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Timeline

3 September 2011, 8:15 pm

Where O grave is thy victory

Maybe it’s an age thing, but I find myself looking more philosophically at life in general. And if life is on one’s mind, can death be ignored? We are, after all, constantly reminded of death, especially war deaths. The tabloids do the job very well, to the point where our eyes glaze over and our minds acquire a kind of immunity to news of death. Rather like our bodies fighting off a virus. But even without the wars there are still the people we’ve grown up with. Relatives, friends, TV personalities, politicians we like or don’t like, are dropping like flies around us. And we say “There goes another one” or “It’s the end of an era”. One Zeitgeist retires and another sits hopefully on the vacated throne. These thoughts generated the following poem.

 

Timeline

Sign on the dotted line
Front line, thin red line
Maginot Line. Pipe Line
Under The Ocean. Washing
On the line, Siegfried!
Bright whites, dark days
Striped pyjamas, parallel lines
405 to 625. What’s My Line?
Get the picture?
Get in line! Fifty lines!
One hundred, boy!
What a waste of time
Waistline. “A” line. Hemline
She’s on the phone
Romancing the tone
Red-headed Bernadette
Subaru – not Soubirous!
Four in line. Boxer next time
Cat’s eyes, white lines
Black feline crossing. Just in time.
Birds on the line
Make a bee line
For sunshine and coastline
Marriage lines, airline tickets
Honeymoon, full moon, skyline
Vapour trail, comet tail
Plimsoll line. Not White Star Line
Line dancing. Great time
Back to Blighty. Northern Line
Leaves on the line, not on time
Baby washing on the rotary line
Rotary engine. Rotary Club
Extra phone line. Business deal
Read between the lines
Deadline!
Rush hour, A449
BMW over the line
No space, no time
Except to lie in A and E
And watch the bleeding time
Times up! Bloodline!
Flat line!
End of the line
Dead on time!
Who’s next in line?

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A Curious Soul

2 August 2011, 8:25 pm

 

At some point in its evolution, the cat ‘decided’ to make friends with man. Perhaps a mutual understanding developed on its road to friendship. But we should never forget that the cat was, and still is, its own master.
The cat follows its own hierarchy of feline needs in spite of man’s efforts to enforce domestication. This, however, does not relieve us of the responsibility of care for this amazing and lovable creature, who always knows how to get attention.
Our Felix talks to us in his own language. It’s up to us to understand him and respond accordingly. He is indeed …

A Curious Soul…

…who made friends with man
Long before the earth’s barometer
Warned of cataclysmic change
When primeval instinct was still fresh
And man shared food and warmth.

Owner, or owned, man stands
With the dubious luxury of dominion
Forgetting the feline ‘get out’ clause
A creature of independence, accepting
No servitude – no compliance
But total belief in itself
And a mastery over humanity.

Worshipped in the East, persecuted in the West
Bringer of good luck and witch’s familiar
Owner of nine lives and catcher of mice
A killing machine with a heart of gold
A piercing look and a heart-saving coat
An enigmatic purring engine, ever alert
Sweeps man off his feet.

The world would be a poorer place
without this curious soul.

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No Satisfaction

18 May 2011, 7:18 pm

The Pain of Botox Injections

News item: Mother gives botox injection to 8 year old daughter.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, so the saying goes. But it seems we are constantly bombarded by the media with ideas of what constitutes beauty. What adults do with their faces is their choice. They pay large sums of money for these injections and take the consequences.

However, children rely completely on their parents or guardians in whom they trust. They have no choice and certainly no knowledge of the consequences. An eight year old girl has much growing to do. Her face will go through many changes before adulthood, these changes being moulded by her emotions. If the face is deadened by botox she will become as a waxwork and appear emotionless.

I write the following poem with no little sadness.

 

Upside down woman
Where are you going?
What seed are you sowing
On the road to perdition?

Inside out woman
What’s your soul saying?
The game you are playing
Is programmed destruction

Why, mixed up woman
Do you seek perfection
In a cruel injection
The world loves to sanction?

Woman in a whirl
You don’t own your child
Are you so beguiled
By media distraction?

Woman, I beg you
Her eyes will look older
And those who behold her
Will question the action

Woman confused
The truth lies in beauty
And you have a duty
Reject this concoction

Woman on the brink
You know that this vanity
Will turn to insanity
With no satisfaction

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A Gift of Love

22 April 2011, 1:35 pm

 

A Gift of Love

 

 

A Gift of Love

They tell me her name was Mary. No one knew her other name. She just appeared in town one day from nowhere, with a bunch of coloured balloons. It was the Monday following the Easter celebrations. There was a fair that day and people came from miles around to buy and sell their wares.

