THE BELGIAN GRAND PRIX, 2017

For Checo...


This week's race is infuriating:
a clashing of team-mates, high speed,
deadly. I hide my face in fear.

He could die, be maimed, by another's ego trip.
Wreckage on the track. Safety Car. I search for his face.
Phew! Luckily, he's still here only now at the very back.

Now he's being blamed - so unfair - by those
lacking experience with tongues like scythes
hell bent on felling true greatness.

FIRE

Still trapped
within the moment,
re-living Fate's
capricious taunt.
Can't let go
of craving something
once perceived
then snatched away
from desire's unlimited
fantastical vision:
aah the dream-form
personified
yet out of bounds
that I want so much
to touch,
to be part of,
to make my own
reality absolute.


Oh magic ritual
please work for me:
crystals
             incense
                          sacred water
                                                flame of candle -
all four elements now combine
to forge a fourth
and hopefully release
Creation's power
in this circle today:
chanting
chanting
Transform my longings
into something substantial
by opening a doorway
into his heart.


The cost is high
but it makes no difference.
I'll risk my all
to just once more
gaze into those gorgeous eyes,
such dark brown eyes
framed by even darker curls;
to be the object
of his desire
and feel the power
arc between us,
if only for a moment.
Oh how different
it'll be this time!
I'll bare my soul
with heart on sleeve
and hope
and hope
for the utterly sublime.


Now slipping deep
into fragrant half-dream,
transported by spiraling
incense smoke.
Mentally backtracking:
I'm here again,
standing before him -
but well rehearsed words
abruptly die
in a throat so constricted
I'm gasping for breath.
Hell! It's happening again -
this effect he has -
I'm rendered dumb
and feeling stupid.
Oh please Elemental Powers
show me this day
the way...


Well, he looks
right through me -
this living wraith
who's willed herself
into his life.
I'm here!
I'm here!
I call in silence.
But he's far too focused
on the outer world
to notice a shadow
playing with matches.
DOESN'T SHE REALISE
SHE'LL ONLY GET BURNED?

It's the Element of Fire
that's out of control:
my desire,
all-consuming desire,
feeding the candle flame
that leaps higher and higher...
until I'm totally consumed
in the blazing furnace
of power misdirected
by foolish,
irrational,
passion unrequited.

                            

RYAN'S DAUGHTER...A SEQUEL

A photo of you on Mizen's Head
in the dead of winter, so dashing in khaki uniform
and framed by spray-fringed tides and leaden skies.
In your eyes lurk disturbing truths: infidelity,
irresistible sin.

Loving out of context
and wild oats sown in another's domain -
repeated over and over again,
disregarding procreation's constant threat
of contamination by English DNA.

But such allure was too strong to resist. To hell
with the consequences. But did I really imagine
I'd escape unscathed? A village up in arms
against the Jezebel: public stripping, shorn hair.
Such humiliation binds me still to Ireland's past.

Even today there is no let-up. Vivid memories
of your laboured breath in my ear,
and the constant taunt of emotions up-leaping
to covert messages over crackling telephone line:
oh such blatant thrilling eroticism!

I never set out to find you. A Catholic wife,
such complication was the last thing
I needed then. Nevertheless, two worlds collided
in a head-on smash. Total devastation.
First sight: searing passion, a trap

we fell into. An animated portrait of  doom -
Satan's sadistic toying with the weak.
Then birth of a guilt complex conceived of deceit
and self-indulgence. I was suffocating,
yet clung to you knowing I should have let go.

Constantly wary, like two escaped convicts
we crept around in the shadows, emotionally exhausted.
And what of the cost? What of your victims?
The fallout could be catastrophic.
Holy Mary, please don't make me think of that!

The Vatican has eternally damned us, I know. My punishment
is to live with the harrowing sound of that explosion
when you blew yourself up, out there on the shore.
As I left for Dublin and my new life
Oh how I grieved for you, but could tell no one.

"Put it all behind you," Father Collins advised me.
Put it all behind me? Pretend it never happened.
Your life, your death - like a far off reverie
fading with each passing year...
But real life isn't like that, is it?

I am old now.
And I have never loved again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan%27s_Daughter


I am taking a little time out to recharge my batteries, so I will be back in around a week.
Will miss you all...
but have a fabulous week! :))

SUNSPELL

Lying in the sun.
Dozing, beginning to drift
                                       ever higher.
Looking down at myself,
                                       trying hard
                                                     to remember
what I came here for.
                               Only blankness.


Lying in the sun.
There's a hole in the sky
                                     light streaming in.
I can see Heaven from where I am.
A man I love lives there,
                                      he
was never in my life,
                               neither did he love me.
Who is to blame?


Aah, this precious sunshine!
Sunbathing.
                 I am hot and feverish.
The sun is scorching
                               and my breathing is laboured.
Overhead is space.
Oh there is so much I've lost.
Burn on, pale skin.
                           Soon
I'll be dust too,
                     and like him,
                                       find peace...


