Celebrating death

Celebrating death - can that be done
with songs and laughter, with ribbons
turning in hollow air, and songs sung
through rippled grief, the notes hung

like sad bunting, across the paths of
deep sorrow, where nimble, weeping
feet, step through dances lightly, and
eyes sparkle with glittered tears, like

diamonds of delight, except that they
reflect deep shadows, haunted days
and bitter nights, where candles hold
eternal flicker for the chilled shape

of corpse, as limbs set, stone-like, and
never to flex again, held eternal as
only memory, and even then, fading?
Celebrating death - can that be done?

http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2014/10/poets-united-midweek-motif-halloween-or.html

Riding waves

Riding waves of hopelessness,
turned keel toward the south,
raised sails of hope and misery;
licked salt from drying kiss.

Winds did lash in screaming,
strident in their tones,
raging helplessly around;
blew all thoughts from mind.

Journey in vast emptiness,
horizon lost in clouds,
onward through the sulking sea;
threads of life unravelled.

Tears did crust accordingly,
dried in bitter mix,
masking all emotion brought;
darkness pain eclipsed.



 

Seeing

We see the world,
but upside down
and then we turn
it right, and tell
ourselves that's
how it is, and yet
deceived by mind.

Within the dance
of molecules, and
through the song
of life, we sense so
much and see so
little - deceived
again by mind.

In frequency and
movement, as all
vibrates in turn,
we do receive the
messages,  but it's
still unheard - so
does mind unfurl.

And in this strange
deception, this
silent, hidden world
we find our ways
of seeing - and all
is then revealed.




http://dversepoets.com/2014/10/30/mtb-the-things-we-see/

I won't come back

I won't ever come back,
to that place where we
were, to that realm of
pain, and deep sorrow,

as you disconnected
and drifted away, the
ties loosening, fraying
without love's care

and keeping where life
became calcified and
death wove tight threads
around heart and mind,

puling taut the stitches,
imprisoning, holding,
and suffocating - I
won't ever come back

to that place, because
I have set you free,
released what was and
what might be, let go

of demands and needs-
surrendered to reality,
accepted what is - at
least, that is my hope.

http://redwolfpoems.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/prompt-224-reprise/#comments

The dead speak

The dead have silent teeth and empty throats,
they have no voice with which to speak, to cry
of all the horrors they have seen and been and
known; to call for justice, freedom from the

power of those who kill to claim what is not
theirs, the land of others, who suffocate children
in waves of dust and shredded metal moments,
where blood and tears and destiny are driven

deep into the waiting earth; dressing broken
fragments of their lives, their souls, their
hearts, that costuming of evil which war does
primp and posture into place, for those who

are the victims, for those who cannot speak,
and for whom the only hope can be for others,
that their throats are not empty, their teeth
are not silent, their words are not crushed

beneath the boot of evil and injustice and
military might, and that in the darkened
quietness of this awful, suppurating wound,
their only hope is that the voices of the living

will be speaking out for those who lie strewn,
fleshed like scattered crops, in that harvest
which bleeds and grieves and slowly seeds
the fields of future justice in aching Palestine.


II

FIELDS OF FLANDERS

Those flattened fields of Flanders
scream of battered souls
and muffled howls which pressed
beneath time's tread has crushed
the cry of hurt beneath firm soil.

The heaving shape of shouldered pain
is locked by grasses -green terrain,
which grips and holds imprisoned fast,
the rotted world which once had passed:
in steady tread and huddled roar,
a raging spread of weeping sore.

The silence now holds heavy court
upon the place where thousands fought
and died with no-one there to see
them sucked beneath the seething sea;
a muddy grave which beckons still
with glutinous grin alive and well
beneath the veil of fragile green.

1988 - following a visit to the 'trenches in Ypres.

III.

 FORGOTTEN FIELDS

Forgotten fields give birth in blood,

scarlet reaches high, as monkish hood,

reminders of the truth of hidden death,

memories of sudden, full stopped breath,

as stone remembers flesh as earthly food.

Cast corpses on the breast of bitter day,

chewed slow through mud and icy rain,

they gather in the darkened halls of youth;

the years denied.

Time does hold the brush forever high,

the colours fade, the paint does slowly dry,

and only in the stories can they live,

the gift which grief and hope will always give!

Light steps upon the terraces of  war;

the sacrifice is honoured evermore.


http://dversepoets.com/2014/10/28/poetics-war-poetry/

 

Australia

The continent as crucible,
in raw and tattered form,
from scattered edge of ocean;
the outback vast is  born.

