SOME POETRY OF MINE - titles witheld
As we stare out into space so we look back in time - that time still exists for us to see. If we travel out from earth at the speed of light and then return time will have moved more slowly for us and we will arrive back somewhere in the future. The present then and the future and past are out there - they already exist. The problem I have with that, is that it seems to mean that everything is predetermined - that there is no such thing as free will. However quantum mechanics tells us that the smallest particle - the quark - hasn't yet decided which way to go and moreover can say yes AND no. If we can influence the quark through consciousness then free will reasserts itself. There is no science of consciousness that I know of that can embrace Einstein and quantum mechanics.
As long as I remember her, we will die together. And if I have not found her, she existed before or in the future, and in time we will all just merge together.
The following quotes are from Catotonia’s songs (International Velvet) to which some of this was written.
Time has no meaning here. It finds a flow and when I think of it too much it slows and when I'm happy it just goes, sliding past each day - no wonder I cling on just to melancholy.
I find with each passing day no change
"The time to act is now before the sands of time run out."
Taken from a song I find some strength to just exist and in my own way to be happy. But I do remember when I was with you and I felt all things were possible, where just a touch was ecstasy and nothing could ever be as good tomorrow.
I was bewitched by you - there for a moment and then to vanish. You did not see it that way where you just took, pleased that for you, it could be so, that day but not tomorrow.
Time has no meaning here. Where past moves with today and hopes are just tomorrow. It finds a flow when we just let it go, and yet it slows, as I grow old when I am alone, and do not know, or just believe, that I can be happy.
"The time to act is now before the sands of time run out."
Which way shall we run to meet ourselves just running back? You say 'too weary to turn back' and yet I know that I am reaching further than you wish to go. And I do remember and I do not believe, that it will not ever happen that way again.
Time has no meaning here. Where it flows - back and forth it goes - and to whom will I reach out to in my fright? - the intimate stranger. The one by the river edge - and who do I see? - not you, unless you sit astride the stallion that rears amongst the trees on just the other side - I can hear you, I can see you but I cannot reach you, I cannot reach the other side.
"But you don't need the sunshine /don’t need the good times /Lean on me maybe you could see it through /if you would only believe a single word is true."
Just keep on talking when no-one talks to you. Don't give up. Don't expect. As if I could live like that, without regret. And yet - alone does not mean that you should make believe that when a lifeline is thrown, it will last forever. Where past moves in today and hopes are just tomorrow.
Where it flows you must know that you will pass on beyond where you just cling on. There is nothing I can do 'if my head is full of you, is there nothing I can do?'
Not unless I can achieve my destiny, and is that already written? While my atoms spin seeking just control so my time on Earth is reaching out to stars - I am eternal but do I believe it’s true? Time has no meaning here. I am already underground.
I cannot meet you on stony ground. You might hide from me. I climb the steepest ridge and I do not want you with me. I will emerge from all vapours that still cling to me. Yet I still wish I was not alone with me.
Happy days I still remember. Not so much the person now just that time when I no longer thought I was alone. Happy days surrendered.
So who am I to say nothing now has changed, just as a child I found solace in the mountains, the steepest ridge I found. If you yearned so, the way my heart is so, I would believe. I danced amongst the stones laid to survive the centuries, I leant back upon the doorway of your hut - I felt you in my back but I could not see the way you were, before me.
"Well it’s a most peculiar feeling /Like sunburn in the evening /with dark clouds on their way /and you think it’s most unlikely /Life could ever shine as brightly /Once the sun has gone and the pressures on /and the rain is here again."
Each day I face the smile I gave, before I decide, just how to pass tomorrow - I'm longing for just a touch, to remind me of how sorrow can be shared, when and where we all must go - tomorrow. So who am I to wish that I was not just alone, where love has lost and I have just forgotten, to reach out to you.
I cannot meet you on stony ground. I am the sound of the wind shrieking by. And you are lost to me. - I know.
I am dead. I am bones. I am the bubble in the Hubble - visually impaired - economically not viable - lost in space. I am the nightmare stuffed with dreams- an invention - now relict of a bygone age - a minuscule flaw in the great scheme of things. I am the letter that no one wants to receive. I am the empty bottle on high seas. I will achieve my destiny.
