Intermittent Signal

Seven months..........not really "normal service resumed" but we're still here, still trying, still batting on......

Cartworth Moor, above Holmfirth.

The Face Map.

Decades of life left scars,
Faint ribbons of contour lines,
Yours recorded laughter, optimism and love,
Mine more the history of beer, tobacco and deep loss.

Yours the ability to shine, to rise, to glow,
To dance and grow, and flower,
Smiley brown eyed girl,
Revives the hope, and wonder, and love.

Dispels and dismisses the sadness,
Banishing my grief, my wallowing sorrows,
And lifting my heart to the living plane,
Still decades of healing and life, and laughter,
And, that glorious glint in your eyes......

The Flight North

Leaves, broken pieces, salty,
Shards, splinters of hearts and hopes,
Returns, sorrow drive North,
Dead lovers' wasteland, questions.

Not dead, sleeping, smouldering guilt,
Lives collided, as quick divided,
Three hundred miles, inexplicable,
Waves of gravity, spectrums of grief.

Embers flare, refuse extinguishment,
Gordian knots of decisions and hope,
Flame, bringing the cancers,
Unfathomable fire-ring survivors.

But no, 'twas not to be,
Mirage, late night telephone rows,
Thousands of unanswerables, and leaves,
Remembered hypocrisies, and loss.

The clearest hindsight everyone had,
When they wouldn't, or couldn't,
Hear alarmed, veiled misty warning,
Gentle advice from good friends.

Leaves the trinity diverse,
Irreparable, perhaps, as the chapter ends,
Her choices, and change, and his,
And in living fading memory, mine.

Riddle me this, connection,
Completion, inexplicable destruction,
Part healing, dear feeling,
And yet more lessons forgot.

Walked in the Woods

Walked in the woods,
Cool, dry, scented, safe,

Seeking the silence.

Deep into the secret valleys,
Within the greenery, beech and firs,
And rocky lost places,
Deeper silence, places, dreams.

The Fisher King

Undergrowth, where it over-hangs,
The glassy depths, of deepness,
Is your shady realm, the places of secrets.

Azure, faith and turquoise glints,
Secreted vantage points, above your purview,
Boundary places between two worlds,
Lightning flashes tiny flames.

Ridiculous camouflage, so brightly tuned,
Betimes invisible, the fleeting, peeping,
Evasive flight and a leap of hope,
Arises in her heart again......

All the Faces.

I searched all the faces,
Tracked the lines, cracks, eyes,
Smiles, crows-feet, frowns, dimples,
Reading all the histories.

The loves, scars, broken spirits,
Glints of humour, generous, rare,
Road maps of late night adventures,
Midday loss, grief, sad sad mileage.

Dry river-beds of old tears, laughter,
Wordless expressions of a million tales,
Glances of fear, insecurity and more,
Bright, clear eyes of soaring hope.

Smiling eyes dismissing old regret and hurt,
The serene, wise, confident, self-aware,
Safe in their self-knowledge,
But none were either you, nor me.

That didn't hurt too much.

Two written today, and the others were just scribbles in a note-book, though to be honest one might already be on here somewhere a few years ago, I couldn't just find it when I looked though.......

It's a wet and disappointing Saturday in July, so why not update the old Blog? 

I Am Still

 Forgive me if I've posted this already, but a quick check.....and I couldn't find it.......

I've neglected the Blog again, and now I feel I ought to give it more Oxygen.

"Leaves"

Leaves, broken pieces, salty,
Shards, splinters of hearts, and hopes,
Returns, sorrows, drive North,
Dead loves wasteland, questions.

Not dead, sleeping, smouldering guilt,
Lives collided as quick divided,
Three hundred miles, or yards, inexplicable,
Waves of gravity, spectrums of grief.

Embers flare, refuse extinguishment,
Gordian knots of decisions and hope,
Flame, bringing the dancers,
Unfathomable fire ring survivors.

But no, turns not to be,
Mirage, late night telephone rings, rows,
Thousands of unanswerables, and tears,
Remembered hypocrisies, and loss.