Mary always smiled, but the smiles hid years of pain and sadness. The tears were for solitude. She was not one to wear passion on her sleeve. It would have been a sign of weakness and she had been taught to be strong, in all situations, always. As a child, emotional outbursts were not tolerated.

The result was a frightened, anguished soul who wore a ‘happy’ mask that never changed. They tell me she had a lover. A good man, they said, who had a deep love for everyone. Someone who helped people overcome their fears and troubles.

But the folk of the town were angry with him and tried to drive him out. They didn’t understand him or his ways and somehow felt that he threatened their way of life. And what they didn’t understand, they feared. Eventually, he was taken by an angry mob and hanged.

Mary was overcome with grief. How could they do this to such a good man?

She was given his body to bury. They tell me there were only three people present at the burial ceremony, Mary, the minister, and a little girl holding a red balloon. Nobody knows who she was but just as the minister concluded the service, she dropped the balloon into the grave. Miraculously, the balloon rose into the air, glowed bright yellow and disappeared into the clouds.

Ever since that day, Mary is seen at the fair with her balloons, always smiling.

 

 

A Gift of Love

Mary’s here again, just like last year
Her special day
With nothing to say

The same balloons and the same old smile
That hides her grief
From the curious thief

Who shall never know of the man she loved
Who died out of time
For the heinous crime

Of loving the world. He comforted folk
Who were down and out
In fear and in doubt

At the final rites, when the body was laid
A little girl stood by
With a soulful eye

And a red balloon in a cold, cold hand
To give away
On her special day

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Misfiled

12 February 2011, 10:21 pm

The day before Fahrenheit 451

Although I appreciate my local library and wouldn’t want anything to happen to it, sometimes they too have a bad day.

I write this with apologies to the wonderful librarians throughout the country whose jobs are now threatened by impending closures.

Long may they continue their excellent work, although I must say that Anna Karenina is still shelved under ‘K’.

Misfiled

I went to the library yesterday
A book to return, a fine to pay
And I knew it was going to be that kind of day
I found ‘Anna Karenina’ shelved under ‘K’

It wasn’t too late in the afternoon
To witness the stampede for Mills and Boon
Well, I sort of knew they’d get in my way
Finding ‘Anna Karenina’ shelved under ‘K’

Students amassed, assignments abound
Researching Whitman and Ezra Pound
But I felt it was futile to go up and say
That ‘Anna Karenina’ lies under ‘K’

A scuffle broke out for Danielle Steel
Her latest fiction! Can this be real
But try as I did to ignore the affray
The wife of Karenin had still gone astray

A voice said “I’m looking for Oscar Wilde”
“Try a medium!” came the reply. He smiled
But none of this banter redeemed the way
I felt inside about ‘Anna K’

So I left the library yesterday
I suppose there’s nothing left to say
Except the fact that I just couldn’t stay
With ‘Anna Karenina’ shelved under ‘K’

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Christmas Day in the Morning

31 December 2010, 9:40 pm

Not seen but not missed.....

Some Christmas’s are better than others, this one was exceptionally good for me.

It sometimes feels that we need a lot of trappings and traditions to make a Christmas, this isn’t true. If we concentrate on the people around us and see Christmas through their eyes, and in their eyes, we don’t need anything else. Its all there.

Christmas Day in the Morning

I never saw three ships, three ships
A sailing on the sea
But then the chances were remote
From Birmingham you see

I never saw three kings, three kings
As wise as some may claim
Now I suspect they got held up
A cancelled flight again

I never heard the Queen, the Queen
At three on Christmas day
The cat threw up upon the rug
I welcomed the affray

I never heard the weather man
Broadcast his tale of woe
I missed the finer points, you see
Of fog and ice and snow

I did, however, see the love
Light shine in my wife’s eyes
I saw the smiling faces too
Of children with their prize

I heard the sound of laughter here
Of merriment and fun
It filled my heart with so much joy
And now the turkey’s done

I never saw three ships, three kings
I never heard the Queen
But I enjoyed my Christmas day
The best it’s ever been

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Autumn Memories

6 November 2010, 4:16 pm

Autumn Oak Leaves

I have been so moved by the Autumn colour this year that I needed to write something, but felt that everything had been said by the greatest poets who had gone before.

