Day’s End at Rhosneigr
The old land drew up its duvet;
Cloud cliffs brushed in light rose but seeping color,
Draining to quiet grey. A face
Set by Earth’s mason in impassive upward gaze
To become an eternal watcher of skies.
Gulls cried. Sea swirled sand.
Sounds merged to manage a mutinous mind;
A merciful panacea, anesthesia
To help draw down the blind on life’s debts.
This salve of beauty is but a *****
Peddling pretense for indulgence,
She gains addled adherents who are mocked by reason.
What is done is not undone by this.
Truth that hides beyond the dune’s shadows,
Emerges with the encroaching nemesis of night..
May 5, 2022
May 5, 2022 at 3:11 PM UTC
Yes, he is here
I could not see him;
Light so intense, one looks away,
hand over eyes.
Then, the silence of a cave;
***** faces, calloused hands.
In the shadows a baby cries.
Normal people, working people,
Fearful and unsure of me_
Could it be truly this?
There’s nothing unusual here,
Only poor, ordinary ones.
Could he choose to be one of these?
Love cannot be reduced,
But it can be shared among friends;
He is first among equals.
He is us.
May 5, 2022
May 5, 2022 at 3:06 PM UTC
What’s it like?
I want to leave him, I do.
I think about a peaceful home,
A quiet place of the ordinary.
I want to know what it is to be able to,
I want to know who I am.
What is it like to be you?
What is it like not to pretend?
Do I deserve what you have?
What is it like to live without fear?
Is it easy to be free?
Please go, he will be back soon.
He cannot see I have a friend.
I will ring you tomorrow, I promise.
I have to get ready for him,
Upstairs.
Aug 27, 2021
Aug 27, 2021 at 5:17 PM UTC
Fire to Fire
With fire you came,
With fire you went;
Imparting, restarting and keen to ferment
The destructive divisions that bruise human hearts
So your children could play out their predestined parts.
With dawn you gave,
With dawn you took;
Forgiving, admitting, dictating your book.
Words that enslave but purport to set free
Condemn you and me to fail such as thee.
With evening you harvest,
With evening you leave
To the Grave slaves of instinct who all believed
That the Ultimate Love would erase their sad guilt
Because of the blood that from one man was spilt.
Dec 21, 2020
Dec 21, 2020 at 5:26 PM UTC
Once against now
Today I went back; walked along paths divorced from now
By forty four years and so scored my tears into this land;
Little boy with simple joy standing here in awe and bright belief-
Sacred memories softly torn asunder by licentious change.
Conker trees ripped and trampled to spectres by houses
Still thrive within the quiet musings of an ageing mind.
To be eight and to await this world’s unfolding
Was to sit on the lip of tomorrow in wonder.
Now his wrinkled wraith tries to be him again.
But the omnipotence of time forces the chime of another hour.
Yet I can smell the seeds my father helped to plant;
How I wish he was here, sure and strong again.
Dec 21, 2020
Dec 21, 2020 at 3:26 PM UTC
The Ballad Of Foxham Bill
I knew a man down Wiltshire way,
We called him Foxham Bill.
He’d sit astride his tractor
And swagger up Spirthill.
Up top he’d stop and look around,
A broad smile on his face,
Below the farm he knew so well
His life bound to that place.
Before he set to work each day
He’d ponder on his fold;
With pride he’d think about his wife,
His three girls good as gold.
On his descent he’d fill the lanes,
Surveying his estate.
We’d strain our necks and back our cars,
Give way to Bill’s old crate.
It stayed that way for years I guess,
His routine would hardly falter,
But then daughter June a sailor met
Who brought her to the altar.
Next Mary flew around the world,
Back-packing I’d heard say,
Got fixed up with an Aussie lass
When cruising down Sydney way.
Now down to one, his pride and joy
(She’d never tasted town),
Bill had a boy in mind for her
With him she’d settle down.
But Julie, bless her, took the veil
And married her school mate.
They took a plane one Saturday
And now live in Kuwait.