The clearest hindsight everyone "had"
When they wouldn't, or couldn't....
Hear alarmed, veiled misty warning,
Gentle advice from good friends.

Leaves the Trinity diverse,
Irreparable perhaps, as the chapter ends,
Her choices, and change, and his,
And, in living fading memory, mine.

Riddle me this, connection,
Completion, inexplicable destruction,
Part healing, dear, dear feeling,
And yet, more lessons

Dearth of new writing to post, but I do keep occasionally scribbling thoughts, and short essay type things, which are unlikely to ever see the light of day.......

Wish I could recall everyone who came to my 7th Birthday Party picnic here, but now the one person who might havbe helped has left this world, I'll spare you the bits I can remember...........

Will try harder in the next post, I promise..........

There are some positives after all. Possibly New Beginnings........bit soon to say though.

When did it all get so.........oh, you know.

Happy St David's Day whatever. x

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?

52nd Street With Perfect Vision

The Healing Process.

Great black tumbling storm,

Pauses, coughs and gently,

Slowly, with purpose....

Backs out of the sky,

Western horizon.

Rain lightens, a sun-beam,
Rain stops, trees dripping.

The ducks shake their coats,

And appear on this glass stage,

To dance again, bends, and circles,

An audience before the pure,

Emerging tendrils of tree feelings,

Root, branch and leaf unfurling.

Clouds part at last,

The big reveal,

Infinite blue.

Boundless heart lands and surveys all,

Pauses, coughs and gets on with

                                                        The healing process.

Belief

No words of darkness,

Rain and storm winters,

Closed stove doors and cosy night,

Faith that better days,

Breaking clouds.....

New tide of hopes,

Shoots, breaking soil with promises,

Buds glistening in howling gales....

No towering fells of despair,

Sheltered valleys of loving,

Wild streams carrying fear away,

Returning geese, a hundred or more,

A secret smile, a tight hug,

Remembered dreams, hopes, laughter,

Inner strength, re-lit fires,

Friendship, loves, dawn of new self-belief.

 

Chainsaw Bits

I get bits in my eyes

Chainsaw, strimmer cutting brush,

Blower, mower, tri-star....

Hours and more eye-rubbing,

Haven't found a cure, but sleep

Seems to help, tears and grit.

I get bits in my soul,

Poems, songs, scents, photos,

Spoken thought, candid, human....

Hours, eye-watering, head-heating,

Self-questioning, fault finding,

Haven't found a cure, not sleep...

No help, just grit and

No safety-glasses.

Just dancing stupidly with

Prose tinted longing and

Brush-cutting regrets, bits.

 

Exsanguination

There are far too many times,

When calling it a day, and going to bed,

Feels like “defeat”, giving up,

And, so sad, so welcome, sleep fights,

A sorry battle, to a sorry morning,

                                                      And a hamster wheel.

Despair

It's a strange old not-friend,

You remember from school or,

College or whatever, but fiction,

It is real, an internal real,

You know it's there, you dance,

You circle, with a hedge-trimmer,

Internally, or at least secateurs,

Keeping the hawthorn or hollies at bay,

Dance, circling the place you can't avoid.

Just don't give-up,

It was just meant to test,

To change, to challenge,

But we've got this, really,

The foggy December morning,

Carries hope, and a promise,

Happy tomorrows,

It's a test.

A strengthening.

 

Cliche Trap

Don't dilute your written dreams with

Obvious cliches,

(CLICHES!)

Black dogs, man waving,

Cliff edges

Scents of someone else's imaginings....

Trees falling in the eternal forest!

Lost souls.....

Finding solace in darkly inspired penning,

Hard to create when happy?

Snappy, crappy, wappy, gappy....

Uninspired.

Juvenile. Novice.

Crush these papers, sniff, ignite, laugh,

Fill with songs from your Happy Heart....

Fool!

 

Just Notes

You realise its downhill

When you have to take your glasses off

When drinking tea.....


==============

Search for human noise

Then ten years of searching for silence

Sounds like a stupid plan.


==============

Pattern, full-on, slow boredom

New, love, laughter, love,

Boredom

Silence,

Death.

