Lockdown #2

My Church


Shambling, ambling, doesn't count as stride,
Gloom, holly-bound path, wet, autumn tears,
My dog appears, steaming, panting and bright,

Gone again, mad squirrel pursuit, rain clears.

Enter the oak, sycamore, ash, hazel and birch,
Yellows and browns, reds, dirty greens, bare trees,
Air still, deep, weighty, here is my church,
Stop, stand, inhale my prayer, not on my knees.

Ancient, but ageless, rock-piles, mossy boughs,
Internal settlings, reflections, regret, meditations,
Damp leaf carpet, soft-treading my vows,
Reviewing my promise, in this holy station.

This inner stoic turns, slowly breathing in heaven,

To the east seems a nave, high vaults above,
Glints of holy beams, through branches are woven,
Deeply trailing stoles of ivy, framing this love.

My arboreal cathedral, deliver your peace,
Save this disciple, your communion my dog and I need,
Lichen skinned trunks, deflecting the beast,
Holy broad-leaf sanctum, my soul do you feed.

My prayer, the peace of the deep places,
My woods, my church, lifts weight from my mind,
Escapes with my breathing, the last of our races,
Answered or not, ambling, shambling, my dog walks behind.

Difficult


Foundation, roots, sanctuary,
Emerging from oppressive valley deep,
to the sunny uplands, shocked,
Rocked by a page in your own history,

Unexpected, unwelcome, and random.

Gone are central certainties, securities,
Too late for apologies, for hugs,
For shared ice-cream moments,
Sunny gardens, terminal memory,
Blue lights, and oxygen deficits.

Echoes of rocked foundations, linger,
A week, a month, tidally random,
Unsaid, untold stories, histories,
Sense of sanctuary remains, altered,
Sunny sometimes, heavy dampness, inundate.

Strive for the higher ground, clear,
Sunlit, breezy, clarity of thought,
Helps not, allowing the cloudy grief,
Tidal waves, cliff side, unwary,
Unwanted, but unstoppable, coin obverse.

An emotionally, forced, adulthood,
From deep valley drifting years, granted,
Clouds revealing golden shafts of love,
Then dark, threatening, glowering drizzle,
Mist, thought-fogs, dark slides into hell.

Small steps around cliff bases,
Overwhelming tasks, much too big “asks”,
No ladders, no lifts, just silent pitons,
Small uphill steps, some clarity,
And threatening, and reality avalanches.

Even when you stumble on a sheep trod,
A route to higher space, clarity,
Storm clouds gather, black dogs bay,
Rooks and ravens, circling your dreams,
Hide some of the dry spells, the cold air.

Searching for joy, free thinking, unbridled,
Impossible cliffs, unreachable uplands,
Brought to earth, and kept by your heart,
A hood, a falconers burqa, rufter,
Keeping me from seeing my way out.

A bloody double rainbow, after hellish,
Tiring nightmarish, and sleepless wallowings,
The prayer to a god you don't know,
His/her answer, and a pre-dawn walk,
Pilgrimage to grief, loss, and deep love.

Months after brain categorised healing,
Perhaps editing, portraying, remembering,
Changes, but can't stop odd waves,
Or avalanches, or dark moment tears,
But strangely can also carry love and smiles.

Did my eulogy, this isn't it,
It's my catharsis, attempt at, is all,
Rationalising the already rational,
Squaring the circle, or vice versa,
Tyring to get it together, and acceptance.

Can't rail against the clock, the diary,
The night, loss, circles, nature,
Nor the unsaid, over-sights,
Taking a lovely sanctuary for granted,
Before personal earthquake armageddon.

I haven't written about my grief, not directly, but one of these clearly isn't even meant as a poem, as such, but it does relate to the avalanches of sadness, and unbridled grieving moments that occasionally threaten to overwhelm me.

The clock is one from St David's church, near where I live, and the time portrayed is AM, not PM.

At present, that is pretty much all I think I'm ready to say about it.