The mist of time does mirror,
this curved and skirted land,
where songline chimes eternal;
draws magic from life's hand.

In soil, straw and rock it breathes,
of red-dust timeless truth,
where scale of man is minimal;
and ancient gods still rule.




http://dversepoets.com/2014/10/27/pubtalk-my-country-tis-of-thee/#comments

Sweet tea

They gave me sweet tea when I was mad,
stirred slowly, steaming hot, handed over
with a clink of spoon on the edge of the
cup, as if to signal, the time had come,

when comfort would be offered, and a
moment of liquid grace, could be taken
down, into the depths of frozen self, as
if, that heat could melt the hardened ice

of fear, so long built up, layer upon layer,
over the years; a crevasse of such great
immensity, that a light dropped, would
disappear from sight, in an instant, long

before it ever reached the bottom, if
indeed, there was a point where it all
ended, and from where an echo would
resound, up, up, up through weeping

cliffs, to signify that there was an end,
and, that sometime, it would all dissolve
into itself, disappearing, deliquescing,
 because now the demons had been

consumed and I could once more,
drink deep of tea and of sweetness.

Uncertainty

There is no certainty, just
the illusion of it, the belief
in something sure, the
attitude we take to this
ephemeral, unpredictable,
uncertain and ridiculous
life, we live, for some
short years, before going,
and soon, it is as if we had
never been, and yet we
have and somehow, that
imprint has made its mark
even though it is unseen.

Sighs

That drawn and slow
releasing, as sorrow
sifts through feelings,
and settles into sighs.

Cosmos

Insight births as coruscation,
a bridge to newer realms,
expulsion then of ignorance,
soft algae of lost minds.

Traveller is pushing on,
through ooze of memory,
leaving ailing circumstance,
for lean, taut destinies.

Within the briny depths,
breeds reason, slow and sure,
ubiquitous and constant,
it rides the waves so pure.

Pitch of time intangible,
beyond the world of space,
cosmos breathes in unison;
bequeaths eternal grace.

http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/wordle-32/




 

Thirteen

The poppies were blue when I turned thirteen,
gnarled as if some strange burden oppressed,
frivolous in their falling, as if the roots were
only lightly held, and the blossoms had inklings
of their apocalyptic fate, when the audible
tolling of the bell would sound their epilogue;
how speedy is life unless locked in the literary.

http://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2014/10/26/wordle-184-a-bakers-dozen/

Solipsism

This self-contained star of me,
this egoistic organism, where
subjectivity and egocentricity
would call the tune, or, if it

were allowed, then narcissism
would drag cool fingers through
the pool of mind, absorbed in
Self, that singularity of the I,

unique in being, solipsistic and
defined - and yet I am me, and
so much more than just this, for
this point of consciousness

embraces all that is, from tiny
moments in the here and now,
to the spread of futures yet to
come and a past, which stands

behind, across this universe,
and on through cosmic realms,
where the aeons wait expectant,
and possibility flies on shining

wings of imagination, within
the heady realms of diffuse
awareness, from which all
does come, and in which all

is sourced, beyond time and
place, beyond either/or, to and,
beyond then and now - in that
instant of bright becoming.

Curses

Curses rain like bitter dew,
roiling round mind's grief,
calling angels to defend;
keening love deceased.
Scattered through eternity,
drenching heart and mind,
tiny scars of hopelessness;
anger, peace denies.

http://www.wordsmithstudio.org/2014/10/creative-prompt-curses/
 

Birthed

Birthed in tree's deep-rooted heart,
born naked from the tendrils of
the bark-bled mother; sourced in
watered knowing, as the oak rises
surely from its seed; so are angels
born and fairies brought to being.


http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/fairytale-prompt-31/

Mother

The greater part of you was lost,
hidden beneath the trunk of mind,
buried in those leaves of madness;
no longer mother I had known.


http://magpietales.blogspot.com/2014/10/mag-242.html

Deliquescent

Deliquescent were the days we knew,
fluid, flowing, melting into time,
washing through the hours eternal;
dissolving doubts in love's rich brew.

Succulent the moments as they fell,
splashing joy so smoothly on the way,
aqueous the laughter of our hearts;
seeking stories soul did have to tell.

Dulcet came the tones of lover's song,
fluent were the words they offered up,
ichorous, liquescent and divine;
luscious union born, to us belonged. 

Molten fears did linger in our veins,
mellifluous and solvent,  deep recall,
so did moist and tender mind reveal;
pain was a companion on the way.

