Memory
I knew you once
Yes you, my friend,
Who stops and stutters now
To find a single word of greeting,
Shrunk into a hidden, more private world
Where shadows of the past
Cast guilty shade
Across a path of fateful meeting
These ruptured memories
These sudden slots in time
That take you well away
To far flung places, unmapped, unknown
Yet close enough to keep your eyes
Ablaze with longing
I ask you only this:
What ails you so?
What yearning drives you on?
If you could tell me
And look me steady in the eye
And share once more
The secrets that you cling to keeping
You would learn a truth
My ancient friend
That goes beyond your troubled thinking
And it is this
That losing memory, to cut the sinews to the past,
To try to shun the ghosts of youth
Is like a man who jumps across the bridge of time
Only to discover
He's fallen in
To Lethe's banks and river
Two Lovers
Two lovers meet,
By chance, along a sun trapped street
Where heat has settled to a listless weight
The morning ceded to a Noon-day, fetid air
And light has lost its struggle with the dust,
While steeple shadows beckon refuge and recess
From awnings torn from sand and ochre planes
The same for generations back
Their peel of age a metaphor to frame
The firm embrace, itself a rupture from a closer past,
Another echo in this alleyway of time
Captured and reverberating out
The loss of something treasured once
Now soon forgot, as if in dreams relayed,
Or set upon by friends without the surety of truth,
The very memory a prompt for shame or rapture,
Who can tell?
But chance has worked once more
To offer hope where none had gone before.
Paris
Will I shed tears for you
When the time comes
And the bells are hushed
And there is no sound
No noise below, no sound, no sound
Will you remember still
When the streets are empty
And the buckled river slowed as silt
The sun lost in a yellowed fog
The moon a forgotten thing
Where will you go
When the cafes stay quiet in the early dawn
And the cobbled streets where you found me
Have lost their sheen and charm
When the cold returns
When the wind burns
When flesh is sallow and tired
And you sense the end of memories
Made in a far off Summer
When beaches arrived along the banks of the Seine
And the restaurant we loved
Opened its world of fresh linen and clean glass
To us as strangers then lovers
Before the walking began
Before the quartiers and arrondissements
Came on, and on
Before monuments and museums
Before the coloured canvasses
And the lights, oh the shimmer of gold,
Gave us their confidence of old
That square where we sat exists today
The fountains still play
To catch the breath and light
Of a city that lost its grey
Who Will Mourn For me
Who will mourn for me
When the rain comes
And the old stones scrape once more
A mournful welcome to their vaulted home
Who will sit in ancient row
When the time comes
And old acquaintance look on
In whispered reminiscence to a youth long gone
Who will say what was and how it might have been
What the world forgets
And what is remembered true and wrong
I cannot say nor wish to touch their muffled memory
For each man fades to make tomorrows sing
Lucca
Send me word
When you have travelled far
And found your passing home
And made ablutions of the dust
Look out, look out, the evening of the light
When you have heard the companile
And smelt the jacarinth and scents
Of men made slow by years of toil and sun
Tell me then, no tell me now,
Just how it was, how columns arched
To shelter from the heat
How awnings, tables, chairs gave sweet respite
From sights of History new-templed in your memory
So I may see it all and live it too
And catch a souvenir of you
Poem For Poetry Day
Stay, stay with me
Beneath this sky
Of blue and grey
Leave not alone
The wind, the wind
Look up, look up and see
Beneath thin clouds strung out to dry
This lake's edge for shadows
Rising and falling
As a rhythm whispered out
Across the gently moving water
So you come to me
Walk
I walked today to find my England
Along a narrow metalled path
Which hugged the gradient of a gentle hill
And slow revealed a valley full of green
Made riven by the slowest turns
Of streams new swollen by incessant rain
White pools of light reflected to my eye
The contoured skin of long familiar ground
Falling as fear deserts the troubled youth
And emboldened by a common cause
Of freedom shared under a cloak of trust
Still warm to those who yearn
To touch the whispered breath of Albion
Dreams
I had a dream today
A sudden surge of memory
Which took me far away
Yet still in present time
To places long since known and loved
Where, as before, the faces rose and left
In steady focus but for fleeting spells
All out of context and with no mass to touch
My friends came through their shrouds of mist
As foggy headlights across a swirling dusk
To beckon on to depths unseen
No earth to mark the progress of their rise and falls.
