"moorland" poems
I
This is the night mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.
Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.
Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,
Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.
Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from bushes at her blank-faced coaches.
Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.
In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in a bedroom gently shakes.
II
Dawn freshens, Her climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends,
Towards the steam tugs yelping down a glade of cranes
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:
In dark glens, beside pale-green lochs
Men long for news.
III
Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from girl and boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or to visit relations,
And applications for situations,
And timid lovers' declarations,
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled on the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, the adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.
IV
Thousands are still asleep,
Dreaming of terrifying monsters
Or of friendly tea beside the band in Cranston's or Crawford's:
Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
But shall wake soon and hope for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
4.7k
They say lots of things about love,
They make it seem it is the ultimate desire,
Wanton and wilder than the known universe,
An cataclysmic explosion of two personalities,
Born separate, reborn together,
And yet...
I have loved worse men,
And lost better women than I deserve,
And now my convex chest is as vast and devastated as abbey ruins,
sanctuary,
sacred,
crooked,
ruined,
beautiful,
still here,
After hundreds of years.
Maybe I will live on in my memories,
For there are graveyards in my bones,
Eulogies imprinted on my arteries,
Long lost love letters scarred on my very marrow
For those that I drowned,
And those I saved.
My faith is a moorland hillside war memorial,
An obelisk to reach the very gods,
Your love is but a squall,
My hope is a trickle, a stream, a reservoir, in the deepest steepest canyon and Valley,
Your love is but a rain drop,
My clarity is at the bottom of a whiskey bottle,
Your love is but an ice cube.
Do not ask me brazenly to die for you,
When ******* me is your finest hour,
And I am but a pleasure boat ride for your masculinity to take a trip in,
We are not divine here;
My expectations are as low as your esteem:
A water you paddle in, a toe dipped perhaps,
but you wouldn't swim through, dare to at least,
And yet,
I am a rushing beautiful rainbow of a waterfall on a sunburn induced day,
The haze in the corner of your eye,
When you begin to question,
"is this too good to be true?".
Yes.
We are all but fallacies.
Dip your fingers and cross yourself,
As you wish for clemency.
But still,
Be still,
And know,
That,
I am,
God.
Am I?
Or am I just divine on your tongue?
Apr 23, 2018
Apr 23, 2018 at 4:24 PM UTC
1
Grey sky greyer sea
a litter of rocks balance
coat bright hat blue mittens striped
as on these November steps
you collect the gifts of the ebb tide
2
Glint green this living tapestry echoes
Jilly’s field with tractor not Devon
but salt-flats rocky revetments moorland rising
a map crossed by a chiromatic line
our destiny marked out on this concrete wall?
3
Beached clinkered double-ender
a bay-courser sjekte strand-crunched
fit once for Viking raiders two abreast
now daubed with tin ends of patriotic paint
a sea-steed hobbled hard on the shore
4
Bow faced a sea helmet thrice rope strapped
slow moulded over the boat builder’s ribbanded jig
a spanglehelm of wood
curved sheer straked plank bilged a tuck stern
raising its proud head seaward
5
Viewed from the air a map rolls out
north to the tilted curve of the horizon’s rim
cloud scattered mountained red
betwixt seas sun chalked wine-stained a volcanic isthmus
provokes desert the western waste land of a brooding city
6
Oh face of ropes knot eyed!
you blue cheeked wide smiler
wild wild your head of hair
beachcombed and splayed
wrapped on the sternest post
7
She sewed sugar kelp on the sea shore
a sporophyte with sheltered frond
strap-like stem stiff and smooth
of the species saccharina a spring-tide
stalk set among substrates shells and stones
8
I the camera turned and caressed
by her slight fingers (the pinky raised)
my viewfinder close to her blue grey eye / I
focus on this kelp-needled novelty feel her breath
wait for the thumb press the electronic click
9
Here is the beach walked in darkness
the fishermen shadows against the moonstruck ebb
fingers laced the sea’s breath in our ears
wave upon wave un-folding on the sand and later
we unfold then draw back in love’s relentlessness
Sep 15, 2012
Sep 15, 2012 at 4:09 AM UTC
The Ashes of a million souls drift down to the Baranco Wall and Moorland.
Seventeen thousand feet is All
Deep and dead is the cap on Kilimanjaro.
If a tree falls in the Forrest. you will hear it on Kilimanjaro.
Haunting stones on Easter Island whisper in the dead of night
and speak to Kilimanjaro.
Pitcairn Island far and lost.
