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Oct 2017 · 215
CONTAINMENT
john lindsay Oct 2017
After eleven
Walking home
A days heat slackening

Suburbia lies prone and flat
Sound carries at night
Is felt before seen

Across and into the night
The train pushes
It drags echoes from trees, parks, estates

Hammers over bridges, shuddering rails
Inevitable, Unstoppable
Laden with the dark

The containers
They count on
They pass , tolling toward the witching hour

Still walking home
Its getting late
Heavy goods trains are something I regularly see passing through the suburbs of Manchester by night.... I had the thought the the train might also be a metaphor for death..! Sorry to sound so morbid...Im not really!!!
john lindsay Feb 2017
Listening to Finzi
On Tuesday morning
Sudden dense snowfall through February branches
Remembering beautiful Donna
With her red hair
Colder now
Falling , falling , never touching
As clarinet and piano
Take the lonely road.
Feb 2017 · 315
FROM THE QUANTUM HIVE
john lindsay Feb 2017
New recruits must follow
Vibration of the coded dance
Do they see beyond
The divide quark in six dimensions ?
Plumbing the subatomic
Mirroring Shivas ebb and flow
Radiating to OM.
Feb 2017 · 368
NIGHT GEESE
john lindsay Feb 2017
Before sleep, I hear their ghosts
Across the dark, as the air blues
Into the cold hour
Up there beneath Orion
They trace a glint of water
Locked to the lodestone of their fragile skulls
Their winter mother calling them home
Crying Mersey, Mersey
john lindsay Nov 2016
Once through the car park all myths end
Vinyl dragons gone all gums
Drone bored tape loops behind bars

Kids whack each other with blow -up swords
All want to be rightful kings
On this island
Of tooth-rot sweets. key fobs , pencils

Around the square tables
The plastic grail leaks tacky residue
Historys dustbin overflows
We fight a losing battle with wasps

Coach loads bear us away
We were born at the wrong end of time
Here lies England
The sword well and truly sunk
As one who was brought up and fascinated by the legends of King Arthur, I met with a hideous revelation on taking a party of children from a local youth and community centre on a visit to a theme park...!
Nov 2016 · 341
HERON DUSK (for Rob)
john lindsay Nov 2016
An evening inked in purple , as wewalked
Through slow-hour summer by the still canal
Last bird calls hanging on the threads of light
Hushed cattle at the end of days long field
And on the dusk, the herons silent wing
Ghosted the waters breast to curve , and fade
Grey herald of the spell and rise of moon
To leave us without words, a dying dream

That summer which you did not live to see
We raised our glasses to you on the lawn
And saw the same wings beat across our  sky
Fly past in salutation to the west
And onward , to the sunset of goodbye
Twilight came down , but with us still you fly
Another old poem , written for a dear friend who left us much too young , much to soon...
Nov 2016 · 332
CAMEO
john lindsay Nov 2016
Small marraige of fire and moonstone
Autumn lingers in her auburn hair
Perfection steers her eyes
Each movement the proud voyage
On my ship of words
A small love poem , written so long ago... I cannot remember the lady it was meant for...! This does happen from time to time...
Oct 2016 · 338
THE WOW SIGNAL
john lindsay Oct 2016
Was it worth all that time
The eye-blurring number columns
The hair-triggered ear tuned
To filter white nights?

That stretched toward red
Five years on. Sagittarius flared an arrow
Seventy two seconds
Across the dark

To tell us nothing
Contact details lost, no message
Whisper or shout
Perhaps already gone

Years later we angled our needle
Ten thousands calls pulsing out
Streamed Twitter in reply
Our inbox remaining empty
In the 1970s CETI  received a signal from deep space .After long attempts to discover its identity and  the dismissal of it being a natural phenomenon, it was tentatively conclude that the signal may have come from an extra terrestrial source.
May 2016 · 580
ANTIPHON: ST. KILDA
john lindsay May 2016
Forty miles
Pieced by gannet
The saint who never was
Keening through skirts of sleet
Her broken psalm
Against time