Lockdown #1 started off in a surprisingly wonderful and surreal way, empty roads, empty hills, peace, unseasonably warm and sunny weather, and good grief, the outstanding thing was the birdsong, not that we're ever really short of it hereabouts, but it was just out of this world.

Lockdown eventually palled though, and then the world tilted on it's axis, and my life will never be the same again.

Lockdown #2 is just a mish-mash of seeing your neighbours ignore the rules, and people start to lose their patience with one another. It's like they're reverting to type for some sad reason. The hills are fuller than ever, and the roads are only marginally less busy than pre-Covid-19.

I have turned back to trying to write, to improve my photography, difficult though that is seeing as how it's raining or misty all the time, more or less, and the days are so short now that evening walks can't really involve a camera much anyway.

Loss upon loss, my entire photography archive: gone, poetry? Gone, and countless other creative projects, my business accounts for the last 20 years......all gone. Don't rely on a single external hard-drive for "back-up" use two..... lesson badly sadly learned........

Life as we knew it, gone, but that's nothing to do with the computer.

2020? Can I have my money back please?

Spring Rambling.

My last post, some while back now, was the highest viewed since November 2017......must have been the suggestive trees......!

  


Anyway, another month has gone by, so here's another tranche of my old stuff, sorry, there are a few bits and pieces in the works, but seeing as how random my head & life seem to be these days, I can only ask you to bear with me, oh, and share, if you can....especially in writing groups and stuff. You never know, when my Mojo does fully return, and I get chance to concentrate on more contemporary pieces....well, nothing, but one lives in hope...

 

Look.

I try to tell you, want to tell you,

Don't need to use spoken words,

Sometimes a look is enough.

(Canon 760D with an ancient 2nd hand 80mm lens, with an extension tube....frustrating experience, but worth it to see the pollen captured falling from the lily.....)

Love Canal.

My rusted, dented, bented, bi-cycle,

Awkward in my clammy grip,

Has some kind of silly relevance,

As it rests against my hip.

Standing here on the old brick bridge,

I feel let down by my bike,

I turn and look back at Love Canal,

Where we both did what we like.

Looking back at old bedsteads,

Old frames, trolleys and the lovers' walk,

Brings no insight to the female mind,

Nor to the double-dutch they talk.

I'd throw this push bike off this sad bridge,

If I thought it'd do any good,

But instead I walk it home,

And think of you in mud.

Looking back at Love Canal from home,

Is an exercise for a virgin's mind,

So, instead I let my thoughts wander,

You'd be surprised at what they find.

#lovewhereilive

 

Love Poem.

Love is a hunter

Hungry and fierce

Hidden behind loaded words

Vain speeches

And eyes, in darkness

Blinded

Love is a terrible rage

A blight, and a drug

An awkward moment to adjust

To be leaned on, and to lean

Hunger for the hunted

The vibrant colour of life

The moments uncounted

Between touch and the glance

Glancing blow to the head

And heart

The race, the chase

The eyes, the face

The body that fits

The silent madness and peril

Temptor and fallen

Love is the hunter

And the prey.

 

Lovespeke Crazy One.

If safety is what you chase, my girl,

You've come to the wrong place,

Oyster, with a strange black pearl,

In a rough edged ruby case.

Sit you down, and stay awhile,

If you came to seek me out,

Chanting, in a foreign style,

Look at me, in doubt.

My sanctuary, you think you understand,

But watch the serpent's eyes,

If you falter, she may strike your hand,

Ah, you're hypnotised.

Now listen carefully to these words,

They'll come back to you in time,

"Beware of a talking bird."

"Stranger, in a love crime."

Venture.

A simple step, so carefully took,

With all the potential of any old chaos,

The theory being that knowledge, a little

And no venture leads no where.

Four steps ahead in the old White Hart,

With specific references too unkind,

Memories of tea, and twenty years,

And sandals, not Hunters, beards,

No wings, no map, no dream,

No fossils in this river bed,

Simply flowing towards untold potential,

And calmly diverting to dam.