==============

Goodbye 2019. Would like to say it was a blast, but hey, you and I know that you could have been less grumpier........

Hope both of my current readers had a brilliant one, and that 2020 brings you both a hat full of awesomeness.

x

Contemporary. What I Want for Once.

A Quickie

The dream then snuffed itself with the thumb and finger of married reality, and left a hole for the man,

To fill with doubt and dark "What ifs" Unthought the true to rekindle a hope that dwindled and then went out.

And washed him over with the sad real brine of mature accepted understanding. No hollow reason but firm resolve to live and burn and perceive the dream for itself, No more.

Looking for a Rainbow



The Hornbeams, Oaks, Beech and cousins.....
Put on ring after ring, buds, leaves, shoots, seeds, and ...repeat...
Dark, curly, unwanted but accepted top-knot turns
Slowly silver, and love comes and leaves, Autumns.

Dark, mizzly, drizzly, damp and foggy times,
Inside warm womb room and under sad duvets,
Wet work, uncomfortable thoughts, and stoic nights,
Behind locked door, time-traveling dreams, self-reproach and hate,
Hard to stride strong secure and self-assured......

From dark caves, dark foggy pubs, books, dreams.

Though, with the sun on your sad back, shoulders,
There remains half a chance, of a rainbow forward.

Affair One.

Posted by the-birdman on July 3, 2007 at 6:49 PM comments (0)

Ugly premonition

Admonishes me between

The flat and your car.

Barely have I stepped

Into the lion's den,

When,

Door-buzzer signals

My hasty fire escape

Flight.

And you never called

To relieve my worst fears,

Never called.

I haven't got your number,

In case the lion

Picked up the phone first.

Forewarned was not forearmed,

But before my retreat

At least I knew

Whereabouts I had left

My brother's coat

Affair Two.

That was the night,

Betrayed half seconds of panic,

Blind flight into the trap.

That was the confirmation,

Failing to allay my worst fear,

This is a dangerous meeting.

The pulse beat seconds in my throat,

Try to slip away down drizzling

Unfamiliar fire escapes.

Then the controlled but hasty walk,

On insanely noisy gravel driveway

To the conspicuously parked getaway car.

That was the night,

Betrayed by the carefully hung,

Black leather coat in your hallway.

Wisdom



It's early morning, misty, I know there's a wall,
The ground slopes, no trees, just grass and stuff,
Indistinct, but I know it's there, profound, constant,
Delicate whiff of fore-boding, immutable, incontrovertible,
Alike to death, or tax, or sense and reason.

To pass to the next meadow, or wood, or heath,
There's a way, a gap, for people, not stock,
Ancient wisdoms fail.

Taking Liberties.

I'll take it all,

Everything you can throw.

But

I will not stop.

I will take your life,

Your house,

Cash, dog, car,

Horse, pictures and

Even your gun,

But...

Even though I'll take it all,

However big, or however small,

Remember

Your woman will forever be

Forever, safe from me.

Just over a month.

Most of the above are this month's work, or re-writes of relatively recent stuff, so I think they count as "contemporary".

Ha! I make the rules up, but two of them were written today......

I'd still like to keep this non-personal, but hellooo to new and old friends alike. Good to see the numbers are building up a tiny bit again......not that I make a penny off this, it's just a portfolio for stuff, and I hope it represents something, even if I'm still not sure what it really is......

Stay strong people. x

Grasped the Nettle

Laws

The Laws of Nature,

Law of the Land,

Law of the Kingdom,

Law of Man,

Law of Love,

None of hate,

But never forget the law,

Of The Kissing Gate.....

One may pass, two must split,

Dogs might squeeze through, just,

The first goes through, must stop and wait,

For the second to obey, the Kissing Gate......

Flamborough 2013. Yoda came too

A Connection of Sorts.

A connection of sorts,

An idea they had in common,

A fleck of glass in a steel grey eye,

Unreasonable attractions, unexplained.

Caused a tectonic shift,

Yet mountains of laughter, colliding.....

A well of intentioned charade,

But torn and ragged by conscious,

And conscience, and a vow (of) betrayal,

Three kindly souls,

Three hares entwined,

A race to the West, life choices.....

