The day ends,
bringing a sense of surprised escape
from a jail fenced in by a towering jumble
of building blocks thrown from a toy box
by a blundering giant,
the bricks making jagged walls and dead-end tunnels
through which I crawled,
tucking panic under a laughing mask,
my consciousness screaming, the stubborn silence
of my brave face blinding my eyes,
showing me nothing but the next task.
I fumbled forward,
cuts and bruises blooming in the dark.
Distracted by my acts,
pain translated into mumbling ache
which I sluggishly shoved aside.
Now sanctuary melts the ice,
awakening me to the grazes that sting my mind;
in the shock of hindsight
I briefly see scarlet clots expanding
in harsh white light
that sliced between erratic shards
and sharply trimmed each blackened shadow.
A magnanimous evening
ambles in to wave an amber goodnight,
its travelling rays casually caressing carefully collected
reflections of nature,
highlighting details of prized pieces.
A slice of fresh air lifts and expands
the clean fragrance of lavender and beeswax,
banishing my ramshackle day
to the skittish world of was and maybe;
breathing deeply,
I relax.
Beautiful she was,
though not
in a classic way; her eyes
might have been wider, her chin
was out of scale, her skin sprayed
with bigger freckles than her face
might have wished,
and she was shy,
yet those choked silences
foreshadowed mad acts of bravado
that tricked the eye.
We perceived a mystery
whose unpinned list of incongruities
expressed a vast forest
breathing beneath an ocean of leaves.
Boys reached, stretching
to scale the trees they envisaged,
thinking to straddle her misconceived branches,
to examine her seasons and keep count
of her rings.
They touched thin air
that felt like sun-kissed silk
which leads one into warm caress,
then melts and shrinks
and burns the flesh.
Girls snubbed her;
unnerved by the contest,
puzzled by her unerring and erstwhile
unwanted conquests,
they would have preferred to drag
her roots
from the earth.
Watching the confusion,
she sighed, knowing the sea was too deep.
She was a distant island; though waves
may lap at her slipping shore,
they rarely landed
at her core.
You ask me who I am,
this fool whose home-made skin
once glistened
with a million shades
of fake and real, incorporating
all the human I hungered to be
and wished to be envisaged in me;
this fool who
from a distance, glowed,
yet seen up close,
singed the eye.
You ask me who I am;
this woman so deeply seared
by uncertainty.
I can tell you I erred,
and that in erring,
I learned to learn,
crawling toward the cure
as each vain expectation,
each flaking fantasy,
each false pretence
was slaked away,
leaving me both less and more.
You ask me who I am
as I watch my multi-coloured dream-coat
shrink to flickering embers,
surrendered by my own hand
to the questing flames
of questioned truth.
You ask me who I am;
I’ll tell you what I know.
Old flesh shows through the vest
my mother dressed me in
long before I chose
my own showy clothes.
Its creases advertise passion
for laughter,
cheesecake
and peace in every corner.
Now and then my heart
aches from human disgrace
and residual shame.
beyond that,
I’m not yet sure
who I am.
This is my last-minute response to Gina at Singledust, who last week put out a call for bloggers to write a poem to introduce themselves, to be featured at The Godoggocafe.
A three-day lyrical challenge
The Rules:
1 .Thank the person who nominated you.
2 .Share one of your favourite song/lyrics one at a time for three days.
3 .Nominate three other bloggers each day. (or one, one is probably enough)
Day 3: I’m tagging Kate
Tracy Chapman’s lovely voice sings loud and clear, railing against abuse and poverty. I don’t need to introduce my goosebump-inducing choice; it speaks for itself.
Tracy Chapman: Behind the Wall
Last night I heard the screaming
Loud voices behind the wall
Another sleepless night for me
It won’t do no good to call
The police always come late
If they come at all
And when they arrive
They say, “they can’t interfere
With domestic affairs,
Between a man and his wife.”
And as they walk out the door
The tears well up in her eyes
Last night I heard the screaming
Then a silence that chilled my soul
I prayed that I was dreaming
When I saw the ambulance in the road
And the policeman said,
“I’m here to keep the peace.”
Will the crowd disperse
I think we all could use some sleep”
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Call me greedy if you like, but I’m lightening the tension with a pretty song about air It’s one of the songs I sang to my children when they were small – along with anything else I enjoyed, from Leonard Cohen to Steppenwolf.