Don't shoot straight into the sun dudes, like ever.....

Yeah right. x

Black & yellow twat.

Unpredictable little girl...........

 

Turn Again

The dawning of the frostiest morning

in hell

Will auger the eager survey

Of your immaculate frame

With the instrument of my

Naked eyes.

Hastily sipping at the daylight stream

Throwing dust slides through the air

Golden bedroom penetration

Sopping up the disappointed

Feelings conjured, bare,

By summery air.

Becomes a daily habit,

To taste at the outside hell,

Before regretting more

red-headed

Might-have-been moments,

With my patrons pathos & fear, we need no more names

Or sex

Or words

Or bodies.

Riding this chariot, headlong,

Through all self-worth.

That'll do for now, I'm afraid.

I'm afraid, of all sorts of things, like the mad dreams, like people believing in me, when I struggle, like those who don't when I'm doing ok.

Like the future, and the way we're going with tech and all that.

Cameras on every other lamp-post..... us, giving all our data to the wide world to use, for whatever purposes they might dream up.....

Monitoring, counting, evaluating, calculating, checking, taxing, controlling......as we walk into their world so bloody willingly.

I want to write nice positive stuff, but the environment is compromised when every bit of external world contact is negative.

But, it's Spring, and the sun still shines, and people remember how to smile, while we can.

All those little bits of nonsense are coming to a head, best to go off-grid, really, I wish I knew how.

Handling Fee

I am brewing some new ideas, but they haven't made it to the finished form as yet. I have to stop beating myself up about everything, and just push the ideas into some new, non-self-deprecating, and self-hating territory. No self-pity, just acceptance of where I'm at, and why.

So much of it is still my own fault.....

Back on track, I'm still working through my old crap, so that will have to do for now, though the vast majority of the photos are contemporary....

Circles.

On the edge of the circle, lie the signs,

The Sword of Valour, the Crown of Justice,

The others sparkle, in the dew.

Pain and remembrance, never in vain,

Hallowed groves of ancient loving,

The spinning globe underfoot, the arcing skies...

Dancing to a tune from the minstrel's pipe,

The dead-wood shaped, in me, forever.

Black eyes, black heart, black sheep and now...?

The wise man turns and knows,

The children ignore the green,

Seven score warriors from the isle of the free,

Dancing like fireflies around a candle flame.

Mossy stones receive skin,

Forever to be held within.

Coldness and discomfort, Hell and Fire,

Beelzebub touches me, taunting and how,

The old man watches and thinks.

A diamond breaks the water's surface,

A ringlet of white grown from heaven,

Behold me, don't reject me,

I am here.

Late Night Post: Shadows

In spite of reading up, and asking, and then reading up again, I find G+ to be utterly frustrating. Though clearly a lot of people out there have mastered it....

When you post on the old "Blogger" as I do, it automatically turns up on G+, obviously these days since Google bought the Blogger platform some time ago now. That's fine and dandy, but, if you want to post it in a particular category, you have to go to that category, and post the link to the same post, as in, from Blogger...instead of it just being an option.

Hence, anyone following you will end up seeing the same post more than once. If you want to post it to more groups than "public" and "A.N.Other" then your followers are going to get a tiny bit ticked off with that, and, worse, when you are reviewing things post-date, you, well, I mean me/I, get totally muppeted by seeing it again, and again....

I'm sure the GUI, or "interface" could be re-thought out to make life simpler. If FB can do it, then why can't Google??

In the meantime, and on a slightly related subject; if G+ is your/my chosen public platform, how can I encourage people to come out of the shadows and actually comment/like/share? It's a no-brainer on FB, but here seems a bit challenging, unless everyone is just a bit shy to start with?

 

Too Much Thinking.

 

Image-Storm.

Struggle for a bolt hole,

Through the torrent and the storm.

Gloomy, but dry

A tunnel is attained,

Turn back to glance

At holocaustic rain.

