Through papered cracks of prejudice

Through papered cracks of prejudice
The vision strips and peels
To fray the forms reality
Would have us know and feel.
The world is ravelled, riven down
The path of bigotry
Until no flakes of truth remain;
And all is skinned, made  clean.

Childhood

Through miles of mild remembering
my childhood comes alive,
in ribboned trails of sounds and smells,
of thoughts and hopes and dreams.

Gifts of words

Is it enough to offer gifts of words,
No matter where they fall,
Or if the hearts and minds are closed
And blinkered to their cause?
These crafted thoughts are sent abroad,
To carry treasured gifts,
Of richest soul and jewelled mind,
Where dreams still hope to live.
In broken wash they reach those shores,
In dregs and dross of foam,
To bury deep in pebbled time,
Forever lost – unknown.
Is it enough to offer gifts of words,
No matter where they fall,
Or if the hearts and minds are closed
And blinkered to their cause?
Sometimes it must be -

Clous in scattered wanderings

The clouds in scattered wanderings
are lost in deepest sky
and drift upon the tongues of wind,
to live and slowly die.

Labels

They hung the label round my neck
which dangled through my days,
to tell the world and also me
my brain was quite deranged.
The words were crisp and clear
and cruel, and carved by other minds,
to show that they were normal -
and I through madness climbed.
Those words were meant to keep
them safe; to fence their certain
world and yet for me they built
the walls - a prison for my soul.
Those lettered chains are with
me still, and cannot be removed,
for that would threaten sanity -
at least, as they defined.
How casually they drape such
things, how easily they put
their neat and tidy category
upon a complex Self.
It fits the narrow edges of
their logic-laden world,
denying rich humanity
it's chance to live and feel.
How messy is a human being
in full creative form, how
frightening is psyche's dance,
in small and ordered halls?
The bright, full rage of nature
can swallow reason's call,
and in the shadowed burning -
turn certainty to doubt.
Those clear and perfect labels,
like sentries then must stand,
to guard the gates of surety;
to hide the sacred dreams.

Life trips

Within the shattered moments

of shredded days and nights,
we drag ourselves upright once more,
to follow fate revealed.
Life trips us up from time to time,
displays a world unknown,
and teaches us that what we had,
was but a fleeting taste;
of all the possibilities
this world can bring to birth,
of all that we may find within,
of all we held as truth.
Within the staggered moments
of broken days and nights,
we drag ourselves upright once more,
to walk the road revealed.

Doubt dressed

Doubt dressed my naked helpless mind
in robes of shivered cloth which dragged
with icy purity along the stones  of life.
In trail of darkened hem, it followed close behind,
and threatened with its tangled edge
to trip the feet of time.
The pull of reasoned certainty brought close
the fabric held, in folded deep imagining
the world and all that dwelled, in hidden
lost becomings, which only hope revealed.

Dark night of the Soul

When soul is lost in darkest night
And reason creeps on narrowed ledge,
Then hope will tremble in the corner
And whisper words of haunting death.
While spirit slides through gutted day
And takes my hand in offered dance,
That I may learn the steps which life
Has patterned on the breast of chance.

To honour what we have

To be prepared
to look the fool,
embrace a cruel rejection,
or lose our job
or home or life,
because we honour truth,
is something which
protects this world
and all we have to leave,
to those who will
come after - to those
with greatest need.

To give thanks

To feel a sense of gratitude
for all we have and hold,
is to honour full the gifts of life;
the one true prayer bestowed.

Friendship

The bonds of deep connectedness
are wrapped through years of love,
and cling like silken ribbons
to those we know as friends.
No time or test can ravel less
these strong but slender ties
which thread through endless memory
to bind us heart and mind.

The day in slivered creep....

The day in slivered creep peers closer through the dawn,
to pull with bright, sharp claws the dregs of night,
and dangle teasing breath on sunlight's brittle face,
slow toss of tangled locks on dreaming darkness.

Small Stones January challenge - River of Stones

<a href="http://www.writingourwayhome.com/p/river-jan-12.html"><img src="http://www.fionarobyn.com/aros2012.jpg"></a>

The dragon

The dragon guards the door of timeless space,
and waits with fiery breath for all who walk,
towards the arms of serpentine embrace,
which draw us on to dark-held shining grace.

Laid upon life's clumsy lap

Laid upon life's clumsy lap in humbled drape,
the shreds of days dress mind,
and fall into forgettings' foolish arms,
to borrow yet again time's changeless shape.
I struggle to draw forth from her tight grip,
to fold myself through moments hardly shown,
that Soul may find the way to know her truth;
and Self in full becoming may be born.