A curtain drawn.
                        Retail therapy.
Sleep like a log.
                       Grounding.
                                      Trying not to think.
I feel like getting blotto,
                                    fill a glass.
Fed up running from delusion
                                             going nowhere.
On a crowded train,
                            no one smiles or says "Hi."
Then I arrive and meet a guy -
                                            he hangs on to my every word.
He wears your face.
He's yearned for me as you never did.
He asks me to stay.
"I'll make everything alright,"
                                            he softly whispers.
"No, I can't," I reply,
                              "there is someone else..."
And my mind is racing.
"Let's go out then?"
"No."
    "What's wrong?
                          I don't understand...
where is this other guy?"
                                  I shake my head.
What can I say?
                      And I reply,
"He's in my Soul."

EDEN

In loving memory of my Father...


The blooming of red roses and honeysuckle,
their heavy scents pervading the air:
a poignant reminiscence that haunted my Soul

whilst sitting in that sterile room
as my Father died by endless seconds,
just a heartbeat away behind wall and door.

How would anyone value his garden?
Such an earthly paradise, so fine:
the density of bamboo, immaculate lawns,

the echo of his mower, smoke from a bonfire,
and the flowering almond tree
he planted for my Mother on their anniversary.

And in the Chapel of Rest, an image of spade and fork:
iron, cold as his post-mortem flesh
and my rapidly petrifying heart.

All these come to torment me still, with profound longing
for bygone days: of being lifted high in purest love
by those gentle green hands...


Also dedicated to my brother, Chris, who is currently recovering from a serious motorcycle accident...and to all my amazing distant friends, in deepest gratitude for your wonderful words of support through this difficult period in my life. Mere words cannot thank you enough...

KAYAKING

Alone on the canal, with nothing but water
and passing hedgerows, their reflections distorted
in the aqueous world beneath it's cathedral-like arches of beech.
What lies beyond the next bend? A multitude
of weeping willows, caressing the water's edge
like graceful ballet dancers, their slender swirling fronds
hypnotising incredulous eyes. Awestruck.
I hadn't expected to be so drawn into this surreal realm -
so connected with such beauty. I am the water's ecstasy.

Overhead the coal-black crows call to my Soul, like
black snowflakes wheeling in the blue sky.
Their cacophony is the only sound, apart from the rhythmic splashing
of my paddle. I hope and mentally pray that this trip will never end.
Tall brown bull rushes sway as I pass,
dancing to my soundless tune, and the occasional call of frogs
pulls my gaze to the green/brown flashes of movement on the near bank.
My unwelcome intrusion has disturbed their peaceful siesta.
Just one more bend, and both canal and hedgerows abruptly end.

All that lies ahead now is stark civilisation.
From an overhead bridge, the sudden stench of exhaust fumes
forces it's poisonous breath deep into asthmatic lungs.
This bridge is too artificial: such an inappropriate terminus for Nature's glory.
I climb out onto the tow path's end and sigh as I deflate my kayak.
The bridge forms a borderland between worlds, between beauty and ugliness,
and I know I must now rejoin that chaos
that most term urbanisation, with it's electric fields, brainwashing and self-deception.
And I feel broken, like a crushed car in a long-abandoned scrap yard...



I am having a few health issues at present and have to go into hospital for some tests.
I will return to Blogging as soon as I can...
until then, I will miss you all. xoxoxo

ANATOMY OF A FRIENDSHIP

For Rusty...

Most school friendships cannot withstand
the passing of years, of futures unplanned:
don't reach the place where fate begins
for two like us who've shared a space
and formed a bond time cannot displace -
we're closer, I feel, than most twins.

In fact, we're connected. Absolute.
My husband thinks it's all rather cute:
all these years spent living apart
from each other, but not in memory or thought,
and it was you in all honesty who mostly taught
me to confidently open my heart.

Ours is a bond that pays huge dividends:
it catches all of life's loose ends
and weaves them into a work of art,
a thing of beauty that brings new meaning
to otherwise arbitrary occurrences demeaning
and impels me to make a new start.

How many have pondered the meaning of life
when beset by years of unconquerable strife?
Well I'm no different from any of those -
I throw my tantrums while lamenting why me?
But is it that question that sets me free?
No, it's the empathy that between us flows.

The most exciting loves can be artifice
that keep us dangling between fire and ice
and combines incongruous
elements like dirty socks and chocolates
in boxes tied with ribbons, and illicit associates.
But in you I trust - you could never be that treacherous.

Yet sometimes our own lives become so all-absorbing
that for months on end we neglect calling.
We're immersed in the mundane
until a glut of disenchantment
overwhelms us with resentment
until we seek once more friendship's domain.

That choice between loneliness and baring one's Soul
often leads the faint-hearted to a safer goal.
But not so for us
because right from the start
we felt lost when apart
and there's no subject we cannot discuss.

Whatever happens we're there for each other -
yet ours is a closeness that will never smother
either's individuality:
rooted in counties many miles apart,
yet the contradiction (for we remain heart-to-heart)
forms the basis of our solidarity.