Slide back down the wall

To crouch against it all.

Light a damp packet cigarette,

Catch a moment to glance around

Sitting in the urchins' set

Where the lost are never found.

A rainbow of umbrellas

Protects the dead paving.

The gutter reek of London,

Absent from this place,

Where all the harm is undone,

Some sanctuary space.

Silent choir of dead angels,

Smile at futile charity.

The image-storm is set to last,

So brace yourself against the night,

Turn your collar up against the blast,

And slip away to seek the light.

 

Some of tonight's images will be a "bit fuzzy"...as the one above is... It wasn't late when I went to one of my favourite places, but the light was a bit hit and miss, and I wanted to push the camera and see what 12800 ISO could do.... instead of relying on the Auto ISO thing....

Suffice to say it managed, but there's so much noise when I didn't need it...and then, when I put it back on Auto, the results were an ISO of 200, or even 50, which was bonkers when I needed to milk the dim light for what I could possibly have go tout of it, but hey, I'm learning, trying, failing, learning, and I mean in photography really..... Not real life or anything..

Hmmm.

 

Now this one was also at the highest ISO  the camera can manage, and yet it's turned out not too bad...it was a lot gloomier there than this picture shows. 2e and I (and Gwyn, but she was away exercising rabbits....) weren't gloomy, it was just the light.

 

Cobs.

Every distant corner of this island,

When visited has been lightened by me

To the mass of a stone, or cob, or pebble,

Red striped, blue spot, green and hazy gold,

Chalk white, grey marbled, mottled pinks and then,

To return to my room, to sit on the mantle,

For a year or more, and to remove again,

To the pool, with darkened depths,

For the course of fate and land,

Entwined with axes to my universe,

And mental threads to futures and just

Another tiny archaeological puzzle, for geologists.

As a gardener I have a lot of practical use for Glyphosphate based weed-sprays, and use several pretty much most weeks, moreso in the actively growing season.

I know farmers rely on them for big jobs, and in various concentrations.....I also am well aware of the hype and hysteria there has been over their after effects, and that the EU is pretty much committed to banning them, after tightening up, again and again their sales, and licences and so on...

I am not going to get controversial here, but the first time I ever bought a 5 litre tub, the chap I bought it off was reknowned for drinking it, to prove it wasn't toxic....

I can't recall his full name, as I didn't buy any more off him, but I think his surname was "Spence".... He died a few years back at a fairly ripe old age....I can't comment on his state of mind though, which is relevant as there are allegations of a causal link with Altzheimers's Disease, and latterly cancers of various hues.....

Still, he drove a nice car......

The field above was "Glyfossed". I think you can tell which one I mean.....

 

This one.

 

I wonder if they did it before these Lapwing chicks were created, or hatched? I was chuffed to find them, but saddened to do the maths and realise that the first time I saw the few pairs of Lapwings in that field it was definitely 100% still green......

I present that without comment, or judgement rather. These chicks seemed alright to me, but I'm not a "birder", so what would I know?

As soon as mother realised I was there she sauntered off away from them, and as soon as she did so, they vanished.....as in, they dropped down to the ground and became as stones...... fascinating to see, but frustrating when I thought I'd got a better position to take more pictures.....!

Burnt Earth

The burnt earth that slips from the foot,

The drizzled hour in this grave of trees,

And innocent tyre tracks shout your name.

The discarded stone circle with hints of modernism,

Scorched black and flaky edged altar stone,

Desecrated by the Roman Catholic sandalled steps,

And abandoned by newly educated free-men.

Here the ancient is at your finger tips,

Just beyond instant response touch taste,

And the strength of the is/it flows from the ground.

The steps you felt yourself guided to take,

Or maybe the hidden scene shifting guardians,

Or something still less paranoid calls you now.

Here we stand, in this dream scarred once-grove,

With sacred moments of sheer swimming love,

And hand in hand we silently soak and our clothes

Catch the smell of recent wood fires.