My day

My day has wound itself around
in serpentine display,
and disappeared through
evenings' door, to find
itself again.

The Wet

The sky in thundered shuddering
spits light and shivered fire,
before it flings to waiting soil
the rains the earth desires.
Born in the belly of the day,
the season's suck and soul,
in heralded becoming,
the Wet returns and holds.
In echoed, deep reflection
the roof throws back the fall,
and sings of nature's blessed gift;
that which succours all.

Clouds

Scattered shreds ephemeral,
twist and turn through skies,
in billowed blown becoming,
of heaven's fulsome breath.
In blossomed, bright beginnings,
through staggered strips
and rents, the drifts and puffs
dress endless, ancient vision.
In measured steps of swirl
and turn, through dance of
light and dark, they birth
through day to night.

Magpie's song

The liquid, crystal carolling
of magpie's dining song,
a call to summon others
so not to eat alone.
In deliquescent serenade,
the rise of shivered  hymn,
rolls gloriously and richly,
to herald tasty gifts.
Mellifluous and mellow,
the magpie sings with joy,
in oceanic warbling;
an ancient, precious call.

We tell ourselves that things are wrong

We tell ourselves that things are wrong,
that needs are still not met,
that we must have more than we do,
to find our heart's content.
This story that we tell ourselves,
will sour and spoil the life,
which comes to us as precious gift,
and which we now deny.
There is no perfect place to be,
there are no musts or shoulds,
but only the reality
of Now, which lives as truth.

the web

Diaphonous drift of silvered thread,
weaves lightly through the night,
to hold in place this world and yet,
to capture and inspire.
She brings the gift of ancient light,
the flame of endless time,
and holds us in her dreaming web,
that we might know her mind.
This place of birth and death will hold,
with deliquescent touch,
and tangle tight the struggling Self;
release surrendered Soul. 

The words

The words were whispered loud and soft;
'pull yourself together now'
as if no more than shredded cloth,
which could be gathered, surely swept
into fresh-stitched and unknown shape.

Love settled on the face of time,
a shawled embrace, slow-knitted dreams,
to drape it's lace-held web of hope
upon my life eternally.

But dragging at its cornered edge,
the mouth of dribbled years took hold,
as one lost thread surrendered slow
unravelled all I've ever been.

The words were whispered soft and loud;
'pull yourself together now'
as if no more than frayed, lost soul,
which could be gathered, surely swept
and woven into unknown self.

Shattered night

I tossed and turned
through shattered night,
and brittle, pointed thoughts,
which led me through
the dead, dark hours
and bitter shreds of doubt.

I wondered who I was

I wondered who I was at ten,
and thought I knew by twenty,
only to to find, it wasn't so,
and thirty had no answer.
With forty promising at last,
the truth of Self and Soul,
I found myself some ten
years hence, not knowing,
even now - and seeing,
in uncertainty, the truth
of my own self, a
slow and sure unwinding;
a blossoming of soul.

African dawn

The nights stretch long through darkness,
and sleep seduces soon,
when light has disappeared in wisps,
gives way to waning moon.

In ancient ways the hours are marked,
from when the sun sinks low,
and huddles into dreaming night;

deep sleep till day's return.

The sound of voices trail through dawn,
down Africa's long streets,
in dusty voice and straggled earth,
they greet the light once more.

Morning

The night in settled shadows breathed

beside my bed and then,

in captured arms of morning light,

transformed herself again.

In rustled shake of darkened robes,

she crept through cornered hours,

and breathed herself ephemeral;

through day's long shining rule.

African heat

Heat shuffles through
the hidden cracks,
and sulks in fervent
corners, and then is drawn
in shivered waves through
endless turns of fans.

The Day of the Dead - Halloween

The dead do walk through fields of night,
in scattered, bony tread,
devouring meals they cannot eat,
reminding life of death

The Moon

The fullness of the moon brings forth,
fulfillment, blossomed days,
to reach beyond whatever is,
to grow,expand and dream.
And when the new moon tiptoes in,
the Fates would call us close,
and whisper words of birth and
seed, beginnings, fresh-born hopes.