The Incredible String Band: Air
Breathing, all creatures are
Brighter then than brightest star
You are by far
You come right inside of me
Close as you can be
You kiss my blood
And my blood kiss me
Dear Mr McDonald,
What is your measure of success
in this besmirched world?
Do you keep an inventory
of the acres of Mcflurry cups
laying limp on motorway verges,
crushed by passing cars and trucks,
shunted along pavements by indifferent kids,
do you take note of the uneaten meat
that lurks beneath waste paper,
gathering in fences and shrubberies,
wilting in parks, gardens and alleyways,
littering our once verdant lanes?
Dear Mr McDonald
and all who follow in your wake,
Do you keep records –
records of shame,
or does your corporate heart
soar with infamous pride
at the sight of your name?
1 .Thank the person who nominated you.
2 .Share one of your favourite song/lyrics one at a time for three days.
3 .Nominate three other bloggers each day. (or one, one is probably enough)
Thank you for nominating me for this challenge, Ivor. You’ve added a fresh dimension to my blog.
Today I’m using the challenge to focus on homelessness, which is on the increase in the UK as in many other parts of the world. Our heartless government is turning the screws, introducing policies that result in some of the most vulnerable people being thrown onto the streets. We have become a miserable nation. Poverty, desperation and suicide are all on alarming increase.
I’ve chosen Ralph McTell’s classic song Streets of London, which was what originally alerted me to the reality of life on the streets. It has been covered numerous times, and is to homelessness what Barry Mcguire’s song, The Eve of Destruction, is to war.
This is my favourite video of Ralph singing this, since it features him over the years. demonstrating how his voice has become richer with maturity. It includes a short interview near the end.
Have you seen the old man
In the closed-down market
Kicking up the paper,
With his worn out shoes?
In his eyes you see no pride
Hand held loosely at his side
Yesterday’s paper telling yesterday’s news
So how can you tell me you’re lonely,
And say for you that the sun don’t shine.
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
I’ll show you something to make you change your mind
Have you seen the old girl
Who walks the streets of London
Dirt in her hair and her clothes in rags?
She’s no time for talking,
She just keeps right on walking
Carrying her home in two carrier bags.
So how can you tell me you’re lonely,
And say for you that the sun don’t shine.
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
I’ll show you something to make you change your mind
In the all night cafe
At a quarter past eleven,
Same old man sitting there on his own
Looking at the world
Over the rim of his tea-cup,
Each tea lasts an hour
Then he wanders home alone
So how can you tell me you’re lonely,
Don’t say for you that the sun don’t shine.
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
I’ll show you something to make you change your mind
Have you seen the old man
Outside the Seaman’s Mission
Memory fading with the medal ribbons that he wears
In our winter city,
The rain cries a little pity
For one more forgotten hero
And a world that doesn’t care
So how can you tell me you’re lonely,
And say for you that the sun don’t shine.
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
I’ll show you something to make you change your mind
I’m stunned. This is an absolutely brilliant poem. Paul Sunstone says it’s “possibly the very best anti-war poem I’ve ever read.” Possibly? POSSIBLY? Either he is a fool, or he’s too ignorant to be able to spell the word ‘undeniably’. Both, I suspect. The poem was written – and spoken – by Sarah at Fresh hell.
Trying to do a slam-style poem. I really hope the audio turned out OK on this. Apologies if it’s too quiet, I’m still figuring out how to make videos.
If I imagine them
Taking my brother away to war
I shatter.
I don’t want to lose anyone.
Especially not to something as stupid
As war.
Maybe you like the idea of war
Because you’ve confused real life with action movies.
Maybe you hate another group of people for what they have done.
I can’t convince you to forgive another’s atrocities
That is something you must grow into on your own.
But I can beg you this:
When dogs of war bark
Don’t feed them.
You will be told it is the honorable thing To die for your…
Ivor has tagged me in a challenge. I expect he saw me curled up under my dining table and felt sorry for me. It’s not the way it sounds. I crawled under there to retrieve a chocolate that I mislaid a few of weeks ago. I found something that looked chocolate shaped and assumed the grey-green organic-looking stuff was a coating of mould, so I ate it. How was I to know it was my son’s stash? Anyway, I’m awake now, and ready to carry out the challenge.
If you believe any of what I have just written, then you don’t know that I’ve been infected by a recently discovered germ which goes by the name of Paulococcus Sunstoneria. It gets into the brain and causes its victims to write shameless nonsense. Click on the link below to find out more about this. I make no apology for bringing up Paulococcus Sunstoneria, since, despite its peculiar nature, it is believed to be a deterrent against war.
