PHOTOGRAPHS

What happened to that photograph of you and I -
you remember, the one of our final holiday together
in 2009?
Searching countless albums to find it...aha!

When Austin framed us,
I wonder if he possibly could have guessed
that it would stir such emotions in me
this far into his future.
I recall how meticulously
he positioned us against the backdrop
of rocks and wild plants, calculating
angles of light and shade
in conjunction with our images.
How many minutes did it take
to perfect it?
Sunshine. Wind, wind,
cold sea spray laden wind
murmuring over jagged rocks.
Territorial conflict
of seagulls and invading ravens.
We retreated, frozen, luminous, gazing at him
through a retina of metal and glass.
He lifted us out of the physical
and into a vortex of coloured inks - to become
an indelible copy of what he saw
that October afternoon, high up in a recess
in the cliff face overlooking Rocky Valley.

A sudden thought: what became
of that grey sweater you're wearing?
Out of the gloomy depths of a sensitive's awareness
sentimentality bubbles up - a spectre that brings
unease, combined with intense longing to revisit
that earlier time...and touch again that warm fluffiness
that must still exist somewhere, although
now grown cold - or else is warming some other body
that was never a part of mine.

And I can't let it go. Have to know where
it is now. Is it being cared for with lashings
of fabric conditioner after every wash?
A disturbing vision of it lying discarded, screwed up
and torn, buried in a landfill site.
It is alone there. Once so close to you
and still carrying your essence, it languishes
in this inaccessible sepulchre...
and I can't bear it.
Panic.
Is it at this very moment being consumed
by moths, worms, or some deadly petrochemical
dumped on top of it?

Stop thinking!
Nostalgic imaginings can be destroyers of sanity.

But I'm drawn even deeper...
our bags on the rocky ledge behind you.
I have mine still, but yours is long gone.
All that black life, harbouring your memories -
your emotions and aspirations recorded
forever in it's fabric. I remember you donated it
to a charity shop: in the hands of a psychometrist
your innermost secrets could be unlocked -
and all for a few mere pounds.
I am possessive by proxy, can't begin to contemplate the notion
of a total stranger owning our shared past.

Oh I wish I could share these feelings with you.
But just two days ago I found other photographs like these
torn up in the bottom of your bin. As I retrieved them
and began piecing them together like a jigsaw
of your life, I discovered fragile finger prints faintly
patterning the glossy surfaces.
Tears began to well up then.
It seemed so symbolic:
our mother/son bond ripped apart by adulthood's
cool independence...and I am in mourning...still clinging tightly
to these lifeless, yet immortal, doppelgangers...

BATTLE OF THE QUEENS

It's a legendary time say the ancient tales
when the dying summer sun pales
into autumn's ageing embers gold
and starlings have departed for African wold.

Yes this is that time...

So come join me tonight
at Stonehenge in moonlight,
where Summer Queen and Snow Queen meet
each seeking to in battle the other defeat.

Snow Queen's most powerful - she can freeze the sea,
with a single glance can transform you and me
into sculptures of ice with her freezing breath
and bring upon us sudden death.

So if you do come tonight
keep well out of sight
as you observe the deadly Battle of Queens,
for they never survive - any go-betweens.

But for now, the Queens are still inside
Silbury Hill, preoccupied
with honing and perfecting their weapon skills:
Summer heat versus Winter chills.

Hey - watch out...they're coming out!
Hillside spews lightening from inside out,

as two Queens arise
and take to the skies:
one in a chariot of meteorite,
the other in a rocket of ice crystallite.

Now over Salisbury Plain they clash
coming together with a fearful CRASH!
And gentle Summer is stabbed through the heart
by the glacial point of an icicle dart.

Then while she lies heavily bleeding below
into the dawn horizon's glow,
this funeral pyre to Summer's end
ushers in Winter - the Snow Queen's trend.

WRONG TURN

What can I offer you
but fleeting memories
unwittingly stirred:
a forest, with crimson sunset
filtering through tree trunks;
my gift to you - a tiny lizard
carved from pine wood;
and our home of logs
not quite rainproof -
at least, not in the
heaviest of downpours.
And the bluebells in spring -
remember how you picked me a bunch
for our first anniversary?
And how we made love in high summer,
squashing some where they grew
and how I wept for their pain?

Then the snow in winter:
we'd be trapped indoors for weeks,
surviving on love and shared body heat alone
when our food stocks ran out.
"Dear God," you'd exclaim, laughing,
"At least we'll die happy!"

Oh how could you have forgotten all this -
and me,
simply because we were snatched
from Caledonia's past
by an arbitrary whim of fate,
only to be re-born centuries later
on opposite sides of the globe?
When I recognized you on TV the other day,
I wished I had forgotten you too,
because knowing brings irresistible compulsion...


Driving at breakneck speed
along a dusty outback road
in Western Australia.
Spinning tyres throwing up sand and small rocks.
Missing gears - feeling like
Lewis Hamilton on a good day.
Slamming on brakes.
Skidding to a halt.
Jumping out,
door left swinging open,
engine running.
Racing through the open door
of an unknown dwelling
in Meekatharra...
through to the back - instinctively
knowing the way.
Bursting into the bedroom,
running over to the bed, crying,
"Come back to me, please?"

Two pairs of eyes stare at me
in utter bewilderment.
Deeply embarrassed, I hear myself mumble
"Sorry,
I must have taken a wrong turn!"

EARNLEY CHURCHYARD, NOVEMBER 2014

The scene is desolate: skeletal trees
shiver in icy breezes, their naked branches
clutching at ancient gravestones
as if to gather the dust beneath
and resurrect it once more
into sentient life. The lingering anguish

of men long forgotten leaches
into the blood-red smiles of poppies
dutifully laid at the heads of the fallen.