Fletcher Christians mournful ghost wails and screams as the Bounty burned
a light seen from The Kilimanjaro.
Supai City Arizona in the bowels of the gaping gorge
looks out to Kilimanjaro.
Oymyakon Siberia. Minus 93 degrees. chatter and freeze
akin to The Kilimanjaro
World ends in the stratosphere
Fight for breath face you fears.
Where minutes pass like plodding years
in grasp of Kilimanjaro.
Aug 6, 2013
Aug 6, 2013 at 3:01 AM UTC
That familiar sound of a helicopter approaching
out of nowhere its search light focused.
Down onto a desolute and lonely moorland
quickly joined by a second one.
But what is the true intention of their task
as a figure looks up wearing a mask.
No ordinary being sitting there in isolation
as soldiers approach with guns.
Nearby a circular craft of unknown origin
lays damaged amongst the grass.
Away from the view of a watching public
the covert operation is slick.
Taken alive the alien is roughly removed
put into a third chopper nearby.
Two other bodies are bagged and tagged
the sight is cleared of any evidence.
Reports of an object seen falling denied
once again the military have lied.
How many incidents have really occured
the public know nothing about?
The real truth of an extra terrestial existence
rather than endless misinformation.
Was Roswell fact or fiction what is area fifty one
when will the real truth be done?
The Foureyed Poet. The Foureyed Poet
Feb 25, 2011
Feb 25, 2011 at 3:46 PM UTC
Me.
I am much privileged in my own life.
I am the only born child of my parents.
I am loved by my parents and by my lover.
I am adored by my lover who feels truly for me.
Parents.
Their dear love is one among some of my privileges.
They could provide me with a lavish brought-up.
They now tolerate my being in love with her.
They know deep inside that she's the one.
Her.
She is the best gift in this moorland life of mine.
She got my mind's inner eye transfixed at herself.
She is a cute person who loves me as if she is loony.
She makes my life so beautiful and so is her beauty.
She definitely is a privilege to me but doesn't get it.
She surely puts up a surly face to my being busy.
She playfully ignores this fact and pulls my leg.
Together.
All of the entities are equally indispensable in my life.
All in the ascending order of priority I have told about.
All but yes, she often teases me with her cutest tantrums.
All of it I will never mind any of these mood swings of her.
Because.
My parents also bore mine when I was a kid.
My demands were all met just about anyhow.
My responsibility will grow after we get married.
My children-our children will also have their needs.
Aug 27, 2014
Aug 27, 2014 at 11:06 AM UTC
Who's that walking on the moorland?
Who's that moving on the hill?
They are passing 'mid the bracken,
But the shadows grow and blacken
And I cannot see them clearly on the hill.
Who's that calling on the moorland?
Who's that crying on the hill?
Was it bird or was it human,
Was it child, or man, or woman,
Who was calling so sadly on the hill?
Who's that running on the moorland?
Who's that flying on the hill?
He is there -- and there again,
But you cannot see him plain,
For the shadow lies so darkly on the hill.
What's that lying in the heather?
What's that lurking on the hill?
My horse will go no nearer,
And I cannot see it clearer,
But there's something that is lying on the hill.
2.3k
Whimsical youth
absentmindedly fell -
cliffside,
abruptly.
Love to the stars,
oath taken to stone;
to help you,
instruct me.
~
Stillness the moorland
of cherry pie kiss,
unwilling
fruition.
Patience, wise virtue
foremothers instilled,
jeune fille
in submission.
~
Tame was the Beast
at the mountain's heart deep,
lethargic,
sleepwalking.
Wild was the Princess
in her dreams of pink sweet
sins, secrets,
unspoken.
~
Long were the years
under fallen rocks over.
Now doubtlessly
older.
Black was one night,
set her sadness alight,
but the ash left
her colder.
~
Monsters awakened,
set the footpath ablaze,
hopelessly
grieving.
Freedom I call
you, trying to persuade
you, truth
unforgiving.
Mar 18, 2021
Mar 18, 2021 at 7:03 PM UTC
Mirrored thought full breach horizon
Yearning drawing bridging cry
Intimate complete attraction
Now the moment true imply
Cast aside mendacious forethought
Resolute round purpose fly
Epiphanic thought emerging
Doubts foul gibbous banish say ....