'And if I cannot sleep/for the secrets I keep/it’s the price I'm willing to meet
On the end of the night
Never comes too quickly for me.'
Thinking you just maybe losing my mind -in the past - you might as well think I live on Mars. To go where nowhere that you have been before - slipped between the pages of a book -an old photograph - something overlooked.
When the stars are bright on a freezing night & the streets bathed in lemon yellow & wind tears at leaves spiralling back to earth,
You have been there before but not here.
It calls to you. It beckons - nowhere that you can put a name to, yet still chosen or just lies and self-deception. You kick the leaves with all your might. Your quarks agonise which way to go. Yet with the speed of light a lone traveller maps out your future where you in death or life just have to go.
I am a dinosaur brought back to life. I am a comet - dust and ice.
I am a warrior with a sword born from strife -visually impaired - bound and gagged.
I am the scream in the darkest night.
I am all of this and all of this is me. Trick or treat. The secrets I keep are forgotten. Above or below, within or without, my place is here on the back of a prayer, just the story I told, tearing tears from my eyes. I am the sun in the night.
I know that I could never just leave this place for outer space unless the universe, could promise me, a place with peace of mind.
I must fulfil my destiny.
----
But I am most at home striding the hills and mountains and passing through cultures to observe at a distance. I remember that overwhelming radiance after crossing say from Spain to France over passes and in the early evening, that tiredness of limb and relaxing of guard, with perils gone when your being glows and there is nothing, nothing more to know. In comparison I am dead now, I am bones. It is so long ago and yet it overwhelms the rest I know – that’s so.
----
I am the sea that pounds on rocks. I am the bones of mariners just lost. I should like to stroke the meadows green, mirror image all the woods, wander lonely and intact between the falling rocks - is it too much to just ask to walk with my companion? - to share our tears, where we can never last? Stroke my tears for you and I, no more no less than passers by - I might cling to you where my nerve fails and I for you while the avalanche gathers pace in the melting air - it sweeps all before it as I cry - do I have to die so much alone? I'd gladly trade eternity for touch entwined to last.
There is no more - I am convinced. But I have met no one so far, with whom I can just rest. Or with that trust to just while away our time together.
I wish
I am torn.
I am displaced.
All things considered would you want me in my embrace?
----
Life may turn on this.
Like a coin spun into a fountain.
Like a path you never took.
Life might grow from embers,
Like you never understood
Like you kept it kindled
Like you understood.
----
I have gone away,
I have left.
Packed up my troubles in my old rucksack.
I never will come back.
I am the stranger in my own home town,
No one to wave goodbye no one here to cry
I lost the moment years ago,
Just another place to hide away.
Out of mind sleep talking blues.
I am confused.
I will not wave,
I hear the engine bearing me away.
Routed nowhere I have gone and
I lost the moment years ago,
I never can go back.
Packed up my troubles in my old rucksack
----
Run off the planet - out of orbit –out of mind - gripped by fever. Structures crumble like sand, run through my fingers - No- one still to smooth my brow. Is it just me? I cry.
I would runaway with you. Through many years, through many tears, I have reached to find you.
Elusive as a butterfly your colours dazzled, as I chased you with my net - I could not capture freedom that I sought. Older now, I seek to share but my wings are weary just to dance on air. It frightens me when everything just drops away and leaves my soul raw with anger and despair. They call it gravity.
The higher that you reach the harder then the fall. Run off the planet - hurling on in blackest space - it would be just to embrace a ghost of my past self.
Out of orbit - out of mind - gripped by fever - structures crumble. My hands grope then above the avalanche - rising from the waters and the snow. Reaching out to you to smooth my brow- only time will tell on sorrows past - a chance perhaps for that illusive intimacy. Is it, was it, written?
Is it already there? No matter how we fight or just ignore.
Within the speed of light I do not dare to just suggest - across the troubled waters, that white stallion rears and my lady and her soulful eyes laced with impatience as she waits for me.