Forty miles
To jaws of gabbro , dark Hirta
Boreray, Stac Li. Towering teeth
Bird-crammed. Men spidered, scaled
Over a void where one fall
Could blacken time

Forty miles
The wheel spun, warping language
The world weaved on
Behind oiled womens fingers
Picking at time

Forty miles
Over sheened cobbles to the bay
Men and dogs taken last
Out of a mornings haar
To stranger seas in time
A lament following the death of the last surviving resident from the island of St. Kilda. Antiphon is a term derived from Medieval music in which church choirs sing across each other.... from the Greek.
Mar 2016 · 577
FLIGHT FEATHERS
john lindsay Mar 2016
Walking to work
Pausing to watch westering geese
Cross the early tints of sky
Formation fraying from V to S
One day Ill fly away
Remembering another morning
They turned in air, downriver
Whilst you slept
My hand pinioning your bare shoulder
Lips kissing your nape
A love poem of a sort...
Mar 2016 · 453
RONDEAU FOR MOTHERS DAY
john lindsay Mar 2016
Horses are grazing by the field wall still
Here where you sit , the clarity of air
Brings watercolour  down to kiss the hill
Memory cannot tell me when or where
Loves pours out from your image. Love , until
Unbridled hooves through time might take me there
On horses.

In places which only the heart can fill
Be beautiful and young , mirroring care
Across a scene too far away to share
Before the wall is gone, then slow, downhill
Come horses
This is a strict Rondeau form.... I was listening to string quartets at the time and maybe some of the discipline of form came across.
Feb 2016 · 327
MY ALMOST GIRL
john lindsay Feb 2016
On the edge of light
At the final dream
You are always returning
My almost girl

Half apparent woman
Rising from the years
I live with your disdain
Your high-flown gaze
Your mad, scattered orbits

All you will never write
All you can never say
Step beyond pain
Pass on

My almost girl
Put back this unopened book
Half apparent woman
This binding cannot be cut
Although treated in an abstract manner here, the person in the poem is very real. Years ago, I  gave her my heart. Sadly she turned out to be spoilt, materialistic and selfish and treated me quite appallingly. Nevertheless she has continued to inspire much of my poetry and music for a long time. She may care nothing for me now, but perhaps one day she may pause and consider what she threw away ..... it was her loss.
Feb 2016 · 516
RICCARTON
john lindsay Feb 2016
The line that brought everything
Took it all back
Sheepdogs, a mangle, a childs cry
Every year more stones dislodged
Forest inched over seeded slopes
Road lost itself a second time
Winters erased more
The crow mocked
Name and echo
Shrank into spruce
Once again we are in the Borders. Riccarton Junction used to be on the Carlisle-Edinburgh railway line. The only access to the outside world was by the railway. A community lived and died there. To me, it is another example of a beautiful , haunted  place.
Feb 2016 · 440
CASSINI: ENDING
john lindsay Feb 2016
Last weeks
Beyond the lonely ice
Come to an end
Moons marshall dust
Above a face of
Chemical snowcloud
Before the last ****** plunges you
To the core of old age
The Cassini space probe to the planet Saturn terminated its mission by being sent spinning into the giant planets intense atmosphere.
Feb 2016 · 457
KEILDER GOATS
john lindsay Feb 2016
The wind across a skin
The drum under the hills , on the road
The tribe
Five thousand years, the gypsies
Flare a wild curse
Clan chief  twists a winter horn
As kids, skewbald urchins
Question us once
Then follow
The line of beggars and kings
Down into the sodden
Fold between nations
Another poem from my favourite region. Inspired by some amazing footage on internet. The Keilder wild goats are very rarely seen. Yet they survive.
Feb 2016 · 522
SHANKENDSHEILS
john lindsay Feb 2016
Anticipation of still uplands
Old sheepfolds dot the valleys stage
Conifers cram close down aisles of firebreak
Mist slips as the dancers final veil
Away from Maiden Paps
Vast air strung with silence
Then from the dusk plantations eye
A buzzard screams
Shankendsheils is a remote spot a little further along the B6399 road heading north. I sat one late afternoon and watched a buzzard circle its flight on the edge of a conifer plantation from its eyrie on an old tree stump below me. The bird patrolled, circled, calling . As forboding for the forest as an impending air strike.
Feb 2016 · 829
THE DEERS BLESSING
john lindsay Feb 2016
I climb the thin road
Along the muttering stream
Cold off the fell over broken quartz teeth
My step huge in the sharp afternoon