Serous hopes did course and flow anew,
moving through our bodies, silently,
kissing passion's wet and tender lips;
devotion was the gift of ardour's brew.  
 

Frost

Frost in sugared creeping,
defining dead and dying
shape, as Winter breathes
in crystal chill, licks sweet
lips which suck the fallen
gifts of Autumn, settling in
deep sighs on frozen soil.


http://meloniekydd.wordpress.com/2014/10/23/photo-prompt-for-aspiring-writers/

List

If I could list the things I miss,
now that you are no longer so
deeply in my world, despite the
fact I know, you might, just

maybe, might return one day
or not, and therein lies the
deep, abiding place of loss, I
would say, and not in any

order, that I miss the broad
spread of your smile; the way
you had of speaking, slowly,
casually, as if we had all the

time in the world; the clear
bright shine in your eyes; the
way you brushed your hair
back with your hand; the way

you slouched in your seat, so
relaxed, at peace with yourself
and with me; the way you had
of making me laugh with a

wit, so cutting sometimes it
hurt, even though it was not
meant to; the way you had
of being present,  no words

needed and none offered; the
way your brow furrowed when
something troubled you; the
way you looked with deep,

abiding love on those who
loved you in return..... such
a list could and does go on
without end, because there

will never be enough words
to hold in place, what I miss,
and never a list so long that
it could contain all it must.

http://dversepoets.com/2014/10/23/meeting-the-bar-ive-got-a-little-list/

There are no accidents

Are there no accidents in life,
no random events or chaos,
despite what we would like so
dearly to be true, for then, in

that strange way of thinking,
we could believe that nothing
we do, or say, or are, or have
been or might be, plays any

part in what happens, and that
we, like snowflakes, or grains
of sand, are blown at the whim
and will of forces we do not

understand, where there is no
need to take responsibility of
any kind, because, after all,
we are powerless and there is

no point? Or is there? Have we
instead, chosen our path, made
careful plans before we enter
this world, for that which we

will encounter on our way,
leaving only our choices as
to what we do with it, how we
react, and what lessons can

be learned once we accept that
there is a point and purpose to
it all, even though it is unseen,
and nothing happens by chance?


http://margoroby.com/2014/10/21/poem-tryouts-it-was-an-accident/

Origami

Folded neatly, the origami of my days,
like pyjamas placed upon morning's
pillow, where the day is painted in
slow, blurred strokes, upon dawn's

fresh, clean face, and I sit and rock
backwards and forwards, keening
through waves of grief which had
been kept waiting, at the dirty feet

of darkest night, placed inexorably
beneath the tousled bed of mind and
its tangled sheets of creased feeling,
which wait, to be tidied and tucked

yet again, that there may be order,
at least, for a few, bright hours of
sunshine, and forgetting of all that
the darkness still holds to its heart.

http://redwolfpoems.wordpress.com/2014/10/23/we-wordle-29/

We love bad news

We love bad news,
we really must,
if what we see and hear
reflects our true desires;
reveals our inner fears.
There are two ways
to 'see' a thing,
or maybe even more,
and yet we lean
toward the bad;
let misery be drawn.
A glass half full,
or glass half gone,
is always on display,
so why believe in loss
when we can opt for gain?
Energy will follow thought,
and we create our world,
through what we think
and we believe,
and what we say unfolds.

http://dversepoets.com/2014/10/21/poetics-good-news-bad-news-your-news/#comment-81326

Vision

Distant shimmered mountains climb the skirts of sky,
clambering, slowly holding to diaphanous distance,
rising as if called by angels seeding clouds of light;
so does horizon hold my mind with promise resonant.

So far and yet so near when imagination is recalled,
that way of dancing down time, and languorous road,
touch the tips  of mighty peaks with eyes half-closed;
so do we travel far, while never  truly leaving home.

Vision drinks so deeply of the image  born in mind,
that  faint conifers call crisply at pure nostrils edge,
and breezes creep with songs of chilling, pure snow;
here and there do not exist when everything connects.


http://margoroby.com/2014/10/14/poem-tryouts-wide-open-spaces/





 

Heart

There is within the settled soul
a place where heart resides, in
peace and gentle soothing, as
if, a pact has been made and

commitment held, that mind
will listen always to the deep,
abiding, tranquil wisdom of
the core of Self; that beating

store of knowing, where all
can be  healed with a depth
of understanding that can
not be held to limits, and

where, the song of life is
always heard, rising high
and dropping deep in slow
sonorous notes, where joy

and sorrow, hold soft, warm
hands and shuffle firm feet
into eternal, seeded grace,
which holds firm no matter

how wild the winds might
be, how deep the pain, how
tumultuous the suffering;
for only there is certainty.