I do not hurry now. More like a stagger as I walk away from me.
----
I kissed the shores of Erin; I whiled away my time in wind breaths from the sea, those limpid days -warm rock beneath me - and so carefree.
I wandered so at will and words beat a rhythm on so distant shores surrounding me - I did not feel enclosed.
There was passion in that land - hearts broken, lives saved - they have left this way where I rode on history. I grasped to hold the words.
It has touched my soul - I want to breathe the air. So young I
know - the way I felt. I am words on the wind - whispers in the air- I stare - waiting for the sun dance - are you still there?
Today it has disappeared - it was not important, it was not there.
Dashing waters on the rocks - riding with the wind,
I waited when you did not come, and then just fled.
Did I just leave you there behind? Hunched up with memories instead.
----
I met you one day when thoughts of me failed
To please
You did not notice
Thinking then I was somehow just mistaken
I ran ahead of you as if all would just evaporate
The surfaces smooth again and quite solid.
I gripped your hand when we married
Afraid to let go
You did not notice
Thinking then that I was somehow just mistaken
I ran ahead of you and with broad brush strokes
Outlined the structure in which you moved
Like some hitchhiker
As if to please
You did not notice
When the surface cracked and flooded with my tears
When one day thoughts of me failed
To please
I fell behind you fingers failing to hold on
Thinking then that you were somehow just mistaken
That you did not notice
As you passed me hitching but a ride,
In the opposite direction.
----
And now I disappear like a heart beat
I discarded,
And now I sense you in my deep distress
At waking,
I should rather sleep for years
With my tears unguarded,
And when you go away I will remember
I loved you anyway,
And now I disappear inside my head.
I was just blinded.
Now my charms are over thrown
I snuggle into rock,
Lost where I walked with you
Where adventures just began.
The sad trawler in the sun
Remember me - I wave and
I must leave you so.
What can I do to make you love me? -
my tears the flood that just swept
All such love away.
----
I lost my breath.
Sharp sword cuts the sunlight but
I digress
I must return to loneliness,
I lost my breath
Back in that place that with its space,
Expands forever.
----
I need to rest. I am spinning. I am out of control. I feel my self race by - launched into space I do not share where millions talk where millions walk I am just a dazzle in a mirror. I hope I'm there - take care amongst so many galaxies in time that make such mockery, just fun, of having won. I lost somewhere in a comet's tail glancing by I lost it, where I could not stop making love to you, obsessed with you I left, unlike death, radiant I glowed. Do I have to hear you with rasping sighs? - you died on me before and now I must recover where my thoughts are scattered . I am spinning. I am out of control. I am myself in space just passing by....
Now I have to disappear after so much cold
Where my heart was frozen
And to rest with my head expanding.
To shut myself away I want to play
With me it sounds so hollow.
Where you promise yes, I agree tomorrow.
I live on memories that you have already given
I wish I could be on Eire's shores and just dance with you
But if it cannot be: I was with you anyway.
And if I walk alone
I will remember always
where you touched my life
and where I want
to love you.
You are the sunset in my eyes,
the rolling hills.
You are the life I never led,
Pathways yet untrodden.
I should never have let you down,
Once we had chosen to make that pact together.
This was my pledge.
I painted that sunset over hills so long ago
And with just a tent beside a lake for company.
But there was a path that snaked and led
To that sunset in my eyes,
As remote as mountains on the moon.
But still my destiny, my friend,
You are the dawn I never saw
But dreamed of all my life
Just for a moment then if this were true
Would it last forever?
You know I like autumn -it always feels familiar. There are many thoughts, and feelings associated with it. This is the season when I feel the longing. I feel it in the trees, in the wind. I know not where it comes from. Sometimes I feel as if I'm on a road in Yorkshire. This is just a connection then, without reason that I pick up wherever I go at this time. Like the telephone wires humming in the wind – nostalgic - prophetic.
I was born under a light mist stained yellow with fumes from a thousand chimneys smoking rock.
Even the limestone on the moors was ashen.
I coughed my way through childhood with green phlegm.