The burnt stone under-hand blacks your skin,

And sadly we move through and deeper into

Our new found reborn living loving and the sun.

Soft drinks carton pirouettes a mockery play for us,

And I have you lightly on my silver thread.

A (chain-) harrowing experience all round......

So that's how to transport them, after all these years I never knew..........

Quick Caveat....

When I first started this blog, it went this way...then that.....then nowhere...and was all a bit random. I dallied with Facebook at the time, so some of the early posts, which were relevant at the time, may be less so nowadays.... 

Anyway, in those pre-edited versions of this blog, I occasionally used to say, "click on the picture for the full image".......and I haven't, for a very long time, so there it is.....The whole point of this post....

Comment, like, share, fine, but if you see a small picture, and think it might be interesting, then please, click on it, and see what I do. You won't get a virus from it, just the picture.....

 A cow, or maybe a bull, I didn't go and look.......

Holmfirth Writers Group

 (Definitely NOT mine, Credit to HCF Photography, look them up on FB, I did have the link, but I've copied & pasted a few things since I found it...sorry!)

After a few years of topsy-turvy living and emotional adventure, I came to the time in my life where I really do have to re-evaluate things. 

Smoking, drinking, socialising, relationships, life-choices, attitude to all the above....All need a proper hard coat of looking-at.

In this process, I had the idea that one of my "safe" things, (that's just a relative description, so take it that way, as I have written some stuff which I cringe at to read,) was my writing. It's long been a "hobby", and at times a cathartic prop, a way to vent, to rail at the world, more particularly at my treatment of the world, and vice versa.... I have never pushed it "out there" apart from a few random "Open Mic" nights in the old "Stage Door", as was, before it became the "Box Office". And, apart from the abandoned "Writings of a Birdman" blog, now utterly deleted from every angle, as far as I can find, here, in Dungeon Wood.....

Anyway, to cut a long story short, ha, timely, and appropriate. I made a few moves to find out about the local writing scene, and ended up tonight, sitting in on the Holmfirth Writers' Group meeting.

I have to qualify this a little bit as to "why?"

I want to be inspired, yes, people, events, occurrences, random stuff and things around me do that already. But I'm writing more or less in a total vacuum....  I wanted and needed to see how other people handle their addiction to the pen & paper, or keyboard, or whatever...so, I bit the bullet, and ridiculously, for someone who can sing in front of two hundred people or so when necessary, (or at least I used to be able to, it's been a while) I got the jitters.. My heart was actually racing, like border-line panic attack material, for pretty much the entire time, at least until we retired to the pub.

  

I'm not sure what I expected, but, again, to cut a long story short, we were presented with about half a dozen photos, and told to write something, a short story, a play, poetry, or whatever came into our heads, inspired by one of the pictures..

I chose the top picture, (as I tagged, definitely not one of mine, but one from HCF Photography, who I don't know, and have no connection with, that I'm aware of.... LINK)

Anyway, after about 20 minutes, or so, it was "pens down" and then we went around the table of (I think it was ten) and read aloud what we'd written....

Talk about pressure.....

Dead Mill

Scents, Clean fighting dust, oily, dark,

A breeze disturbs cobwebs, abandoned,

Broken glass crunched underfoot,

Historic North-light pierces into forgotten corners.

Pulling on his roll-up, his memory stirs,

The menders sat here, way-back in his hour,

Sly laughter echoing though his years,

Silenced by stiff charge-hand command...

He peers into time shadows,

Hearing the clatter and back, clatter and back, of looms,

And the shouts of his mates,

Trusted team workers, hard men all.

He spares a thought for the boys,

Shifting wool bales and running hard errands,

Between spaces now silent, labours long lost,

Indescribable perhaps to anyone now.

It was a mistake to come back,

The vacant sad warehouse, broken shuttles on the floor,

Dead spindles,

A trip out he'd said, to revisit his youth,

The old mill, and it's dangerous truth.