1 .Thank the person who nominated you.
2 .Share one of your favourite song/lyrics one at a time for three days.
3 .Nominate three other bloggers each day. (or one, one is probably enough)
I have to start with Leonard Cohen; he has been with me since he released his first single, Suzanne, in the late 1960s. His voice and lyrics have soothed me through all kinds of tribulation and continue to do. These days I have a need for silence, but I hear his songs in my head and I sing along with him.
The song was written in 1966 by Leonard Cohen in a hotel room, where he also wrote:
The room is too hot. I can’t open the windows. I am in the midst of a bitter quarrel with a blonde woman. The song is half-written in pencil but it protects us as we manoeuvre, each of us, for unconditional victory. I am in the wrong room. I am with the wrong woman.
In 1976 I walked away from the man I love, since it was the right thing to do. By this time the song had been covered by several artists, and Cohen himself had included it in his album, The Songs of Leonard Cohen. I played the album over and over, each time holding my breath, waiting for one song, so I was unable to fully enjoy the other tracks – all of which deserved my full attention. The song is Hey, That’s No Way to say Goodbye.
I’ve chosen the Leonard Cohen/Julie Felix version. I was fortunate enough to see Cohen live in the mid 1970s when his encore stretched out to become a repeat of the set arrangement. It was almost the end of a tour, and he was emotional. Rather than looking forward to a rest, he seemed to wasn’t it to go on forever.
I’ve seen Julie Felix twice, a pleasant, friendly woman who cheerfully converses with her fans during the interval – and in the street, as my mother discovered.
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm
Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm
Yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new
In city and in forest they smiled like me and you
But now it’s come to distances and both of us must try
Your eyes are soft with sorrow
Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye
I’m not looking for another as I wander in my time
Walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme
You know my love goes with you as your love stays with me
It’s just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea
But let’s not talk of love or chains and things we can’t untie
Your eyes are soft with sorrow
Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye
I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm
Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm
Yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new
In city and in forest they smiled like me and you
But let’s not talk of love or chains and things we can’t untie
Your eyes are soft with sorrow
Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye
When I entered the bar room,
there was you;
you
playing pool;
lining up your eye,
preparing to shoot the cue.
A bluff landlord pulled drinks
while punters gesticulated and sipped,
ticking in time to a spinning world
that receded into yester-land,
leaving me behind, an island
absorbed in the core
of your stillness.
I had never
set eyes on you before,
you had not yet seen me,
yet I recognised you
and I knew;
I knew
that I loved you.
My romance with George had been a game of amore,
my liaison with Dave an amateur lesson in practical passion.
I rinsed their names from my wall.
A friend whispered
“Frankie”.
I took a picture of your name
and placed it with the gathered information;
your hair, like a spent storm-cloud’s golden lining,
your eyes a paint-box summer sky,
the shape of your face,
the angle of your slender hip,
the half-apologetic twist of your lip
accompanied by a shrug, after you pocketed the black.
Black denim on your legs, black cotton
covering your tempting back,
black leather belt.
I cannot say I was patient;
my days and nights were filled with images of you,
dreams of our first meeting, and of our future,
I waited, sure that you would find me soon.
Later,
each added page of data
was warmed by your presence.
Every hour I spent with you,
every thought inspired by you,
every single part of you
is imprinted,
beneath your name,
on the peaceful gravestone
of my heart.
Judy kindly invited me to write a post using the irresistible title of her poem, so I stayed up late (as usual) to write it.
You hoard
names of the dead
like the pain of loss is yours alone;
cataloguing, quantifying, dwelling,
possessing, obsessing,
rooting for excuses
to imprison them inside your head.
Memory upgrades acquaintances to friends,
distant kin met once in your thumb-sucking days –
when you spun away in disdain –
become uncles that you always loved.
Haven’t you lost enough?
Don’t you suffer enough?
It smacks of greed for sick fame;
a wish to obtain the world’s most comprehensive
collection of grief,
as if you have a grand ambition
to be listed in the Guinness book of records,
or to become a respected expert
in your field of graves
where flowers wither
while you sift sand
in the desert of self-pity.
Clinging to the dead brings misery;
care for the living instead.
Shapening views in such a structure that the readers get a way better eye to look at this beauty cum world. #https://m.facebook.com/bubblesoliloquy123/
Making it write 