Martyr

 

Martyr formed in childhood,
prisoner of mind and secret,
held like steel in bitter shine,
life stranger than any dreams,
where laughter littered days,
darkened diamond shadow,
made crazy thoughts reality;
seeded truths for adult seer.


http://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/wordle-183/

Refracted

Light still shone so brightly,
as life was altered and
distorted; time bending,
crouching beneath hope,

holding fresh contortions,
in that buckled way of new
relationship; a curling into
being, as mind deflected

rays, birthed distortions,
inclining always to the
centre of my being, and
spiralling through space,

with yours, in that warp
of moment, when we did
waver, tilt, tipping on the
edge of all we knew, as

love did slowly wilt in
shadow thrown by vision
so refracted; so lost behind
burst bubbled memory.

http://piecesofstarlight.wordpress.com/2014/10/17/weekly-challenge-refractions-all-that-sparkles/

The wind

Wind licking dusty leaves,
caressing, unsettling, teasing,
reminding dry fringes that
the rains are waiting nearby.

Symphony

That touch of your words,
light tune played on my
skin, raising the hairs,
tingling through flesh,

caressing, in songs which
are felt, not heard; never
written, or played with an
instrument, beyond your

voice, strumming as it
does, the chords of your
heart, and calling for mine
to sing in rhythm, deep in

the bowels of soul, as music
in love's bright, abundant
spheres, where eternity can
raise its hymn in endless,

harmonious, rich echoes;
does rise in steady beat,
rippling across the years,
as our precious symphony.

http://dversepoets.com/2014/10/14/poetics-under-the-influence-of-music/

Sticks and stones

They say words cannot hurt you,
but of course they can, for words
have energy and they have meaning
and when someone uses a word

about you, it can be a weapon
which wounds, deeply, and no
doubt that is what it is meant
to do, so words can hurt you and

perhaps, like sticks and stones,
the do break your bones, but in
hidden ways, where the bruises
do not show so easily, where the

scars remain covered, although
still tender, where the word has
been branded in searing fire onto
your heart, and more so because

you know that what was said was
neither kind, nor true, that it had
been used, purely to cause pain,
to injure you in ways that society

can accept - toxic is a word like
that, a word which means such
awful things - poisonous, virulent,
noxious, deadly, dangerous,

harmful, pernicious, injurious -
something you have never been,
and yet, this is a word someone
would use against you, which,

if it were a material thing, would
never be allowed to be raised or
wielded, and yet, it can be and
it is, because it is just a word,

a name  used more often in the
world today, a modern sword,
and sword contains word so
the secret is known if hidden,

and toxic is a word frequently
used about people for whom,
so the advice goes, there is
no place in your life, or there

should be no place in your life,
regardless of whether they are
really toxic, or just perhaps too
real for you, too other, different

and, in this modern age, words
are the new weapons revealing
someone else's pain; causing
pain to others, injury and hurt..

 words used as weapons in the
world, which we do not realise,
have such a capacity to break
much more than mere bones.




















































 

Lust

Lust -liquor of desire
does tease the flesh,
like lotion surely spread,
and trains the mind,
machine-like to respond,
in hypnotising gimmick
torture is made uniform,
as chickens without heads,
devoid of any brains,
are running yet in death.

 http://sundaywhirl.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/wordle-182-a-bakers-dozen/

Lost

Lost light languishes,
deep yellow crushes,
black drinks meaning,
rolled tight into fibre
without form, shape,
purpose, drawing all
within trammelled
being, holding, falling
draped bright as night,
redolent, screaming,
as birds peck dark
and feathered blood.








http://dversepoets.com/2014/10/09/verbal-cubism-and-tender-buttons-meeting-the-bar/

October

October, the month so many decades ago,
through the fall of forty-four Summers,
the rise of Winters, Autumns, Springs, of
mornings, evenings, days and nights, those

illuminations of life, captured in a library
of memory, from the time that we were one
and you were no longer stranger, and we
had both, emerged from the mudstreaked

fields of loneliness and yearning, and found
each other's arms, and hearts, and minds,
when two were joined in a love which could
reach wide and strong to straddle years of

togetherness, from the instant of our pledge,
when words spoken of commitment and
of hopes and dreams, fell into a marriage of
our deepest and most powerful imaginings.