And through that found escape from dreary life, dreary schools and dreary work.
During long periods of convalescence deep in the hills of beach woods and clear streams full of trout and gentle mist and rains that still allowed all these things to prosper.
I stood alone and my lungs filled with pleasure.
It was a bright blue May morning with the colours gaining strength. The air was full of darting birds; the dew could be heard drying on the tarmac, as I stood stretching having written through the night.
My thighs gripped the leather saddle as I took the open road winding up past the tumbling rocks of Sugar, while beneath lay the turquoise waters of Bantry Bay. No wind at all. I purred down to a bay hidden by a maze of tracks that were it seemed, going nowhere, past the graveyard of those that could not take the great sailing ships to America, and were left to die forgotten, in amongst the rocks. I climbed off and walked over carpets of bright flowers to a huge stone that lay beside the waters – in the distance the bare rocks of Sheep's Head - insects whirred over me as I lay for hours sleeping and no human within a score of miles disturbed me.
And would you like it when the winds tear through the rafters the endless rainy days ?
Before you leave please pause
Just for a moment there
And think how we
Could be
If you kissed the life
Between your tears
And took the moment
That you say
Is not like
The one before
It is as if I turned briefly to accept the sun
And it has blinded me.
I know you'll say he's gone to ground,
He's hiding in his burrow deep down beneath
My concern,
I don't love him when he's down
Never mind who chased him there.
It is as if I awoke my senses spinning
Round and round as if my life had led
To this moment with you,
And I awoke alone,
And the shadows gathered where my words had fled
I should have said:
Don't play with me if you prefer another life instead
Will you lead me through the meadows where vibrant flowers dance in the sun,
through passes of crisp snow past craggy peaks and dizzy depths where canyons hold dark secrets
And in the swirling currents up above, rides the illustrious eagle soaring by
and will we then just follow
And frolic on the distant shores and drumming waves of your Pacific,
Will I no longer have to live underground in those dark ways behind me?
You have broken through my defences
And I have frozen in my tracks
Through virgin snow that may collapse.
It seems I fell asleep as long ago
As I remember, I cannot now go back.
I steered a way through all the trees,
Past jagged rocks and cold shadows,
And could not see beyond that task.
I even wore the mask of tolerance
And thought that nothing ever lasts.
What should I do now where tears-
Long icicles - frozen powder snow -
With nothing there to break my fall.
And nothing ever lasts I know,
You have broken through my defences
And with nowhere known to go,
I close my eyes hoping to glide
Past where the snow fractures
And my life avalanches over you.
It seems I fell asleep so long ago
That I will wake just buried in the snow.
I have not gone away.
Walk with me amongst the pines,
Along the winding trails
Where sunlight sweeps away the shadows,
Or clouds build and gather and when it rains
Dance there with me
While my breath is left in you, I live forever.
Do not grieve my passing
Nor lie alone forever, I ask only when you kiss another
The wind you hear that rustles like these words,
Is there for you where time stood still.
Where my ashes fall through your fingers on this earth,
Remember only that I would wish no other
To lay me now to rest - I have lived and I have touched,
Such beauty and such pain and I regret none of life and in the end,
It was enough to have touched your soul with mine
And with that my love I can now, sleep forever.
Do not grieve for me I have not left,
But I have runaway with you
and embraced as all of us one day must,
Life in death.
I am your little refugee
Sometimes lost in space,
Unable to know just what I'm thinking
Where I never thought before.
Will you hold my fingers?
Will you place them in your mouth?
Will you marry me on Cheyenne land in Wyoming?
Or in Sioux?
Will you take me to your wildest mountain top,
Explore with me deep seas
Will you kiss away my breath,
And be sunshine on the snowy slopes
Will you collect pure water bowls
And pour them over me.
I am your little refugee
Be brave with me.
Words danced on the slipstream of a longing
That knew no boundaries slipping through the Internet.
Memories shared, photographs exchanged,
And passions roused from slumber,
Where souls so brushed, such intimacy,
That might dissipate if we awoke and met.
Realities that could never match
Those first embraces where
Words danced on the slipstream of a longing
That knew no boundaries slipping through the Internet.