Turning from his story, peering at now,

A memory ache in his muscles, a long gone vow,

The machines all sold, along with his soul,

Cheaper imports, deep sadness, then dole....

Stepping through the seized still doors,

Back to today, and positive sunlight,

Briefly he turns and whispers “farewell”

To his pals, the weavers, menders and all.

As he squeezes thought the chained gates,

For the very last time, he half hears “So long...”

From the end of the line,

He knows he's half-dreaming, but can't help but turn back...

Brings forth “farewell, God keep you”

Then, makes his way home,

Puts those memories safe, out of reach,

In an old biscuit tin. And sits.

 ..............

It's not one of my best, far from it, but I'm reasonably happy, under the circumstances. I had to get out of my comfort zone. It's made me think though, which was pretty much my entire reason for braving the whole experience, and I think I will go again next week.

Instead of writing "Woe is me" and "Another failed attempt at trying to understand my world..." or "...  my seeming inability to maintain a relationship...." (a recurring theme if you can be bothered to go back through it all) I suddenly had to run with something else. I now have to try that again, like taking a photo of something new, from a new angle, or whatever.....

 I could write an essay, but I think I nearly did....and it's late. A lot of food for thought, indirectly. The meeting stimulated my own thought processes, which is pretty much all I wanted, so overall it was a success. I hope the others got something, no matter how small out of the experience......

 

Farmed

Before I retired last night I had one of those moments of clarity, where I saw, though not for the first time, just in a frame of clarity that ran in dozens, if not hundreds of directions, that en masse, humans are being farmed.

It really doesn't matter which "party" is in "charge" or "in power" as the "power" is not theirs to wield. It's not in the monarchy, or the state, or really the banks, though they are pretty obvious conduits to its manifestation, conduits that are plied by whom? I don't have that answer. I'm not being all "conspiracy theorist" about this. Really I'm not.

I will endeavour to come up with an essay on the subject, just not now. The latest incarnation of this line of thought was probably initiated by the theft from my van last week....

I will leave that there, but if you work, how much of the fruits of your labour are actually yours? Unless you are totally off-grid, then a fraction of every single thing that you spend money on, goods, food, services, fuel, etc just goes around in a cycle, and that cycle is simply the hydroponic system that keeps the whole things going, including those thieves, as the black market is a vital part of the economy, believe it or not, and their benefits, and everything....it's all propped up to keep the farm running.... To try to keep us from realising what's going on, you get mass media manipulation, clever stuff really.

Scary stuff if you think too much about it, but then you can't, because you're being fed everything you need, entertainment, "politics", ha, as if we actually "have a say" in it all. It doesn't blooming matter if we're "in Europe" and being run by unelected commissioners, like the Kinnocks, or not, as the global corporations are technically "above" them anyway, and will find a way to get what they want regardless of Brussels, or London, or  Washington. Work it out.... The mass military actions these days are overseen by private "security" companies, rather than states, although clearly states do play their role....Keeping the oil, diamonds, people, flowing where they're needed......The amount of salary/income you can seriously call your own is already spoken for, it pays debt, banks, governments, business, utilities, mortgages, and so on. The list is far too long for this little rant. Even if you squirrel a good bit away for that rainy day, it's then being used to make money for the banks anyway.....it's part of the farming process.

Mammon is in charge, and while he was a long term presence, now he really is the parasite, and cares nothing for love, or life-affirmation, apart from where they lead to more people to maintain the farm.... Think of any single aspect of life, and it will be only a stone's throw away from worshipping the beast.

Best take simple pleasures where you can find them, before they find another way to tax them.

There was one of David Attenborough's pieces on ants farming caterpillars, and various other insects harvesting their prey, and the analogy was there for everyone to see. Someone somewhere is getting more than a slice of you, and there is pretty much nothing you can do about it.

Rant put on hold....for now.... Here's a picture I took earlier....

Various Walks Around Here

It's yet another damp grey Sunday. Cold, but it's been a lot colder in March, so I shouldn't complain....