Against their urgent calls to come
I kept my distance, all eyes diverted,
To shield the shame of fear and in plaintive hope
That I’d be spared their promenade of doubt,
Or left behind to face a daily beat
Of actions known to ease the human heart
And settle all discomfort;
But it was not to be,
Soon, too soon, I was carried on and on,
Across a sky of limpid pink
Towards a glowing arc of red
Until my very skin did sweat
To see the burning fires below.
Some Day
Some day soon, some day new
When dawn has bleached the fields
All wet with dew
And you have felt the wind
Blow icy touch upon your lips
When time has tried
To heal all wounds
And anger's spent and died
And all your fears are stilled
And age has faced the hurt that grew
And thoughts are quelled
As softly as a new born's smile
No sun will blind us, nor rain divide us
You'll hear my calling faint across the bar
I'll take your arm and trace a route
Across your sea of tears
And share with you
A sojurn with a sort of truth
And face again the waves of fate
To live a dream, and live again for you
To know the sound of Love that's true
One Summer
I lived one Summer upon a Southern isle
A place of whitewashed walls and beating sun
The heat so heavy it made the tarmac run
And peeling plaster set in pastel tones
The tiny houses hiding courtyards cropped with vines
Their rooms all darkened for their shade
The sea surrounding quays of stone
An ancient haven crammed with blistered barques
Their hauls to share from tiny serried stalls
With hawkers competing for their fare
Against the seagulls calling shrill lament
And all around a sense of calm malaise
Of beauty sabotaged by cruel intent
Of Paradise besmirched by vain conceit
The very rhythms gone awry
Of life diminished and askew
Why should it be, you say,
How can it be?
That one set fair and right
Should so enrage the soul
And call this idyll foreshadowed blight
And carp upon a Nature's treasured pool?
But you have missed the seam of sight
Found hidden deep within discoloured stone
That passed beyond the warmth of morn
To make encounter with the night
For Winter came too soon to save those fools of hope
Who thought their lives would linger on
In pleasure of a lasting hue
Instead the snow it came and all around
A leadened blanket left
To cover shame and flatter to deceive
A launch point for a discarded dream
Made grey and dull, a palette for the damned
One to One
When you face someone
Full on, close, direct
Personal space fully invaded
You want to see the other
And be seen
What you notice
Is the colour of their eyes
Blue, but the blue sparkles
Brown, but the brown connects
And you think
Why don't we do this more often
And love each other more
Will You Remember
Will you remember
When time for us has stopped
And we no more can feel
Your rage, your fear, your deepest pain
Will you remember
Our rough-trampled hopes
Lost to unbroken night
Where sadness leeches love that once held sway
Will you remember
Those who fought
Who now fight on to live a life
To share what still remains
Will you remember
What we did and why
And who we were
That went where others dared not go
Will you remember
Those that gave
What only they could give
No second chance, no fond goodbyes
For such Remembrance
Will we rouse ourselves and find our strength again
To echo out our voice, our battle cries
Across the great divide and rest perhaps to know
We were remembered
As I Lay Still
As I lay still
The night holds sway
Holding its own against the absent dawn
Keeping its silence, certain, deep and dark
Seeping into the room to chill,
To suck the air, no comfort there,
Where can one go from here, to share
The awkward truths which fit
Bare facts, resisted memory and hope
Wrapped up against the cold
Shall we cope, shall we cope
Muffled and layered, ready to go
Unchanged, uncut, or left alone,
No-one will say, yet strident, bold and wronged,
Such anger is your due
Yes, yes: follow the narrative, let resentment flow
Fury emboldened by conceit,
Make of it as you think fit
The ugly gossip from kith and kin
Set up and nursed in grief and fear
You'll not go quietly into night,
That's for sure,
No dear, you said too much,
For words make miseries for us all
When Love is wasted, or found wanting,
Who has authority to speak
Not you, nor I
As souls slink back behind forgotten walls
To nurse deep wounds, new bloodied by old wars
Before the dawn, before the dawn, before the dawn
Now there's sweet pity
Made fresh and eager by the seagull call
The first stirrings of human life
Despatch for now
Forgotten nightmares of such sleep
As came and went
Put away now, waiting their turn,
Solemn, fatal, finished
As the loathing burns.
