the wall:
she's larger than life, whilst I'm so small.

And I am plain with piggy eyes,
while hers are soulful and twice the size.

I wanted so desperately to believe
and wished I could my eyes deceive.

So into the mirror I searchingly gazed,
but only to find myself further fazed.

He has skilfully omitted all imperfections,
creating a beauty beyond expectations.

Oh if only I could melt into
this image here and make it true! 😉

DREAMLAND

I eagerly anticipate each night's sojourn
into profound adventures,
never knowing who or what awaits me there.
But remembering next morning is the problem.
The snippets I do remember are only vague images,
yet are incredibly seductive and tantalising.

My Dreamland is a compensatory tabernacle, it seems.
And the hallowed sanctity of it -
an escape from a waking reality of isolation and pain.
No wonder I crave nightfall.
Little wonder I wake and think, " No! No!"

What is the meaning
of this nightly sorcery, this dream cult
of which I am High Priestess?
Has my life morphed into some time-honoured legend?

Day-world is an endless torrent of obstacles
that I long to sidestep - without knowing
how it came to this,
or where such notions followed me from,
with their sombre depressing coldness. Each night though
I come alive with expectancy,
craving, and thrilling suspense.
Is it really worth it though, when each morning I simply forget again?
Am drawn back into the dull ordinariness
of a mad dog-eat-dog existence
that suffocates the Spirit and deadens the senses?
But all night, I am in my element:
am central character
in an epic serial drama
in which my presence has value.

How far removed from daily life!
Kind words instead of criticism,
hugs instead of rejections,
the smiles and unconditional acceptance
from those of the subtler planes - all this
is the reality of my true abode.
Our eyes reveal the fundamental truth
within their depths:
wakingland is the illusion...

and we are walkers between the worlds.

CLIMBERS

Renault's versatile masterpiece, yellow traffic,
is traversing the Cairngorms via the A93.
Accomplished artist, my other half,
takes in the grandeur, mentally filing it for later.

It's a crisp clear morning. He will later invent
a blizzard and two struggling climbers
clinging on for dear life to a rocky precipice.
Suicidal endeavour! The poet projects her awareness

into their shoes: the terror of falling, the cold sweat
and overwhelming sense of vertigo. Then
a triumphant rush of adrenaline as they haul
themselves finally over the summit...
only to disappear into the dense, drifting cloud.

THE HAUNTING OF OLD STONE MANOR

A tragic shade wanders here in sorrow
through a time turning widdershins.
She seems unaware of my presence as
she haunts these forsaken ruins.

Close by now, how softly she whimpers,
so mournfully it breaks my heart.
As she passes me by with a rustling of silk,
the veil is torn apart.

For almost two centuries she's been trapped here
in shock and disbelief.
The past recorded in old stone walls
is restless as an autumn leaf.

No living Soul has been able to reach her,
although many down the years have tried.
But, just now, as her tortured gaze met mine -
oh such pleading in those soft brown eyes!

On a sleepless night, outside my window
such a pitious wail fills the air.
On the breeze it's carried over rooftop and field
and the startled owls leave their lair.

What can be the source of such pain and when will
the strands of her story knit up
in my consciousness so I can offer relief?
Oh please let it be by sun-up.

I ask, I make my own vague assumptions,
yet the sad truth's been here all along.
It's a case of learning to read the stones
and feeling their ancient song:

of forming pictures through sensitive hands -
a neural pathways' breech,
in order to map out another's life
that time's rendered out of reach.

Flash of cognition: two young Victorians
and a love that flouts class divide.
An incensed father, mortified and enraged
at the disgrace to his family pride.

He's discovered them together beside woodland pond
and had the young servant beaten
then unceremoniously thrown off his land
to lie bleeding and mentally browbeaten.

His daughter's protests are the final straw -
it pushes him over the edge.
In a terrible fury and overcome with shame -
village gossip is the worst sacrilege -

he drags her screaming to the water's edge
and hastily pushes her in,
then holds her beneath the cold water 'til
all struggling ceases within.