Insp’ration resolute within here
Bursting forth bright intellect
Loosing dogs full purpose forward
Encroaching far reach treaded path
Resolute’ness biting grasping
Endless boundless seeming lost
Blazing purposeful grasp grimly
Energise strong inner soul
Capa’bil’ity strong purpose
Clear thought con’quering foul
Abandon dissolute mist darkness
Intersperse directive steer
Levelling where once lay mountains
Onward pushing prancing laugh
Voices raised fair joyous chorus
Ethereal reaching hands entwine
Yearning warmth transcending distance
Over hill and Moorland track
Understand where strength in thought lay
Accomplishment find perfect peace
Sep 8, 2010
Sep 8, 2010 at 5:15 AM UTC
Retrieve the passion thou shared.
Good sir indeed.
Pray show thyself as keen in action.
Ridicule the lady not.
The lady of seasons bears a perpetual gift.
Yours for eternity.
An honest emerald, captured from a den of thieves.
For the woman sighs.
Crying quietly unto her handkerchief,
Created of distressed lace.
The lady carries but a precious cargo.
A freight ne'er to become forgot.
Madame is a beauty, a butterfly of carbon made.
Her character build of moorland stone.
She weeps daily for you.
Before your child be born.
But her lord is sadly gone.
(C) LIVVI
Dec 23, 2014
Dec 23, 2014 at 3:05 PM UTC
Wide awake in a dream.
It was a bright stadium.
Wide empty lanes of the perimeter
I felt there were some within
A girl rushing, couldn't stay
Spoke to me urgently
"Meet by the Water Tower"
I wandered aimless there were none
To ask the way,
I came upon the edge of moorland
A hill that rose away,
Above, stretched flat on rising slope
Grey stones
Laid together close, as game of tiles.
I could stand on one, both feet
Walking along the bottom edge.
I picked up the left cornerstone.
It was large, heavy carrying at first
Brushing off clinging earth,
Seeing the shadowy shapes engraved,
Went to find the Water Tower.
In the stadiums lanes of white, forlorn,
A woman came to me in uniform
Asked of my purpose.
I told her my plight, she sat me in her car
I looked up
High above.
Shining translucent white container, a tank;
Generating power, suspended along cables and
Containing water.
I wondered at this,
Then she brought a sort of bike
Said "I'll take you now"
Riding pillion both hands holding stone
Thought "I'll surely fall"
As we banked
It was so fast, colours a-blur
Long, far, perilous, vast distance,
When we stopped, she turned.
Alone
Abandoned on the moorland
Rough ragged tufts of grey, green grass,
Forever each way, in mist faded substance
I know this place but I am lost,
The moorland has no directions
Standing so with the cornerstone
Now heavy
Rough, heavy as a world's reflections.
Then from the mist striding t'wards
Tall man upright in strange dress, feathers,
Hide, hair streaming weathered,
Coming into focus stands before me greets
Takes the cornerstone and reads it, hard worked hands
Deep blue eyes, into mine and mind, translating:
" We are of the Sz'ip p T'ik k "
There were clicking sounds,
Means the first ones,
" You are to take a message.
" The message is:
" 'To The Survivor of Your People, say this..
" Survive!' "
Then I am pulled away he's gone,
I open eyes.
Repeating words
Reach for my pen
Jun 30, 2015
Jun 30, 2015 at 4:05 PM UTC
Not in the ***** urban lakes
or zoos and sanctuaries
in her moorland stream and loch
where spirits slow and ease
dressed in white calm and alone
a woman passes by
try to speak then look around
above you in the sky!
tied to her loch by loves hard cord
a tryst from ancient years
awaiting her love who swore by his sword
to save her from her fears
the spell to break and set her free
but his life was lost years past
he fell in the desperate quest to return
and eternities spell holds fast
Feb 14, 2011
Feb 14, 2011 at 1:28 PM UTC
When I was a much younger man, I hiked the moorland,
my mother was Welsh, and the dry rolling hills spoke to my soul.
I'd trudge on through the forgotten paths, and daydream of my darling.
The wind it whipped like ethereal hands, tugging at my clothes
like a crazed lover.
But I was alone, out there on the moorlands.
Not a human in sight, such things make us feel most human.
I'd slip the flask from my hip pocket, and down a dram of scotch from the little metal cup,
and make love to the solitude. So much emptiness, so much loveliness.
The nights were especially cold, and harsh, I would spread my blanket
across the crunchy permafrost, and curl up into a ball.
Half awake, my feet tucked into my pack, I would hear music.
No instruments, just a vocal melody.
The words were unclear, but the feeling, it could only be love.
Years have passed, it seems like ages, since I walked the fields of my youth.
Now I have a family, and I find that I can still hear the music.
It is stronger, and it is clearer. In the rays of the morning sun,
with my family sleeping peacefully, I finally understand the song.