Love Takes Its Time
Love takes its time
You once said
As you folded my shirt
And patted my head
Love takes its time
You offered advice
As I started out
And paid the price
Love takes its time
You observed from afar
As passion soared
Like a wayward star
Love takes its time
Your gentle tread
But I thought better
And went ahead
Love takes its time
You offered hope
As I weathered the storms
Along a slippery slope
Love takes its time
You tried to suggest
But we broke up
For an endless quest
Love takes its time
As you faced the end
You tried to smile
To be a friend
Love takes its time
I still hear your voice
I’m looking still
Because I made a choice
Outside It Rains
Outside it rains
A thunderous drumming
A maddened patter on the roof
Not the rain of our childhood, the rain we knew before,
Of squelching mud and sodden knees
And happy faces coming home for tea
But a larger sound
Insistent, demanding, an outspoken downpour
Bursting its banks upon us
Drenching every sound with unfamiliar frenzy
Clattering its way by rivulet and swollen stream
A battering of our refuged state
To rise and fall with monstrous power
To catch the unprepared, the feeble and the malcontent
Who listens to the quatrains of the dark
Who shifts the passing of the dead man’s bark
Unseen against another moonless, bloodless sky
A glide against these foaming torrents
Snaking its course of least resistance,
The muddied force coiling and persisting
Along its running path of watery haste
While we sit quiet and hope for better things
And know too well that muffled sound
Of uncaged water gone to ground
Does lie below us soundless in its waiting
Where we, too soon, are steady bound.
Where Am I Going?
Where I am going the snow is deep
The beaten path is lost
And brave men turn and turn
Along their way to Klosters
Where I am going there are boats
Built by craftsmen, men of skill
Who work without a sense of labour
To set their dreams afloat
Where I am going there are books
Beautiful books designed
To let Art breathe
And poke the clouds for Pomegranates
Where I am going the Kop sings
And no one walks alone
For each pebbled path and mountain pool
Is strength for he that holds his past so dear
Where I am going the Circus came
With clowns who dropped their masks
And traded laughter for their tears
Along the path of Freedom most sincere
Where I am going there is coffee
Rich, strong, Colombian
Where mothers sing and dance
Are loved and love their partners still
Where I am going the sea rolls
And the Birdmen twitch to see again
The face that walked into their hearts
And made them smile again.
But if you miss me in the mists of home
Or lose my voice across a room of strangers all unknown
Forget me not but hear
The sound of Stallions running true and clear.
Realisation
Time is back
Routines, habits, resasserted and resettled
The familiar blanket descended
The thinking carries on
What happened there?
For me, for you, for voices heard?
Was IT me?
Was IT you?
Did you say what you should have said?
What was left unsaid?
Which mattered more?
That world moved on
In a hug, in a smile, in a circle
Echoes swirled round the brain
Again, again and again
Now the emotion’s gone
Does that make me unfeeling?
Or grown up? Well adjusted. Adult?
Fuck. Who wants that?
Not me
Maybe not you
What lingers then?
There has been an afterlife
A Trust that has carried on
A shared experience
Of course
A friendship
Yes yes
But more than this
An understanding
Being seen
A dimming of defences
A loyalty
An interest
A learning
A connection
But no solutions
No entanglements
Better to ask different questions
More questions
Fewer questions
And grapple with new unknowns
Grey areas where the soul spreads
And maybe soars
To find a place of greater peace
Where resignation can become
Realisation.
Artist's Statement
Take me not to task nor try to bend
The will that moves me on
The voice you hear is mine
Alone, alone, alone
With words to make each image live
All strokes a memory defiled
Who needs these sumptuous smears
These craven works idolatrous to man
Not I, Not I
Yet buried in these marks of shape and new mixed colour
Lie feelings broken from the heart
That ought to find again their meaning
Before this living world departs