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.