N.B. On 23/10/2014 we have been married 44 years. I think we are as surprised as all the friends and family who said at the time, it would never work.

http://redwolfpoems.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/we-wordle-28/

Gekko

There you are, scuttling in and out of hiding,
running across ceilings, upside down with
no fear of falling, sure in your connection
with that which can hold you in place, keep

you safe, and secured, even though your
world is topsy turvy, and you hang, on small
soft feet, in way that others can only imagine,
in ways, that others can only wish when they

find their world has been upended, and what
was solid ground, is now replaced by close
clinging, within the hanging in air, that can
threaten to bring one crashing down to earth,

where the known world, has become what
the eye first sees, turned on its head, flipped
in an instant in ways that you would not know,
inverted, capsized, tipped over into something

not known, unfamiliar; a floating in space and
time which needs the correct emotional feet,
if one is not to be flung down, back into the
known world, in brutalised, bloody disarray.

http://margoroby.com/2014/10/07/poem-tryouts-there-and-back-again/

Mundane

That moment when the dragonfly,
shivered into view, shining, full
of glistenings, desperate wavings
in the air, busy in its being and
it's doing; glorious in its presence,
shaking away, with wings of pure
distraction, the cares of deep night
and dark, foreboding days.... in
that one brief moment, I shared
its freedom and simple delight, in
a space where mundane was an
unexpected and comforting joy.


http://dversepoets.com/2014/10/07/poetics-in-the-corner-of-your-eye/

Content

That comfortable star,
contented light, which
shines on fulfilled
heavens, satisfied and

willing, the Fates
appeased, that Soul
may then be gratified,
that complacent Self,

be at ease, at peace,
where comfort does
propitiate and rests,
sighing like a cat,

with milk still held on
uncleaned whiskers,
the day replete, as
night creeps serene

into conciliatory place,
snug, resigning to
the fading light where
calm surrender can

serve to soothe and
tranquilize in blessed,
fulfilment, concluding
in concord what was,

so what might be could
stir and later rise in
freshened harmony,
cleansed of discontent.

            

 

magic

Magic flew in circling mind,
drew with coloured brush,
danced upon the elements;
sang through tiny thrush.

In the song of certainty,
the possible released,
imagination took the stage;
such beauty was bequeathed.

http://poetryjaam.blogspot.com/2014/09/magic.html

Silence

How we crave for the sound of a loved one's voice,
how deep is the silence when we do not hear, that
ache, so hollow, devoid of echo, beating but out of
tune with the song that heart would sing; the notes

it would send forth, the chords it would strum, in
honour of the one who is so precious, so woven
through the very fibre of being, that there is no
true separation, despite the physical divide which

keeps us apart, as the bells toll sonorous and sad,
reminding us always that the loss of that tone is
something that will never be, or can be forgotten
and which will always be desired, here or gone,

even when there is a chance that it may not be
heard again, in that lilt of loving once possessed,
drawing together, two, as one, or even more, in
that way of being when people do surely belong.

Then the silence digs deep into the void of non-
being, striking sharp against the stones and rocks
of reality, bringing down the walls of possibility,
until, there is a place, where nothing can be heard.

Number

I.
Language of the heavens does inspire,
in number does the world express desire,
as conversation underpins it all
with information as the basic call.

In sacred steps the calculations rise,
each digit stands as true material prize,
the cipher does a firm foundation set,
so all is manifested, then and yet.

In robes of full imagining they stand,
cardinal and decimal go hand in hand,
integer and prime in serious dance,
as whole and ordinal do then advance.

Statistic, sum and total take the floor,
in steady counting now and evermore,
denominator, fractions do apply;
symbols which do make the angels sigh.


II.

The world does sing in number,
ancient songs of true connection,
drawing through the ages, all
that we can be, and that which will
be made manifest, through pure
and calculated imagining; rocked
gently in the cradle of becoming,
listening to the crooning of angels
who alone can speak the language
of mathematics birthing soul.


http://dversepoets.com/2014/10/02/n-7-huh-the-marriage-of-math-and-poetry/#comment-79276

Moments

Moments woven, knitted loosely on blunt needles,
ticking, clicking, knotting, tying, holding in place,
so many images, thoughts, feelings and fears -

as if, drawing it all together could make something
tangible, substantial, real, lasting, enduring, as if
in the threading together some form could be set

surely, securely, comfortingly, in my mind, where
all that was, could be held safely, kept tidy, locked
away, so that what had been could never be taken

away, as what was, had been taken, and what might
be, had been lost and unravelled, scattered across
the cold floor of being, tangled around the shabby

furniture of loving, leaving me alone, with no more
than the slow, sad, knitting together of fading threads
of fragile, soft and yielding lengths of bitter yarn.