In Search of Ghosts
A collection of
poems
by Lea Knowles
Preface
So what are the ‘ghosts’? They are the unseen spirits that confuse where
there seems no logic or reason for witholding truth or enlightenment. They are
the unfulfilled spirits that want to block our vitality, our ambition, our
creativity. They are the frustrations with which it seems we all to some degree
must endure. And they are whisps of air we breathe that nevertheless give us
hope.
Contents
Page
AN ASSORTMENT
OF RANDOM FOOTLINGS – haiku-style 4
IN SEARCH OF
GHOSTS
Echoes 6
Dandelions 1 6
Dandelions 2 6
Shallow Breathing 7
The Stranger Within 7
I Satellite 7
Stamp of Approval 8
The Thing 8
Her Front Garden 9
Politician 9
The End Merchants 9
In Search of Ghosts 10
Skeleton 10
View from the Hill 11
The River Bank 11
Moonstruck 11
Mother of Borno 12
These Roads 12
There is a Cave 13
A Guiding Voice 13
For Oxfam 14
Emptiness 14
Deathbed 15
You Know Who You Are 15
End of a Good Man 16
Soldiers 16
War Poets 16
MH17 17
Paper Lanterns 17
May 17
After Autumn Rain 18
Hibernation 18
Syria 19
War Over 19
Here is the News 19
Railway Children 20
End of the War 21
Clouds 21
St Symphorien 22
War Graves 22
Do Not Mention the War 23
These Woods 24
Still Born 25
Why do I Dream of .... 25
Portrait 26
Geology 26
Host 26
Haunted House 27
The Chapel 28
Advent Calendar 28
Biscaholic 29
Race of Life 29
From the Ruins 29
The Key 29
Saints 29 Two Tribes 29
Child’s Grave 30
On a Stroll through Flaybrick 30
Clock Flowers 31
Cuckoo 31
From Dark Strata 31
Rest in Peace 32
Cave Painting 32
Closing Down 32
Restless
Queen of the Desert 33
Traffickers 33
AN ASSORTMENT OF RANDOM
FOOTLINGS
up with the early sun
chill air and sparkling grass
is mine alone
the longest day
don’t want to lose a minute
for the new light brings new life
sitting in the sun
writing another haiku
that no-one will read
she’s abandoned me
my muse of creative thought
dying leaves cloak my way
this blue shining day
fruit swelling on the bushes
yet a north wind blows
I no longer need a watch
length of day no longer matters
you’re gone forever
water the healer
rejuvenator from the
throat of desert fire
in Death Valley
simple mound of stones
where a dream perished
Monument valley
the road an arrow shooting
straight at the national heart
mountain cold, wet skin
crocked knees, aching tendons
but soup and an open fire
my highland mind
flowing river of memories
where do they go
they’ve felled the giant oak
ten score summers rise in smoke
soft whispers the rain
countdown to new year
oh that we could slough
all the world’s dead skin
banks of the Nile
early morning washing the
grime and stains of life
watching hunters
at the edge of time
stalk the Jabiru wetlands
first frost of winter
only now the sheepish sun
peeps over the rooftops
hailstorm overnight
battering my car until
it started screaming
frail but smiling
she waved us on our way
for the last time.
a hole in the cloud
a vaster sky of thinner air
where only angels fly.
realising dog-walkers
are part of the scene I am in
not intruders on it
springtime awakening
walking on the rim of a
new crater of being
like seeing the world
wearing full make-up
dressed in total finery
avoiding labelling myself
unique assemblage of particles
lucky to be here and now
IN SEARCH OF GHOSTS
ECHOES
Time has never
forgotten
those soulless
perverse and
rotten,
who ignored the
universal cry
which, carried on
a breeze
echoes as it swells
and multiplies
bursting through
the centuries
risking all
demanding to be
heard -
the cry for
freedom -
such a radiant
bird. 2009
DANDELIONS 1
The guiltless
crowds demand their say
but soon the
scythes will have their sway,
and the
dandelions that will always flower
come what may
push through the
cracks, splitting flags
to have their day. 2008
DANDELIONS 2
The pikes and bugles of the foxgloves
did battle with the air
goaded by the stingers,
mettle tested
blown and blasted
shredded on a whim
in anger shouted
‘Let us see your face!
We will hide within no mercenary breeze
nor strip the high ground bare -
that land is won for those who ever doubted,
for our’s is no disgrace’. 2008
SHALLOW BREATHING
They snipped the wires
stopped the clock and
the guns fell silent.
The agonised wail of the bell
choked on itself;
its bony splinters no longer spat through my day.
And I, cast ashore
no longer the beleaguered ship
senses clinging to the mast,
no longer at war -
drifting rudderless in the endless sea of words.
For the first time I truly listened to the chorus of birds
and understood their song
honeying summer with their promises.
But now I lie,
awake inside each deep and fretful hour
painting images on my eye-lids of my former self
bold and strong
that deters sleep and leaves me
fearful of my own shallow breathing. 2014
THE STRANGER WITHIN
How to restore that taste of fantastic danger,
prove to yourself you are less of a
stranger,
hold it on your tongue for as long as you can
then chew it to bits and swallow like a man. 2013
I SATELLITE
Sling shot between the planets
I’ve been catapulted here
whizzing into outer space as all of NASA cheer.
