Nearly 40!

I thought I would get up.

It’s nearly midnight,

I found the sleeves of my dressing gown,

Stood up on the top step,

And tried to remember the first line.

The line that called me from clean white sheets.

Just to see if I was a poet still____

But there is no moon,

And low cloud and sodium lights

were never my choice of Muse.

I right now not often,

Being older, there is less angst.

Not the heartache I had half my life ago.

And I was always fond of scratching out tempests and heart songs.

And 10 years back…

It was all for stillness and marble Buddhas.

Now____ nearly 40!

And oh the poems I could write.

I could tell you of love that spread itself over a decade.

And 3000 nights in my lovers arms.

And still I sleep with a woman I have barely met.

And my boys___

They make me a father,

And now that is now the rock and steel, 

And ever burning sun,

That change the meaning of my life.

But what words ever came close to coin the barest twinkle in their eyes.

Perhaps, if there is still time,

And not too much brandy,

I will write more…

***

I think myself a simple man.

I have no great learning,

I have no letters to put after my name.

Those that try would struggle to decipher my home spun script,

I cannot tell the analog time.

I am poor,

Save for what I have built with my own hands.

But I have such love!

I love and am loved, and have used my body only ever for love.

Yet I am not without sin.

My destiny is unknown to me,

Nor would I wish to have that revealed.

No craving has me convinced,

For my heart is full,

And love is my companion.

26th sept ‘19

More, Different, Better.

 I like this poem, I can’t remember exactly where it came from. But it is evocative, it conjures up, dreamlike, memories of childhood, and its paths and quests.  The illusionary value of the Netflix universe, that we perhaps sell to children as a gospel.  And that we neglect the deeper things. In the last line, it was painted on the walls, was a reference to my mum and dad’s artwork on the walls of our family home, and there in, the hope. 

More, Different, Better

I thought myself forgotten,

As dusty rays.

Pale green filters of somehow hampered perception.

Childhood visions of past.

Things past, of forgotten things.

The human experience unbounded.

Thought, given to a child’s mind. 

Unencumbered by new worlds impediments,

Structures, systems, (maybe, shallow and base).

More than imagination.

The deepest oldest thing.

To describe it-

Something like a connection to God.

A bandwidth that,

To my child’s eyes was not discussed.

Maybe it was painted on the walls.

25th aug ‘19

A summer wedding

 This is a poem I wrote for my dear friends on their wedding day, I sat in the long grass and watched children play in a beautiful valley meadow, beset with flags and marquees.

 And it was a powerful moment of healing, though they new it not. Some of the deep pain that Sanga had felt. 

A beautiful storybook summer day, then it rained most beautiful clean, clean rain, and then there where rainbows! And all the gods, and all the spirits, and all the wise, and all the wounded came there, and filled their hearts

A summer wedding.

I gazed upon them.

Her dress in flowing white,

And him with his dapper hat.

It had been hot for weeks,

That type of summer,

Children will remember all their lives.

Then it rained on the dry grasses.

Quenching till the sky was full of rainbows. 

And the passing wind was filled with deep emotion.

My heart lept and sang.

My eyes overspilled.

For love is a wonderful thing.

Unbidden things,

Washing away tears and rainbows.

Her heart and his, held like a wren.

The Earth,

Hard and still,

Drank the rain and laughed.

And bruised bones,

And old memories,

Drank their fill,

Of those salty tears.

And all those souls that stood there,

We are softened, where they had been parched.

So wonderful to see

And glorious to feel

And all these words

Just to precede these two..

For love

And

For healing.

5th Aug ‘18

Of fathers and sons

 The first verse is about men I have sort out to fulfill a perceived need within me. And how they fall short! Because the measure i use is something inside me. And because I have been let down.

 One of my areas for personal growth THE SEARCH FOR A COMPITANT MAN. 

The second verse, if it needs, any explanation is about me, becoming a father. And about the potential for me to be “that man,” to myself and to try and guid my boys to it in them selves. 

Of Fathers and Sons,

Of fathers and sons.

I have been blessed with more than my share.

One with there cups,

And one with his Heather.

Maybe one with his Buddhas and his bells.