A drape of fern and bracken
Flickering into the eyes corner
Blinking out of green. They are there
Trembling all silence

Of their glass world
Even now
At the door of transformations
Their shy blessings
Fade into the fable
This recalls the magical time when I encountered deer on the side of the lonely B6399 from Newcastleton to Hawick in Scotland.Such encounters only make me more determined to make this remote wild region my home
Jan 2016 · 1.1k
UNRAVELLING
john lindsay Jan 2016
The snagged line grows taut
As I repeat the question
" Is there anything you want?"

House too empty , stairs too steep
She wants me back, I worry
"Weve been to ASDA , dont ask what i bought"

Saturday afternoon phonecall
"How are things?"
The reluctant tagline
"Not so bad"

Front garden going native
I set off down the cracked path
Doesnt want next door to see
I dont wave

TALKING THEIR LANGUAGE

June classroom, stir of voices
Arriva trains glide to the coast
Coffee needs filling, the last biscuit goes
This afternoon we look at idioms

Unpicking centuries, cultures
Somalia, Bangla Desh, Kurdistan
English remains official
Still a puzzle

"Speak slowly and clearly"
"Dont hit trees with sticks"
"Its a piece of cake"

The intricacy of language
Shapes ancient letters
"Lemon squeezy " chimes Messa
Our laughter is shared
UNRAVELLING... during the final years of her life, my mother suffered severe depression. The poem tries to examine the struggle in communication I experienced in these times
TALKING THEIR LANGUAGE
Last year I worked as a voluntary tutor with immigrant learners from various nationalities. This expresses the difficulities the English language sometimes presents , and also some of the fun it can generate, also.
Dec 2015 · 445
QUILTED ROMANCE
john lindsay Dec 2015
It is a pleasure, feminine and sweet
When gentle moonlight filters over your bed
To quietly slip from underneath your sheets
And from the pillow lift your dream filled head
Your white bean toes they delicately tread
You glide downstairs, your quilted gown so warm
The small hours chime, the calling night is dead
You lift the latch, your lovely feminine form
Flits in your garden , waiting for the dawn
Another one for romantic ladies everywhere. Dont try doing this just at the moment girls! Wait until its a warm night. love john x
Feb 2015 · 396
A VALENTINE
john lindsay Feb 2015
A valentine to one unknown
Whose secret beauty hides away
Taking the words I cannot say

Beautiful lady, walk alone
So love might come to you , this day
Through valentine for one unknown

Open your heart, when love is shown
And when the verse is done, please stay
And let my songs truth show the way
In valentines to one unknown
Feb 2015 · 370
RAIN GOLD
john lindsay Feb 2015
Outside your window
Rain turns to gold tonight

Moon drifts over high branches
Cloud passes

Warm light from your quiet room
Gilding the streams down your glass

As you comb out your star tinged blonde hair
Flowing in waves in to ocean space

Your white Victorian nightgown
Sighs to your naked feet

You stare out at the drowning world
Your eyes constancy
Turning the rain to gold.
Im a true romantic, as you can see.... here is my ideal woman! Not easy to find these days.
Nov 2014 · 1.4k
SNEEZING RONDOLET
john lindsay Nov 2014
A-tissh -oooo!
Poor darling!, have you caught a chill?
A-tissh-oooo!
Your long hairs lovely forward spill
Hot water bottle let me fill
Get into bed, sweet, and lie still
A-tissh-oooo!
I think a beautiful woman sneezing is very romantic!

— The End —