Scottish highlands

The land in rolling purples,
is crimped and sprinkled forth,
as brown and pinks are tumbled,
on earth's full ancient face.
From high to low and back again,
the soil in shuddered joy,
gives birth to endless destiny,
of Scotland's floral grace.

the canvas

The colour speaks,
the brush strokes sing,
the image captured close,
as life is set
in treasured touch,
on waiting, empty space.
The vision flows through
hand and eye, to cast
itself anew, upon life's
canvas, pure and fresh;
the oiled breath of truth.

Before the wet

The day transfixed by humid heat,

Held captive, sullen, stilled;

Disturbed by hum of addled fans

Which brew the moistened air.

Moments

Life moves along through moments,
with conscious seconds seen,
as something to be honoured,
as anniversaries.
And yet they are illusion,
these special days or hours,
for all that we have been and are
is gloried in the now.

I see myself

There is the way I see myself,

And what I wish to be,

And then there is what others see –

And all makes up the Me!

The selves which here are gathered,

Are all part of the whole,

And strive to work in harmony-

That my story might unfold.

Dark Night of the Soul

Immersed in total darkness,
caressed in creep of gloom,
surrounded by the pitch
of death's eternal face and
swallowed into emptiness,
dissolved into the void,
of hopeless, choking uselessness,
I hold my breath and wait.
The times when Soul
is deeply lost, when Stygian
odours creep, and clammy
thoughts embrace and cling,
to hope's clear crystal breast,
remember that the bleakest
night, the blackest place
still leads, to yet another dawn -
beyond the place of grief.

The years have wandered slow

The years have wandered slow with me,
through fields of distant feeling,
and blossomed days of fantasy,
which weave like thread around,
the gentled deep forgetting,
of shining nights and dimming days,
of darkened morning, brightened dusk;
cast carelessly across dark heavens,
as glittered, precious moments.

My heart does not do things by halves

My heart does not do things
by halves, it's present always
in that fullness of itself,
which offers without condition,
the most that I can be.
In silken swift recalling
of Soul's first first memories,
my heart began this journey,
through life's far-tangled realms,
as helpmeet and companion;
as God on earth revealed.

I wander through the past

I wander through the past and find
the blossoms scattered there,
of petalled memory and words
which made my parent's world.
I pick them up with endless care,
and gather them to see,
how much of them that I can find,
which leads the way to me.
The perfumed shreds of time reveal,
a layered, drifting tale,
which drags behind my senses
and drapes my hours and days.
In picking up the petals,
which life had dropped and lost,
I put together images which
live within my Soul.

There is a flow and pull to life

There is a flow and pull to life,
a drawing forward till,
we realise the days have drawn
us further than we knew.
Whatever hopes or plans we had,
are often left behind,
as Fate with tender urging,
takes our hand and leads us on.
We tell ourselves we plan
our lives and yet it is not true,
for it is Life which plans our path,
no matter what we do.
The only choice we get to make,
is not what comes to us,
but what we do with all that is;
how we respond and act.
There is a flow and pull to life,
a drawing forward till,
we realise the days have drawn
us into who we are.

a son to his father

The shadow of my father
drifts behind my half-drawn
self, as painful possibilities
of all I would not be.
And yet within that fragile
shape I see in hollow form,
the best that life
has drawn, from him
and all who went before.
My eyes must open wide
to see, that in the dross
of times, lie broken,
precious pieces
of the man I will become.

children and parents

I watched you grow
throughout the years,
my small and gentle
girl, and now although
an adult grown,
I see the child within.
As mother I have
watched from birth,
my children come
to be, and yet it's sure
they'll never know,
the truth of who I am.
As mothers, fathers
we remain, fully formed
from 'birth', and like Athene
brought into form;
created from their thoughts.
I look upon my children,
and trace their path
and truth, but when
I see my parents -
such things remain
obscured.

Memories

In flimsy, false forgetting
we weave the cloth of  time,
and lay it out upon the past,
to hold our truths and lies.
In needled, bright remembering,
we stitch the scenes in place,
display a dream which suits us,
and fits what we create.

Dance of dreams

I stand aside and watch the dance
of dreams and fantasy,
which night has brought to realms
of sleep, without consulting me.
And then with dark unknowing,
it takes me up and turns,
the slow, strange steps to meaninful;
remembered with the dawn.

The Mother's Maw

The mother’s maw is open wide,
to suckle fingerlings,
and draw within the drifting child,
to save and sacrifice.
From moments of creation drawn
the urge to hold and care,
the newborn soul of endless life,
in hope and in despair.
She brings us all to birth and then,
protects with love and fear,
until the day of blackness brings
destruction yet again.