I have had my brush with madness
Where I am locked up outside my being,
And where fear drip feeds into me,
And each breath seems to be my last.
I have lost that impotence and rage
Where all around is kindness,
Where I am only stranded,
Where no one not even I, can reach me.
That silence where I return to places
That I have torched or just in ruins.
Left over from my time before
That silence where I accept,
The need to re-build where
I thought my life was over:
That silence that I took for granted -
In my time before.
I welcome peace that has broken
Out from terror,
But I know not much more than
How it felt to fight the war.
There was a wood I remember interlaced with russet bracken
And the young green shoots reaching up for the sun
And partly shaded a carpet of shimmering bluebells -
And I was overwhelmed and lay kissing the earth,
And the purity of those moments still haunts me so
For nothing I have experienced since
Nor places that I have journeyed to
Has meant more to me than that wood,
Under an April sky, where as a child
I might have died.
Between the rock & a hard place
Where are you God that we are told created us?
And is always there for each one of us
If we have faith enough to care
And how did it feel in the blood soaked fields of Kosova?
Where one man survived praying to Mecca
And the rest of his family praying, just died.
Where are you God where now I can see a billion stars?
Do you hear all intelligent life equally,and with the same regard?
And what's the point when we know life on this planet,
For humans at least, can and will in time just disappear
Perhaps in the uncaring trajectory of an asteroid
From the black uncaring void.
So if it's not, why God have you forsaken us,
And what exactly was the point, of it all.
Or is it when we all just disappear, is there
An opportunity for something better just to flourish,
To represent you, than the flawed human beings
That killed our sons in your just name, your cause.
Like the rocks circling our sun.
A seagull diving with twenty, twenty vision
Where the mackerel swarm and thrash.
From bay to bay or just on a path remembered
Where fish are long gone,
And all we hear are plaintive cries.
I am the fisherman eating mussels from the harbour wall.
I am the terror while being maimed and grateful being shot.
I am the memory where I loved and lost.
I am the child not old enough to understand.
Burnt with my mother for just being on the losing side.
I am a bloody sweater just left behind.
Or just a spine left on the ground.
I pass this way where graves outnumber by far
Survivors who will never rest
I am a bell tolling with the end for us.
I have run out of time.
I've been travelling so fast
I've left everything I ever knew
Behind and time has no meaning,
In the dark valley where corpses
Gather like locusts and rivers
Move slowly rich in blood.
I've been travelling so fast
In the glittering mountains up above
Leaping from one peak to another,
I did not care to look down
Until I ran out of time and slid,
Slowly at first and then avalanched-
One more corpse upon another.
Our tears waterfall from our eyes
A long rasping breath to signify our passing
And you are gone and in a short while
Never then remembered.
Sliding away down the icy slopes,
To the dark valley where corpses
Gather like locusts
Devouring themselves in their haste.
Until the day dawns in some future
And the rock is broken open
To reveal the dead, to prove we're living
When you gather momentum determined to travel, You rise like a hurricane
Sweeping all in your path as you intensify Above the warm waters and multiply As if in passion shatter down our coasts. Where just a few hide underground No longer fuelled you quickly fade While reaching inland and nowhere else to hide.
I could not find your quiet eye
Where you avoided me,
As I stood and saw the destruction around about,
As if the blindfold was ripped from my eyes -
I saw it was not you who caused this with intention
More so that you moved where you were destined,
Out from the eye in the storm
Rolling your stone around
Looking for moss.
Feeding the crows with bird seed
To stop them building nests.
Walking on water
To avoid getting wet.
On being a drama queen
To hide truths and distress.
You invade my quiet corners
Clinging on and then forgetting,
In the gathering mists of death,
What had brought you there
In the first place and then,
What you should do in the next.
As I walked in ever increasing spirals,
I saw a mirage of someone falling.
Dazed and exhausted From just running round and around, Until I found, I was just spiralling down. I saw myself falling Depressed and defeated In the same mirage that we shared – Where the sands ran out of time.
WHERE THE SANDS RAN OUT OF TIME