However, when did this fact stop the words from working their magic and demanding to be heard.

Autumn Memories

What is memory for
If not for days such as these
For this was a day of days
A shining bookmark in the years
Book of travels. Unremarkable
To sheep and folk in a hurry.

No purpose in mind. A walk
Through England’s glorious countryside
Watched by a sober autumn sun
Creeping from behind a screen of grey
To illuminate a patchwork of rich tapestry
As if to say ‘Revel in the lush greens
The dusky reds and hues of gold
For the days are short’.
Man’s stark reminder of diurnal fragility.

Oh to freeze time before the winter
Frosts pronounce judgment on colour
Consigning the land to cold, lethargic monochrome
And man to the season’s rituals.
But then, this is the reason for memory
To escape momentarily from static gloom
To remember the earth’s bounty
And look to the promise of next year.

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Gaia’s Garden

7 September 2010, 3:22 pm

A World in Gaia's Garden

The Spinning Wheel

Watching the wheel as it spins takes my mind to another dimension, it is a meditative state where ideas are born.

The idea of a Gaia mind creating a beautiful world throughout the aeons, only for humanity to systematically spoil the creation.

The Pendulum Swings

All the while industrious Gaia works to create more  beauty which is then destroyed, and so on…as the pendulum swings and the wheel turns…

Gaia’s Garden

How spins ancient and fleeced Earth
Marking time with no backward glance
Treading the waters of space, time and destiny
A cyclical servant to Sol. Burdened
And fatigued by populations
As a weary worker shrugs off
Impending bad news, and grinds on.

Gaia’s garden. The pristine paradise
That was, and will be once again
Choked by the weeds of ignominious
Injustice, whilst languishing naked
Watches helplessly as her own flesh
Is seared by conflict and division.
Do they think there’s no price to pay?

How spins this abundant yet aching sphere
Not unlike the industrious spinning wheel
Converting fleece to yarn. The coat
Is lost, yet no loss is felt through revolutions
Either from concern or bitterness. The sheep
Who wage no wars, should inherit the Earth
For like the Earth, they have no religion.

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Times Illusion

28 July 2010, 5:29 pm

Whatever you decide Time is...

His Dark Materials

I’m a great Philip Pullman fan, and facinated with his concept of time and dimension, in his novel ‘His Dark Materials’, and the concept of the golden compass as a reality.

The Golden Compass

The golden compass was not an instrument that pointed to a direction in one dimension, but worked in multiple dimensions and different times. Science is just starting to catch up!

We are the imagination of ourselves

Loving the idea that you can decide your own time, dimension, and who you are reminded me of the great Bill Hicks who said: “We are the imagination of ourselves.” This poem arrived from an amalgamation of these thoughts.

Times Illusion

Look not from a deep
And dark December
To skeletal trees, grey skies
And cheerless, cold, north winds
For I am not there.

Regard not the illusion
Of times past and to come.
They have no power
Save that which you endow.
I am not found there.

I am the sunshine
Of hope in your
New Year’s Day breakfast.
Save me not for supper
Lest I should decay, and you die.

Search not afar
For the treasure trove
Of joy and peace. Such gems
Were made before the dawn of time.
I made them, for you.

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Just Another Love Poem…

5 July 2010, 12:22 am

Another Year On Our Journey..

On August the tenth it will be our 38th wedding anniversary, and so musing on this fact I began browsing through our old wedding photographs.

A blank sheet of paper beckoned, and for no other reason than my contented thoughts I penned…Just Another Love Poem.

Did we stand here, my love?
Here, hand in hand?
Did we share the sadness
of a blood-red sun,
marking time
with the golden sands of yesterday?

When the last wisps of a stubborn mist
evaporate, what then, but to watch
the glinting milestones draw nearer.
Before us, they are elusive diamonds,
patiently awaiting our touch,
transforming them
into the burning coals of tomorrow.

Dare we count the days
finding ways to gather fancy weeds,
dressed as orchids under guard,
or drink from the well of expectation,
knowing the image to be contrived.

Was it truly the exalted fantasy
that blinded us one step from
the lake of desire,
or the spectre of doubt, creeping
shroud-like, mocking silently,
encouraging abandonment of hope?

Here and Now, the sagacious twins,
have suspended time with the power
of belief. This, is the example.
Therefore my sweet, let us reflect,
and crown the present,
For this is all that is real.

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