"Live, and Love my lovelies, ignore the cold. Sleep and dream,
in the morning you will wake up, the sun will be shining, and you will be loved."
This morning, dawn breaks so sweetly, and I quickly forget the insults of days past,
the hassles at the airport, and the trials of the day.
For the first time in however many years, as my loved ones gently snore
in their beds, spread out across two continents, I open my eyes, and I can still hear the music.
This melody is mine, no, it is ours, and you can hear it if you listen,
for it is the melody of love, and we all share it, whether we serve love or not,
We are loved.
A Burns 2012
Jun 6, 2012
Jun 6, 2012 at 3:14 AM UTC
We drove the kids North East to
our adopted hinterland
of moreish moorland, the Brontes
heath and heather hiding-place,
near peacock splendid Castle Howard.
Town kids need more stimulation,
animal animation.
A newly opened zoo park
offered flamingos in the pink,
fapping, fluttering, squarking
round a stinking muddy pool.
We splashed about, rain soaked,
licking mud spiced ice creams,
shivering, slipping, thinking
it's what you try to do for kids.
Jul 9, 2018
Jul 9, 2018 at 6:11 AM UTC
The time of the shining of
Wind-summered grasses, has passed,
-To the lark-breast mottle-
The harvested skin of the
Senescent land
The candle-snatch gutter of
Hurrying wing sees
The last of the coin
That was minted in thatches
Of deepwood
Of latticing bramble
Of crumbling eve.
The mourn of the Moorland
Has feathered a will
With the clot of the Ash,
Where a heather of cinnabar
Freckles the splash of
a simmering tarn
As gravelling Easterlies
Peel the cling of
The verdigris fades,
Some twilight of sepia
Musters the pastel
of Wintering calm.
May 25, 2016
May 25, 2016 at 11:08 AM UTC
Its perspective skewed,
the lie of this land
is all tilts and angles.
Black-thorned hedges
rise in white clouds
to the hilltop farm.
On this Damson Day
it is a damp-mist morning,
the horizon a grey smudge.
Up forest trail and fell-ward,
on the left, a winter-laid hedge,
to the right, a mossy wall.
A riot of new growth lies
at the feet, by the hand:
wild garlic, wilder strawberry,
fresh ferns, and the tiniest violets
hiding on this old path.
Steep steps climb
to a four-acre orchard
primrosed under the pint-sized
trunks of its wiry trees.
There’s the blossom, white as snow.
*Hard to imagine
five months hence,
fully plummed and picked,
Bullace and Damascene
driven by the cartload
to Kendal market.
250 tons they’d reckoned
once, taken by train
to the Preston canners.
Nearer home the fruit
was gined and beered,
cheesed and chucknied.*
Then into the forest,
a plantation girdled
by a dry stone wall
tall on the moorland edge
where beyond
the grey limestone shards
have broken through what
little grass is left
for absent cattle.
Wild with wind
up here today,
so down to reclaim
the forest’s shelter,
and down through fields
to a farm en fête
all cars and crowds.
This, a damson day of best-judged jam,
with artisan breads, Morris with swords,
fiddling folk, agility dogs, St Kilda sheep,
blue eggs and tents of crafts galore.
In the mist and drizzle
homeward and facing west,
there across the valley lie
outposts of blossoming,
fields embroidered,
and the farms necklaced.
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 4:18 PM UTC
I
Obsessed by twilight,
this no man’s land
in the gathering new year,
breaking apart the afternoon
concentration, the prolonged
effort to do and be done.
Even the cold on the street
was welcoming (as
putting on the scarf
finding the gloves)
making ready to enter
the losing light
to greet this break
in the pattern that was work.
Knowing after a short walk
there would be a returning
and things would carry on
as they should,
as they must.
II
A sudden pause
in the weathering.
Hill snow this evening
but forecast tonight
is the real thing,
then a sharp frost.
To be in a distant dale
and watch it falling
in the moonlight,
this snow on the hill
reserved for higher ground,
lonely moorland,
sheltering sheep.
Unless sleep
is foregone
I’ll miss the early
morning falling forecast
and wake to ice,
the frost, and bitter cold:
they say.
Jan 14, 2017
Jan 14, 2017 at 11:09 AM UTC
IDLE WILDERNESS
Ancient moorland calls to me.
The wind whistles, as it rustles my hair.
A trickling stream just visible.
A brown cow grazes on patches of grass.
A landscape which; looks as if mange has taken hold.
Appears sparsely coated.
