EULOGY

 For Michael Byrne...

I imagined I'd tracked you down

to one of those hellish concentration camps

in Hitler's nineteen-forties Germany. There,

in Nazi uniform, you stood observing

the mass genocide, your expression almost ecstatic.

Ice blue eyes, clear as the spring sky,

would perhaps meet mine. What then?

Would my blonde hair and pale complexion

save me from the inconceivable horror

inflicted upon my non Aryan contemporaries?

I'd assumed you'd be as brutal and inhumane

in real life too and therefore intensely disliked you.

So convincing you were up there on the screen

that I'd accepted as authentic a persona

well rehearsed - but then something else

in your eyes sent shivers of an altogether

different kind down my spine.

I'd inadvertently caught you unawares

before you'd had time to slip

into your chameleonic public image.

And the discovery was intoxicating:

a clean slate with your face on -

a smile so unexpectedly warm

that it took my breath away,

initiating an inexplicable infatuation.

Tell me, does it really matter

that I'm unknown to you, because

isn't absence claimed to be the heart's inspiration?

Observing your every role

has been the perfect antidote

to the isolation of life in lockdown, 

vastly expanding my restricted world.

In the sleepless hours, I think of you

and search the darkness

for your face...😉

THE HOWLING

Trekking over Dartmoor

through air heavy, moisture laden;

passing stone farms, long abandoned, ruinous;

bleak hills, heather clad and darkening

within gathering mist that blurs

the boundary between reality and fiction;

our faces strangely luminous, like

those of ghosts - but somehow not.

Such transfiguring disturbs and hastens

the duo of adventurers onward

toward the great mystery, oft sought,

elusive and otherworldly - yet

simultaneously perceived

on hill top, on river bank;

recognisable only by the howling

other than that of dog or fox:

a blood-curdling, long drawn out cry

that spikes terror through the Soul.

Ominous panting nearby.

We break into a run. Padding footfalls follow.

Mist so dense now. Stumbling into rock,

now prickly gorse that plucks

at our clothing. Blood red eyes within

gigantic black dog shape

looms up out of the gloom.

Desperately trying to out run it,

pulses racing, fear all-consuming.

Hope fading, as it's relentless pursuit

drives us onto narrow path

between treacherous bog pools.

Gutteral howl closer now and we run

even faster, lungs almost bursting.

The path turning dark, liquifying

into black ink, flowing from Sir Arthur's pen

as it skims across the page,

defining our fate...

Mentally beseeching him to deliver us

from the frightful curse 

of his dark imagination.

Only he can lift it.

Baskerville Hall appears before us.

But nearing means distancing

from all we've sought so long.

Pages flutter in sudden breeze. 

The book closes.

Sunlight pierces the gloom.

STUDENT'S LAMENT

From my rented postage stamp with no garden

to call my own except my window box,

I observe the dreary perspective

of colossal concrete tenement -

grey roof tiles, scuffed dun-coloured doors -

and perceive my first symbol of independence

as if between mirrors, forming an extensive

column of shabby replicas

anonymously occupied.

                                              But professors 

own their stately bricks and mortar, 

and the land upon which it stands. 

Such substance makes

my visual observation a peasant's eyeful

that inferiority defines as cruelly taunting - a

pointless squandering of youthful years -

and all for what? 

A futile attempt to ape possessor

                                              of ancestral silver spoon.

                      

FERNS

What is the significance

of aromatic ferns?

That boy and girl have discovered a secret paradise:

rolling around in the earthy scent,

their clothes staining green

from the moist spiky fronds,

seizing stolen moments,

pretending to be grown-ups. My

envious stare meets them head-on,

awakening passions

of a deeply mourned youth.

Emotional backlash. Bees

lead me back to the open road.

Hunger of the Soul

has to be assuaged. Clear sky -

boundless, infinite - isolation's antidote.

Inhaling it's deep blue.

Freed, calmed, lifted - by meditation

on such unbroken expanse. So open.

Probing possibilities, like 

the famous mind of Einstein:

aware of the planet's spinning,

it's suspension in outer space,

mind clinging 

to invisible shooting stars

and ascending like a rocket - the state 

of metamorphosis, Nature's miracle,

that lump-in-the-throat moment

that renders the Soul wholly open.

I am suddenly

catapulted through time:

a retro journey back

to before the Dolorous Stroke -

to the meaning of Fate itself.

Devoid of shade,

sun beating down mercilessly,

as the ether magnifies it's rays.

Here is my Akashic Record,

the Prophet's transformative madness.

Observing myself blunder through youth

and into the mouth of the abyss.

Witnessing a sacrificial burning

and the Phoenix arising from the ash - not I,

yet somehow the same being.

Sudden denial:

the lashing out nothing more

than immature retaliation

for perceived rejections and betrayals

inflicted upon me by other damaged Souls.

What happens to the heart has consequences.

Retracing my steps. The boy and girl

have gone, but the aroma of damp ferns

still permeates the air. Pure rapture

enters my pores, infusing my being

with a startling revelation...

reabsorption of a juvenile self

accelerates emotional evolution.

I am suddenly light, weightless as a feather.

Nothing can harm me now, not even death.

The ferns rustle in a gentle breeze...

HI GUYS

Hi, my dear friends! 

Just wanted to pop by to thank you all so much for your kind wishes. It does truly mean the world to me.😊

I am currently experiencing multiple health issues, and am suffering extreme fatigue...but will return to visit you all as soon as I am able.

Missing you all dreadfully...

Have a good weekend and stay safe and happy xxxx

HOPE

Vainly optimistic I was

believing my life

would be long, eternal even

and dotted with successes

to be proud of

so I'd be worthy in the eyes of someone

and therefore, above all, be loved.

Now, my sole task's to find

some hope to cling to,

such craving for a little more time

to live, a miracle -

because such things 

can happen if we truly believe in them.

And I so, so want to survive.

The arbitrary onslaught

of rogue cells predict my demise:

the ultimate conflict

between tainted flesh and sharp scalpel.

Oh let me be brave and dwell

not on dying, nor on giving up - but on victory,

on finally defeating the enemy within...

I'm going into hospital on Monday to have an operation. I hope to visit you all again soon.

In the meantime...have a great week, my dear friends 😊😊 xxx

THE MIND

A complicated mind

shaped my destiny.

That same mind fed me

the many untruths

that bred my myriad phobias.

Why did I never question them?

When I ventured out into the world

I saw only reflections

of another's paranoia.

Society was a forbidding concept

filled with dangerous pitfalls, so I feared

every shadow, mistrusted every stranger's smile.

Later, within my poetry,

that mind's unfulfilled dreams found expression

in a kind of mournful angst. It also

laced my relationships with a deadly poison:

"Men are the enemy. Never trust them!"

Self fulfilling prophesy. Inward struggle.

Who am I really?

Now, sometimes I question

if it ever was that other mind at all,

but was actually mine all along.

Other times, I wonder if it could be

a genetic anomaly in my psyche

that so warps intuition and fuels

my quest for the inexplicable, the

impossible ideal that other mind

spent a lifetime seeking

yet never ever found.

Have I, indeed, become my mother?

Is it possible that these thoughts

running through my head - these, now,

originated in another mind

that is continuing to influence me

from beyond the grave?

Or is it simply that I am cursed

with the kind of mind that thinks too much? 😉