Then stark realisation of what he's done:
a bitter remorse grips his mind
and the ghastly vision of hangman's noose
brings a terror undefined.

So later that night beneath moonless sky,
he retrieves her lifeless form
and smuggles it home then torches the house,
attempting to the law misinform.

Well, to cut a potentially long story short,
I'm sure you can guess the rest.
It wasn't the father who hung by the neck,
but the poor lover though he tried to protest.

Oh I hope that now the truth is out
this sad little ghost will be laid.
Yet, within these ruins on this warm spring eve
still a chill the air seems to pervade...

MERLIN'S APPRENTICE

I trudged through the mud - the clinging mud,
the sloppy and heavy dung-coloured mess.
Plodding along the well worn path,
the terrain anomalous yet familiar;
a path back to antiquity
and the Prophet's youth -
during the mildest and wettest March on record:
a two mile trek through utter quagmire.

I came to the Hermit's Cell
in the heavily wooded twilight.
Just enough filtered light
to make out the doorway, to enter
and experience the atmosphere.
I touched the crumbling stone walls.
They felt strangely warm beneath their covering of moss.
They exuded the mustiness
of the era I sought. This place was
secluded, alive with the very essence of my past and future
spiritual heritage - the inner Sisterhood:
old, earthy, Elemental Beings in flowing
hooded robes, with bright all-seeing eyes.

I sat on a fallen corner stone
and took out my flask, my sandwiches.
But I couldn't eat or drink - it felt too sacrilegious.
I was here for a much more profound reason than to picnic -
my re-dedication to the Path.
I took out my Runes
and laid out seven of them chosen at random on a stone.
But I couldn't interpret their message. Concentration
deserted me amid that rustling dead bracken,
where the cold wind chilled me to the bone.

So I wandered through the ruin. Did He know, I wonder,
how intently I listened to His absence -
this ghostly intruder with her unorthodox notions,
beside the bat-infested fireplace, in a sudden downpour?
So precise and prophetic an omen that it gave her goosebumps.
The tiny annex, His study room,
with it's fallen-in window and sound of the waterfall,
and the sheer drop beneath that He loved to explore,
and the river in the valley below where He once tickled trout.
All had been patiently awaiting my arrival. I could feel it.
And the broken steps leading down
to a cavern of Dark Age echoes
I'd inadvertently stirred up by my presence.
Listening there, at the bottom of the steps,
to the gentle murmuring of the wind
was like listening to the wild utterances of Merlin himself
during His maddest and most prophetic phase.

This ruinous monument, all the more precious to me
for His formative years spent there in embryonic omnipotence,
imbued me with a mental clarity
immutable as a history set in stone.
I was reborn in that February sunset.
And, shuttered by skeletal boughs,
the fallen stones emitted an eerie glow -
as if the sun had set there, inside the cavern.

I devoured the experience as I began to retrace my steps
(dreading the lethal mud in darkness).
I peered into the gloom as if into the past:
into His world, protected and magical,
of which (although totally ignorant of it at the time)
I had eternally been a part.

THE HOGMOOR INCLOSURE ROMAN WALK

Just for a change from poetry, I thought I'd share with you a walk around my local area...

The entrance to the Roman Walk.

A close-up of the information panel.

A Roman Centurion's helmet (carved from wood).

A selection of carved wooden figures that are non gender specific and so denote the equality of the human race. They also embody a mixture of all races on Earth.

And, finally, the Canadian Memorial...located on the site of the old garrison church.

I hope you enjoyed...xxx


Hi guys, just to let you know I am taking a short break from blogging. I have more tests  coming up, plus we are celebrating our 40th Anniversary, so I am going to be really busy over the next week or so.
In the meanwhile...happy blogging...
and I will "see" you all again soon! xxx





 

SPRING EQUINOX

I have peeled back the petals of a daffodil
in search of the season's essence,
and walked the circumference of a Fairy Ring
where the beginning returns to itself
beneath a ray of cold sun.