This was the week that I had the majority of my work-gear stolen out of my van. My locked van. My undamaged post-event locked van. To the tune of about £1000...... a nice way to get the week started.

It seems that you can buy a device on Amazon called a "Tibbe", that allows you to simply pick a Ford lock easily. Thanks Amazon, that's helpful!

There's an even easier device out there for a similar price. See Guardian article and I thought, naievely that such things would not only be illegal, but certainly not for sale on the open market.... 

There's no point in having decent stuff if people can just take it without any repercussions. To say I am livid would be an understatement, but the worst thing is how helpless I feel as to what anyone can do about it.

Best just to get your head down and keep on keeping on.

Cavewaters.

This my secret labyrinthine centre,

Painfully echoes non-sound-sense of the cool

Dripping of ice-cold

Cave water.

Drip, silent hours, drip,

Then silence for another drip,

Ripples of unlit nonsense sears.

Pierce these cave walled thoughts

And dispatch another, in your wake,

Dripping intense caved

Longings.

Lust for your gods,

And skin.

For the caves of love.

Cool deep pitch dark pool,

Holding the self deep within,

Reflects black light on black,

But echoes silently these dripping secrets,

As I died a little intensely

Momentarily.

Sinking in short ecstacy pools,

Waking in sober pain,

And dead lust gone, leaves,

These caves.

Secretive maze walking cave diving

Glad hanging and lustful cavefish,

Seek out the cool centre.

Garden Love

The lawn-mower told me to do it.

To change the plane, twist a set degree,

And to cut right over the edge,

To neaten the edge first

Was my own idea.

The moss lay at your feet,

Twigs in our hair,

And love in our grass boxes.

As I compost in your cool moist darkness,

With wood-lice, worms, leatherjackets and ants,

Spiders, grubs, and deep tidal motions,

My love exponents the moment,

And brings dissembly, of a sort.

Like a ladder of windows,

I live through one, seven, two, ten,

And still am the ladder,

The metaphysical pull-cord,

To the rotary dictator of….

My redisturbed passion for wholeness,

So much closer than I knew,

But hell no, never two-stroke.

Hell aye, I merely exist to,

Make you whole.

All he asked was to let the old me out,

Handing me your key,

As I hand you mine.

 

Nonsensical Trees.

Steel ice blue flash of armour,

Kingfisher shoots trhough this conversation,

Where Ring Ousel meets Goldfinch,

And Jenny Wren lends a wing.

Warily watching the lady in waiting,

Hands heavy on shoulders, repetitive straining,

To keyboards for typing the words of another,

Dear sir, my sister, my father, or brother.

Interruption from weathered faces that enter,

Repent with the telephone and then at the window,

Horrible visions of dreams long forgotten,

With fast cars, and dead trees, last summers pollen.

Broken down on the ring road, the kestrel above,

Dodging myriad starlings, and recreational love,

Leaves bitter residues in taste buds like these,

Notional climbing, nonsensical trees.

 

Square Peg.

Is this the place to stand and wait for rain ?

How can you get the speaker to explain ?

Just which of those jolly old fools,

Spends days fitting square pegs into round holes ?

The telephone rings and the shower curtain flaps,

Under breath cursing and the folds of old maps,

A planned journey to a view from a hill,

Deserted by fools now so move in for the kill.

The place is deserted yes, but we are still here,

Expecting the footsteps to wind ever near,

The actions of panic are unreliably safe,

But this moment is passing, everso brief.

The rain is late coming so we abandon the game,

The speakers gone home now, so we'll do the same,

The old fool's voice on the telephone line,

Stinks of t'baccy and musty old wine.

Running on illegal grass and stamping on flowers,

That lie dead in these clean april showers,

As the storm breaks now well high above me,

We kiss in the shelter of the gnarly old tree.

This is the place to stand, and have fun,

But how can you tell when loving's begun ?

We'll pretend that we're just the jolly old fools,

Hitting at square pegs with nonsensical tools.