Strangely, it's countryside ruminant colleagues sit beside the wall.
Yet the sky remains cloudless.
They say 'tis a prediction of coming showers or heavier rains.
Not a sign of raindrops.
Perhaps they're hiding from the breeze.
A clump of trees with leaves that rustle a touch.
Invasion from nowhere.
Crashes.
Bangs.
Sparks.
Soaked ground.
Drenched cows.
Glad I remembered my old gabardine mac.
Soaked to the bone.
Tommy came to find me.
Diesel powered pony.
Hopped inside.
Off we both go.
Poor cows, stranded in a soggy field.
I'm soggy still.
I know how they feel.
Poor things.
(c)LIVVI
Apr 15, 2016
Apr 15, 2016 at 5:07 PM UTC
Province acreage dies for one to tilleth its deserted range
Wherein cement meets the grain
It's love wants to be an emblem upon the world's and celestial's mapped blueprint........
Sick of nothing
Infirmed by zich
Swabbed by heartache
Taping its own stitch...
Just another moorland
Who Gaveth all
Lost to
Hopeless romance merry....
Depletedness licketh...
Deprived
Scanting
Panting its last sad hopeful breathe!!!!
Tis
All it hath left
As its been pruned
And left for rocks to corrode...
Sold its soul.....
One of old,
Superannuated doppelganger.....
An obsolete antediluvian
One not meant
For loam inanimate's.....
By me( Brandon nagley) - ( lonesome poets poetry)
Jun 24, 2015
Jun 24, 2015 at 10:24 PM UTC
it sniffs for the sweet breeze of Florentine
when all around are flies on rotten meat
can vaguely feel being the last of its line
as slowly falls silent sounds of heartbeat.
its fading eyes seek the far off moorland
feet still echo the long runs on limestone
in the deep woods where giant trees stand
a home where never would rest its bones.
in delirious dreams it stalks at the night
hunts for preys chasing opossums rabbits
itself haunted by looming shadowy fright
of fires that brought down all of his mates.
it's so cold out here with the sun ever far
limbs ice frozen to hold the shaking frame
only frail groans and no one to hear
for man the hunter it was another game.
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 12:35 PM UTC
If I can’t tell you of your beauty,
I can only tell this page I type.
And so I write
of gazing at you
in the summer evening light,
in that room we shared,
a room where you sat
beside a three-panelled window
of small glass panes,
letting in the presence
of a tree-surrounded garden.
And beyond, beyond
a steep rising of moorland.
The room was heavy
with accumulated light,
a light that lay sculpting
the features of your face
and sitting self. It carved
the very fall of your dress
over your thighs. It caressed
your forearms and your hands
to become a texture like stone,
covering the freckles
close to my gaze when we lie
in love’s tenderness.
I cannot tell you of your beauty
without that shrugging off
you make, as with a comforting shawl
that I might place on your shoulders
with paltry words, uncertain speech.
I hold to that sight of you
in the night time listening
to the rain falling
like a benediction forsaken,
a blessing denied.
We are apart you and I.
And so waking, waking
throughout the long damp night,
to differing degrees of darkness
then the light, and to
the car in the road,
the bird on the roof,
I lie still,
holding memory’s picture,
a photograph brought from
the darkroom’s dull red
light into a bright white day,
and marked by the line of
your loveliness stilled into form.
If I can’t tell you of your beauty,
I can only tell this page I type.
Jul 28, 2015
Jul 28, 2015 at 10:19 AM UTC
You wrap around
me, like a fog.
Haze of bitter
sweet miasma.
Smothering.
Smothering.
Apr 20, 2019
Apr 20, 2019 at 2:55 AM UTC
Moorland skies and breaking dawn clouds,
forcing the weak sunlight through the barren trees.
Crows with no particular places dart from one copse to the other.
Flying above your head, tearing the morning skies into shreds.
Elusive mists on the undulating lanscapes give peeks of field stubble or dark grass.
Nearer, the feel of the five bar gate
Is damp and slimy with the dew,
The rough wood barely discernable
Until the warmth of your hand gives up enough heat to release its underlying texture.
To the right the west seems still asleep,
Unaware of the fingers of the sun's rays inching closer.
Sliding through gateways,
Over ponds and into unexpected windows.
To the east its almost day,
Cool yellow light weaving it's way through or past the trees,
Hedges, odd building and rests at your feet.
Bowed in reverence as if to hand you this day on a platter saying, '
'This day is my gift to you, enjoy.'
Oct 23, 2018
Oct 23, 2018 at 6:42 AM UTC