Beginnings of pain
And the suffering of one,
Started early for one so young,
Terror in innocent eyes
A* punishment for nothing,
Rained down fists fell hard
Dead I wish you were, ******** forever in my eyes

Can you leave
Until the mind does
You may have gone far
And mind in inertia
Forgets to look ahead
Got rid of proximity
But travel the distance
To and fro, everyday
Through the barren path
Rushing from one point to another
It’s the action in inaction
Mind’s in inertia
We may have moved
And the mind lies there
Are we far?

I still can hear the train
it left here hours ago

It rattled past me down the track
on it's way to Tupelo

I hear the singing rails,
the lonesome whistle song
The earthquake feel of strength and steel
and the quiet when it's gone.

<><><><♡><><><>



as i lay here in the dark
i held your letter
white and stark
a lover you were
flame and spark
your kiss It was
a watermark

though on the page
no writing sweet
that kiss was burned there
warm and deep
as i pressed it to my cheek
i began to sob and weep
what i sow i do not reap
i can talk, but talk is cheap.

a reminder of my pain
the watermark becomes a stain
how i wish that you'd remained
the friend who i
at first had claimed
now my heart is
torn and maimed
i listen to it's
sad refrain

now in the morning
comes and hark!
I hear the sweet sound
of the lark
the sun is rising
o'r the park

the stain of
tears now
my own mark

now with the page
in morning light
i sit down

that's right

i write


soulsurvivor
catherine jarvis
(C) october 5, 2014

I want to break into your liquor cabinet
And write my name on the bottoms of all the bottles
So you can be reminded
Of why you're drinking in the first place.

The compass set and horizon found,
our journey starts with a bound,
With Sturdy foot and hearty gait,
in haste we race toward our fate,
with silent solace we do decree our constant yearning to be free,
but the watchman’s scythe will cut us down,
before there's chance to claim our crown.

From quiet homes and first beginning, Out to the undiscovered ends, There's nothing worth the wear of winning, But laughter and the love of friends.
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953), British author. "Dedicatory Ode," Verses (1910).

Dear Parents

Thank you for deciding after two years of marriage to have a child, me.
Sorry I wasn't the boy that so many of my family desired, sorry I was late, sorry that you missed the "Rumble in the Jungle", if it's any consolation I know who won.
How I came to be is quite beyond me. Father's family disliked mothers and vice versa. Dad a steelworker, Mam a trainee chef, dad flipped a coin with a mate, my mother was the stake.
Four years later sister came along, then another four years the son, that so many yearned for made an appearance.
I saved my sister's life from my grandparent's dog, lost an ear in that battle, a bit like Van Gogh. Plastic surgery at seven, still hate Cocker Spaniels to this day. I tell everyone I saved her from a rabid Doberman (I know parents, there's no Rabies in Great Britain) what did I get for my trouble? A stuffed white cat and a sister that I made sit in a cow pat.
Thank you parents for sending me to a school that made other kids suspicious of me. A welsh medium school, might as well have been Hogwarts, but they taught me well, (I can swear in five languages) and read and spell.
Dad taught me how to head ****, mam you taught me how to make cake.
My sister taught me how to share, my brother taught me how really not to care. Live each day as if it may be your last, I told my brother that often.
Dad, one of 13 kids, mam one of 3, like me. Dad, I hate your sisters that are alive they remind me of the Moirai, or the three witches from Macbeth, I've tried to like them but I'm terrible at lying, and to be honest they are in their late 70's so they must be close to dying.
Mam, your sister is a lesbian, I think her army days gave that away. Your brother like mine a source of consternation a Navy man that never went to sea????
Now, my grandparents are all dead. Apparently, I have inherited my father's mother's temper. She disappeared for 3 days when she thought she'd killed my grandad!
I'm married now, no rug rats thank God, I'm aunty material, selfish and wicked.
Now, this sounds I know a little quaint and odd, but I know we've had our share of bad luck, but, 42 years wed, still in the family home, surrounded by trees, neighbours we've known for years and people we'd like to poison. But,we've laughed so hard mam you have a hernia, dad you are the male equivalent of a ****, you'll be flirting in the OAP home **** yes, sorry parents as one of your three I get to pick the residential home! And, as they say,that is a good life.
Jo **
P.s I didn't mention our family mental illnesses, early 20th century communism, possible adultery, coveting the neighbours Ford Capri, or pet cemetery in the garden. I'll wait til all are dead then spill about the good secrets.

The alchemist,
See's what others do not see,
Finds peace in the pursuit of their quest,
Endeavors to do what others say cannot be done,
Thinks internally and is not swayed by the views and opinions of others,
Knows that the path is more important than the goal.

This life, this love, this death,
all have meaning yet all fade into the jaded darkness that lays on the other side of our sunlit morning,
touching the untouchable,
reaching through the veil,  
our dreams carry us forward as if resting on an ancient burial raft,
gently drifting down the stream into a unseen oblivion.


© H V Swan

And dreaming of Inisfáil, I was raised on Bolivar Pond.
Sheltered in my wake, I’d coo as the dewy’d morning dove
   And fern in my bed, I rose to greet
       The song-splayed sounds of light
   And work, I made it dropping slow
Bright in the summers swoon, I was adorned in forest eves
By rings that rang from tree to rook, and flung the wingèd down,
       Brambled in bay, garland in violet
   When blades could ***** and not make bleed,

And I was brindled by the moon’d many shades, that liken
To a brook, and mottled in my main, noted among moss
   In that glow, once knighted we must serve
       Wood, let me comb in peace!
Colored in the mantled cloth of leaves
And bonny and red, I was the brave and the boon, the deer-
Ants learned me, and herons stood muck, on stands spearing all mite
       And the vernal song sang lowly
   Swaddled in azure’s unfolding dream.

At each turn was a season, nascent life charming in marsh
Forays that brimmed the hollow rood, in clover yards, I saw
   The lilt of bees, sallied in clearings
       Brown as the yellowed beech
   Colored in sounds that beat the heart.
And forth into the field I sprang unto that shedded loam
And high was the sail that bellowed the raft that raked my pond,
       Bullied by the har-umph of frogs
   I rippled, rowing cat o’nine tailed tunes.

Windy and free in the hollowed bark round the ****** bay
I trailed the bear sniffing ****, heard the hoo of a swooping vowel
   And wild in hare, dug the fox-hole up!
       Damp fires hailed the rising
   Moon, as fire-flies dinted the troutling pools
And nothing I saw in my drowning sun could nettle or thorn
My piney ways, nothing could rot my wood-craving ears
       For the kestrel’s qweet-a-quee rang holy
   In the skunk-flowered fields of Bolivar Pond.