And your restlessness breaches the frozen earth
to fill my heart with intense, all-absorbing compassion.
I am pulled out of time. Clouds obscure the sun.

In the misty grey gloaming, eyes strain
to trace the faintest outline of a man:
slender, caked in reddened mud. His eyes,
wild with terror, momentarily meet mine.
Oh how you learned historians have erred:
the Battle of the Somme still rages on...

ODE TO SCOTNEY CASTLE

Of medieval crumbling stone,
your dreamy tower
rises out of reflections
of another world:
bewitching as an escapade
into childhood's exquisite fairyland.

Dancing on chilly winds
autumn's falling leaves,
yellow-gold: a testimony
to nature's endless cycle
of birth-death-rebirth,
enduring - like you.

Marbled afternoon sky.
Shadows lengthening inch-by-inch,
mirrored in leaded windows
out of which peer
the insubstantial faces of ghosts
of those who lived here once...and never left.

THE BUZZARD

Cernunnus awakening divine discontent:
these winter blues are weighing me down
and I long to leave it all behind -
ticking clocks and concrete prisons.
Even woodland path is no longer enough.
Then gazing up into the sky,
there's a graceful figure flying high
who's calling me...

kiew...kiew...
come join me in my aerobatics:
play hide-and-seek with swirling clouds,
mind-to-mind, wing-to-hand.
Oh such freedom!
The Buzzard and the Astral Traveller
above the treetops, under the sun;
soaring, diving...it's just an intent away...
kiew...kiew...

I'm rushing at speed like a rocket,
now gliding on thermals, my body changing shape.
My home is a dot on a distant map
that means nothing now I've gone.
Heights are no longer shrouded in fear,
and my appetite is turning queer:
chocolate bars have lost appeal, yet
at the sight of a vole I salivate.
But I'm no longer sure this life's for me
and I want to be back with my own kind.
Oh I think it's too late:
my hands are feathered, my toes clawed,
and I don't know how to get down...

kiew...kiew...kiew...

FIGHTER PILOT

Dedicated to all those who fought in the Battle of Britain...


August 24th, 1943

Leaving the hangar.
Counting the number of footsteps to my plane,
while buttoning combat jacket and pulling on helmet and gloves
like an actor donning costume,
getting into character.
The mask is always last to go on -
a serious superstition of mine
since my first successful dogfight.
Putting it on now,
I visualise myself surrounded
by heavy, impenetrable armour.

Steel grey clouds gather ominously above.
Swirling, constantly re-forming.
Shafts of sun break through here and there:
golden, full of dancing thistle seeds.
A jet black crow
glides through the moisture-laden air.
Scanning the earth from it's elevated vantage point,
it's wings create a seeded vortex
of displaced sunlight in the up draft.

Each scramble to action begins
with the first glimpse of the Hurricane...
proud eyes trace it's aerodynamic lines
to the end of the tail,
finally coming to rest on the roundel
emblazoned on it's side.
Pause and take deep breaths.
Banish fears and negative thoughts.
Leave lost comrades faces on the grass
when you climb inside
the claustrophobic cockpit
because, then should you be fortunate enough to return,
it's easier. You feel less guilt
for still living - the sky's no place
to keep company with dead men.

Strapping yourself in.
The engine roars to life.
You recite a silent prayer as you gaze
into the eyes of your wife in her silver frame.
Speeding down the runway. Each tree,
each stationary plane disappearing
into the rivers of air rushing by.

Then you're finally airborne.
You slice into the whiteness of the cloud
like a knife into butter,
and you're isolated, momentarily disoriented:
"What am I doing here in this nomansland?" you ask
out loud, in an attempt to quell
the now familiar rush of nerves.

Never relax until your job is done.
Only slipped up once these last three years:
a day of thunder storms,
a strong south-westerly wind.
I'd just taken out a Messerschmidt,
banked to the left -
then caught site of another
hard on my tail, spewing fire like some demented dragon...

and I thought I saw God's hand
reach out of the lightening.
How my plane shook in that Almighty grasp.
It would have been all too easy
to just lie back and allow myself to be spirited away
from the dreadful burden of guilt
I have to live with:
killing my fellow man never did come easy.

A drunken conscientious objector once accused me
of being no better than Adolf - of being
no less the mass murderer than he.
Reminded me of a picture I'd seen
in my father's illustrated Bible - of Armageddon
and the demons that descended from the skies,
bringing down flames and destruction upon mankind.
That bugger was prodding me with a nicotine-stained finger
and shouting in my face, his foul breath sickening me...
until my fist laid him out on the beer stained floor.

I'm quiet as a rule - unless, as you see, I'm provoked.
Like my own company most of the time.
Well, I'm used to it, doing what I do.
At Christmas I like a beer or two
while sprawled out on the back of my silver bird
and singing derogatory songs about the SS;
the stars lighting up the sky and crystals of frost
forming in my moustache.
Oh yes, I'm pretty relaxed and at ease then.

Girls seem to like me,
much more than their squaddie boyfriends
with all their camaraderie and wildly exaggerated tales
of bravery in the field.
Instead, they want the man they see
descending from the watery sun: freedom's fearless avenger
returning to earth, having preserved their future security.
How they clamour to touch this Dare Devil -
as if to absorb his essence through their fingertips
and etch it into ancestral memory for great-grandchildren:
"I knew a fighter pilot once, you know!"

At times, when I'm up here
suspended between Heaven and Earth,
I think of all those opportunities to be unfaithful to my wife.
But I love her like my own Soul,
see her face in the rolling clouds,
hear her voice in the engine's white noise...

just as I hear it now,
when she has somehow managed to materialise into my cockpit
and is pulling my mask off to kiss my lips...

Oh God!
I am suffocating in an explosion
of the blinding red flames of ecstasy...