Fierce questioning, incredible misunderstandings,

The source of burning guilts,

And ineffable sad love destruction,

Witness cross examination, but it reveals naught.....

Deep tears.

Leaves broken pieces, salty,

Shards, splinters of hearts and hopes,

Returns, sorrow-drive North,

Dead lover wasteland, questions....

Not dead, sleeping, smouldering guilt,

Lives colliding, just as quick divided,

Three hundred miles, inexpicable,

Waves of gravity, spectrums now, of grief.

Embers flame, refuse extinguishment,

Gordian knots of decisions, and hopes,

Flame, bringing the dancers,

Unfathomable fire-ring survivors.

But, no, 'twas not to be,

Mirage, late night telephone rows,

Thousands of unanswerables, and tears,

Remembered hypocrisies, and loss.

Deep rows, deep tears.

The clearest hind-sighted view that everyone had,

When they wouldn't, or couldn't,

Hear alarmed, veiled golden misty morning, warning,

Gentle advice from good friends.

Leaves the trinity diverse,

Irreparable perhaps, as this chapter ends,

Her choices, and changes, and his,

And, in living, fading memory, imne.

Riddle me this, connection,

Completion, inexplicable destruction,

Part healing, dear, dear feeling,

And, yet, more lessons to forget, forgot.

Memorial.

Forget



Alcohol was “discovered” by accident,

But has dampened our ability to dream,

Dreams show us our subconscious

Our connection to the same farces that

Birds use to migrate,

Fish use the same,

Elephants, Rhinos, Geese,

Swallows, Swifts, Cuckoos......

We still “dream”, but we accidentally focus on a very narrow self-view.

We forget.

We can't “hear” that connection any more.

We forget.

But, we are capable of so much more.

The Ages

Long shadow,

Very long, grey shadows,

Over time-pieces, clocks, sun-dials,

Aspic stuck diaries, old photos,

Folk song memories,

Ha! Forgetful fish.

Memorial stones,

Dusty promises, shelved for

Saccharine playtime.

Old “New Beginnings”

Down the ages, and ginnels,

Dreamt apologies, hypocrisies and snickets,

Interference, tickety-tock alleys and cuts.

Long deceased shadows,

Diseased, infected pendulums,

With fractured laughter,

And coma life. Sorry unwound spring.

 

 

The Law of the Kissing Gate

Constable meadows, an old time scene,

Glowing gold beams through uncut crops,

Hedgerows, a forgotten church,

Gentle, proud bells,

You walk ahead, easy, free and quiet,

My love trails like summer midges,

The fields meet, the paths continue,

But, we must obey,

The Law of “The Kissing Gate”

Before the storm, long heralded, arrives.

 

 

The Other Side of the Black Hole

You came,

A friend, when I needed,

Confidante, confessor,

Ear, heart,

Every body part...in fact....

Lover, whore, mother,

Not maiden, nor crone.

When I needed.

Spiraling galaxies of meaning,

Whorls, cyclones of truth,

No connection, then.....some....

You came, my nemesis,

My hater, my enemy,

When I needed

Someone else to blame.....

So verdant and enigmatic, disappearing whilst so well dressed.............a camouflage that defies human understanding.......

And, a heron catching a trout.....



I am going to stop using my old archive as an excuse for not writing, though to be honest, I have dabbled, and dibbled along the way no matter what, just decided that some of them needed more work, that I really didn't have the head-space for. But, today I start a new "tag" on here; "Contemporary poetry", and this is my first post using it.

There are no real "rules" apart from they are "mine" unless otherwise credited, as the pictures/photos always have been. But, the poems will be ones that I have only just typed up, notwithstanding that that could mean they are 3, 4 or 5 years old, maybe more. I aim to post "new" things though, just because I think I should.

These are all less than 18 months old, and more than that I will not say, adhering to my long held policy of not letting things get too personal, and still the one about "no hidden messages". Given how recent some will be though, some might see more in them, for which I can only apologise, and say that they are "creative interpretations" and "written imaginings" rather than some attempt to tell a "real" story.

That's it.

Happy February 2019.