I have become one with the springtime:
the hail, the strong winds and pounding rain;
the dancing hyacinths;
the fernworks of ice on windows
that seal me inside my tomb
of misted rooms

from which I'm forced to observe the changes -
pigeons billing and cooing on cabin roof,
the smell of pollen from the amaryllis, the smell of cold
and the black mold that lurks in dark corners
of the bathroom, like the last dying strands
of winter's DNA.

The town lies beyond my garden in a pocket of promising sunlight,
and beyond that tall pines touch the sky -
as if other incarnations of myself
(familiar and unknown) embedded in their eras
as I am now in mine, standing here before this open window
and breathing renewed life
into the slumbering Souls of bluebells.

SNAPSHOT

For Checo ...

A moment captured in time, taken
to commorate celebrations to come
by someone far, far away
who is willing you to victory.

You could say it is a talisman, a magic spell,
a kind of thought-form shaped like you
in your car, taking first place trophy
on the podium down in Adelaide.

Pink carbon fibre and titanium, edged in deep blue,
shimmering with magical stardust: less an idle wish,
more electrical magnetism conjured up
to propel you through the pack.

It's all here in visual format - and in these eyes.
Not just vague hope, but force of will:
my mind to your mind, a strengthening of certainty
of what this year absolutely will bring!

CASTLES

You had an aversion to castles. Castles! 
Those magnificent structures that I so adore. The spiral staircases,
the gloomy dungeons, the moss-covered crumbling
stone walls - all bored you. History lessons at your school
must have omitted the study of castles and their architecture,
boiling oil tipping and screams of would-be be invaders.
You failed to appreciate their histories, so your Soul was devoid
of the fascination, and their aura of brooding stillness
made your eyes glaze over with total disenchantment.
I bought you a guide book once, and you accepted it
reluctantly. An obviously unwanted gift.
You skimmed briefly over it's print and diagrams,
while trying hard to appear interested, yet failing dismally -
your gaze with longing eyes toward the exit gate was a dead giveaway.
It was so obvious you would much rather be somewhere else!
But, for my sake, you joined me for the guided tour,
all the while enthusiastically informing me of the motoring event
you'd attended the previous weekend, where you'd purchased
your latest pride and joy, an Aston Martin Vanquish.
Oh how your face lit up then, as you stared off into the distance
and appeared to forget that I, or our present location
even existed. Castles were a dreary chore to you:
were the archetypes of antiquated pointlessness
that I was forever dragging you around, these blots
on the landscape that held no value whatsoever,
apart from within archeological circles.
To you they were trifles probably, subjects that fell way below
the intellectual level of your Mercurial mindset.
Castles were things you wanted to sidestep at all costs.
And they were growing ever more synonymous with me.
But I saw you mounted upon a white stallion, complete with shining armour,
beneath a full moon in the cobbled courtyard:
an over-romanticised figure riding towards me,
girlhood's dream wish fulfilment - although grossly out of character for you
who were most likely still musing over Aston Martins
and your ideal scenarios, so very adverse to mine.
Well, there could only be one conclusion, couldn't there...
me,
wandering endlessly around my beloved relics
without you.

PRESSED FLOWERS

My child never sat her exams,
she didn't have time.
You can't count two weeks as a lifetime.
There were no birthday boat trips in June,
nor Christmas presents in December.
She never slept in the pink bedroom with the nursery rhyme lamp
and Disney curtains that never opened.

No terrorist atrocity has marred my life.
There's been no news coverage, no public outcry.
Fate's attacks are deviously executed, are underhand and utterly devastating.
They leave no visible scars.
It's all on the inside - the damage, the agony, the loneliness.
And for those like me there can be no full recovery.

But there was a laburnum tree weighed down with blossoms,
and speedwell blooms spread over the entire garden.
They awaited her arrival with a joyful anticipation
that even a lingering sense of foreboding failed to subdue.
I picked some of each to press for her,
pretty blues and yellows to frame in a card.
I would give it to her when she turned eighteen,
when the danger had long passed I thought,
that heavily pregnant me, who had
just purchased cot, high chair and baby clothes.
That much younger me, with heart still intact.