Wife Betty would not leave the roost,
Of that he could be certain,
With thirty years under the yoke
She’d make their final curtain.
But ringing in the church one day
Elizabeth met Sam-
Within three weeks of knowing him
She’d left for Chippenham.
Now every day he climbed that hill
His swagger was no more,
His smile had gone, he wore a frown,
His tractor lost it’s roar.
As bad luck went, his was the worst,
Alone now on his farm,
He worked away the lonely days
And tried not to self-harm.
One day a Jaguar pulled up,
A stranger knocked his door.
He said his farm and land was sold-
His tenancy no more.
So Foxham Bill, a farmer spent,
Took all his compensation
And bought a house in Bremhill Wick,
Investment ‘gainst inflation.
His Massey Ferguson he kept
A’rusting on his drive,
And every day took all he had
To try and stay alive.
The NHS it did it’s best,
They would not taste defeat,
With CBT and counselling
They’d have Bill on his feet.
But then one morn I took my rod
And set out for the river,
It wasn’t a chill that caught my breath
Or a wind that made me shiver.
For in the midst of Avon’s flow,
It’s front wheels spinning free,
Was that tired old red tractor
And Bill hanging from a tree.
So dear reader, I’d say to you
(Be you rich or poor)
The only constant thing is change
Of that you can be sure.
© (no references, veiled or otherwise, to any person living or dead )
Dec 21, 2020
Dec 21, 2020 at 3:15 PM UTC
Repugnance
He stirred in the shadows, crept into a moonlit doorway:
His good name undressed by desire,
His waist inspired by bottles and poles,
His peace throttled by need,
His seed primed to feed a warm womb.
He awaited a waif, walking wistfully into wild night:
Imagined struggles stroking his distention,
bleeding out glistening drops upon a coal black
Slab, dribbling man dew over
Fingers that linger. Enflamed flesh clasped and firm.
Slow rain wormed in crevices,
Need-engorged tissue stretching fly stiches.
He became what they hate and fear.
Dec 19, 2020
Dec 19, 2020 at 2:03 PM UTC
A Walk in the Quiet Night
Tonight, footfall is gone,
All focusing minds
Walled up in rooms,
Boxed within non
Engagement lines.
Government brooms
Sweep up citizens
Like confetti put
Away in its box.
Neat under a lens;
Viewed as soot
Or an earth staining pox
From the silent high.
The trees now sleep,
Yet an earth wide call
To arms is surely nigh.
The ape age may seep
Away, the potential stall
And the Great Planter
May choose again;
Something less destructive.
So it may please Her
To watch the pain rain
A little while on the obstructive.
Dec 19, 2020
Dec 19, 2020 at 1:36 PM UTC
Lost on 11th Avenue
The light fails,
The cyclic long decline of dusk
Belongs to us again.
The ever neutral sun has gone
And calm calamity cradles the earth.
The darkness
In indifference ghosts in.
The cold and never-found are here,
Still clinging to unheeded hopes
That diminish and dissolve in these quiet nights.
How many
Hurt unheard in the hidden spaces?
The dishonored die daily,
Failing the deadly demands of life;
Those who cannot conform.
Stripped of safety,
Tears freeze on frightened faces,
Hunched alone in friendless places-
Yet feeling and being as you or me
Who have all yet nothing when we turn away.
Oct 16, 2020
Oct 16, 2020 at 8:35 PM UTC
Autumn atonement
Autumn fire crackles and crisps under foot.
White willow leaves in unanchored mayhem
Eddy against the savage rampage of the wind;
Maelstroms of the abandoned in some last act Danse Macabre.
Unbridled minds are afoot,
Flaying spring’s children from wailing trees,
Wind shepherding huddled heaps
To the dark ditch tombs of the lost.
A dying year in arrhythmic gasps
Disfellowships the splendor of summer.
To atonement I turn, a supplication wind whispered.
Left with the dead, a hope for personal renewal.
Oct 16, 2020
Oct 16, 2020 at 6:20 PM UTC