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.