One with his Lionheart,

And his inocence. 

And my sons

Who make me a father,

All my own.

And fills my heart every day,

with there eyes and smiles,

and changes everything I live for.

June 2018

Ides of march

 I do not say “beware”...

I fear not that blade for my strength lies within.

“Well, the ides of march have come”.

And it is time for change again, 

The little death,

To see, to feel, again, it is the mundane where the beauty lies,

For I feel it in my body’s tides,

And it is good!

Every now and again, and not often that enough, I venture out from my little family for a moment of renewal. And once a year I make it a pilgrimage. Marking the passing of the year on the Ides of March. This year 2018, found me on Boscombe Beach!

Ides of March

It was blowing snow off the beach.

I, dressed as a hero in my gleaming neoprene.

Questing to find crystal light on water.

Clumsy cold among the waves.

Snotty in dirty green water.

I want to hunt for buzzards,

Sorring majestic on the wing.

I want to find a place,

For all this….

I seek my silhouette in Lotus,

Against a blazing sunset.

I sit in stead on a hard plastic chair.

At a sticky table,

Children’s chorus, 

Competing for volume with pop music.

This world, so mundane,

Beauty, hid among sea front peers,

And ice cream vans.

Reverence, held by gleaming touchscreens.

Stillness rejected, For Lonely moments.

March 2018

Tell me of…

 Tell me of your hearts, regrets. Tell me your clever truth. Tell me loud and tell me quick. May repetition cloak your view; in safety, in stability, but not alas with change!

This poem is in respect to those wounds (the fall, zen) they were deep, And true. But I hope they are not without forgiveness.

This poem is about me standing, sitting with friends to be witness to their suffering and wanting to honor that experience. It’s about holding them and their experience in honor but not letting the bull shit slide, not being a soap box to whip up again the suffering.

If a tree falls in the wood and I am there to witness it.  That tree has fallen.  I do not want to tell the story of what the woodcutter did. Or convince anyone that something wrong has been done. 

I write this years after I wrote the original verse. and still, we carry the pain and the injustices done to us and others.  I want to honor the wounds, but I fear people want to shout it from the rooftops.  I want to hear, to listen, to bear witness and so witness a transform these wounds into forgiveness, into peace.  

Tell me of…

Tell me of your souls sweet fruit,

But do not hide that desiccating apple core.

I see it reflected in your eyes.

Tell me of the bitter fruit,

But do not talk to me,

With that sour mouth.

I am a friend,

Please do not snub me with your hollow-

“I’m fine’s”

I am a friend, 

Please don’t cut my ears with pith and bile.

The fruit is bitter, true,

But those sour lips will hold it stagnant still,

That way leaves only, ever open wounds,

Ready to harbor all that hate again. 

Written between aug ‘18 &aug ‘19

This poem explores ideas about the cloak we wear around our emotions. The different tactics and tendencies which I recognise in myself and those around me. I find it a useful lens to decipher how I am hiding myself from myself, and highlighting the movement of my mind into judgement of others.

I really enjoy the first few verses, the last verse, and certainly the last line is moving into another idea… Thus unfinished!

I know we all have bruises,

Hidden tender spots.

Purple, Black & Blue.

Some ‘the heart puller’.

Like to poke a bruise, and feel the echo, 

Pull at splinters, 

With a half desire to purge,

Half fear of healed freedom.

Some pic, 

Absent minded, 

But persistent, 

Consistent.

Thrilled by new bloods revelation.

And a heart so part of the pain, 

It is a beacon in every room of their life.

So long abided never forgotten.

Then, there are ‘the evolvers’,

The carriers,

The swear blinded “this makes it different”

Dissecting heartbreak with affirmations and declarations.

Loves blood as warpaint,

And faces wet with tears.

Or, the ‘Pit finders’.

The “There is no help”ers,

The desolationists,

Wallows greased with cankers never healed.

Stooped and somewhat ignorant to the world.

There are the ‘talkers’ and the ‘worker-outers’.

Or the deep insiders.

With pain, like hidden gems.

Touched rarely and with revorance,

Like poems kept in between pages of a well bound book.

(25th April ‘15)