They have a demanding target and honestly, I get it
but now my sun’s so far away
and I’m starting to regret it. 2014
STAMP OF APPROVAL
Left for the post box at twenty to three,
fully expected I’d be home for tea;
still deep in a queue and feeling tired –
a first class stamp was all I required!
Guy at the front has a weighty parcel
that could easily crush an exposed
metatarsal.
And behind him its Betty – she hasn’t come far –
had the good sense not to come in her car
though she struggles with a jar that once held gob-stoppers -
now filled to the brim with 5p’s and coppers
that all needs weighing and bagging up
which brings me to the problem that needs flagging up:
On pension day youcan’t get a look in;
on double yellow lines you’re riskin’ a bookin’
from enthusiastic wardens or even the cops
who harrass this road daily till the penny drops.
Meanwhile I’m fidgeting here in the line
praying I avoid a parking fine.
and heaven forbid, a stint in gaol –
but there’s no way to hurry the Royal Mail.
All I want is that stamp of approval
before the car’s clamped or worse, its removal –
If it’s impounded, what a disgrace.
I may be a while before returning to base
so I’ve written this letter just in case
it’s some time before I show my face -
but I haven’t a stamp, so I’ll be late for tea -
though I left for the post box at twenty to three. 2014
THE THING
It used to to live at the bottom of the hill
but its better at the top;
it used to stand completely still
but now will never stop.
It waves its arms throughout the day
rainy, cold or clear;
it always seems to have its way
but what it is I’ve no idea! 2013
HER FRONT GARDEN
Some days
she’d be tending the borders and beds
irrigating bright waterfalls of flower
weeding paths, clipping heads
bold sun smiling her through the noon-day hours.
As she weaves us a generous bouquet
she potters and glides
leaving pleasures to be shared on the way
willingly ceded from her English soil
a gift to the spirit
like a welcome for a stranger
she hums along with the bees
whispers to the air
and smiles her way into evening. 2014
POLITICIAN
Widely regarded as the horned beast to
some folk north of Grantham,
certainly remembered for those dismembered lives.
Chances are they’ll name a hurricane in her honour
or an earthquake,or lava flow,
forest fire or tsunami
– a fitting choice of which way to
go. 2014
THE END MERCHANTS
It has been reported
they are from another world
that creates no doors – only windows.
They look out through the cackle of TV
at their own perplexed reflections in
the cloudy, mirthless puddles of neverland
where reality has been urged to forget
where it came from, how it got here
obsessed with oblivion
failing to consider how to breathe.
IN SEARCH OF GHOSTS
Sometimes when in a special place
I feel the strong arm of time
reaching from the ground
grasping my ankle
urging me to acknowledge those who passed this way
lived and prayed, toiled
and now forgotten lie,
though the stones, the air and soil
claim them still. 2013
SKELETON
Lose some weight – that’s what you mean to say.
I’d lose it tomorrow if I had my way
but my will power is lacking – no pills for that!
Nor ointment for dissolving unwanted fat.
My blood pressure’s high and cholesterol soaring
saturated fat made my mealtimes less boring.
I did trim the bacon and avoided red meat
but now and again felt I needed a treat.
I held off the custard, the chocolate and biscuit
but the occasional pudding – I decided to risk it
and let my fangs sink into irresistable crumble -
nobody forced me so I really can’t grumble.
Exercise more – I knew it made sense
but my get up and go long since got up and went.
On demands of my sweet tooth I took no control
since I asked my dear mother ‘Can I lick the bowl?’
I could not resist long the gorgeously tasty
hence I’ve too much to show that is
all flab and pasty.
So it’s all down to me – entirely my fault
now I’m becoming a skeleton and live in a vault. 2014
VIEW FROM THE HILL
The eye of the telescope
swoops over rooftops
peers over walls and glides
along the grey streets and gutters
picking out the city spires and
weathervaned towers,
heart beating with illicit greed
plucking a greedy share
to place succulent in my lap
assuage an appetite for the unseen past
to be digested, absorbed,
to view a kind of private resurrection. 2013
THE RIVER BANK
She slithered down the river bank
to the muddy water’s edge
where stepping stones led
and the waters raced between her toes.
Laughing and gurgling the river rose
careless of danger, drowning her dreams,
dissolving hopes
her tangled body now a hostile stranger
too hard for her to forgive,
even harder to love. 2013
MOONSTRUCK
Little darling across the frozen miles
it’s been so long, so very long -
no means to stretch and touch your poor face.
So indecent our separation – wrong place, wrong time -
such a collision of forces, cataclysm of fire
and there you were, adrift in atomic clouds
cast like a spell, parted
yet always your face calling for attention,
afraid of the dark side drawing my love towards you
in my sunless hours;
so close little darling
yet forever out of reach. 2014
MOTHERS OF BORNO
Bright galleons down dusty roads asway
with burdens they do not deserve
bundles of firewood no-one dares light
even as darkness deepens
on scars that cannot heal
where arms and legs are useless
and faces refuse to smile,
fearing forever silence of the drums. 2014
THESE ROADS
These roads I’ve known all my life
remembered since a child
built into my inner satnav
from times I rambled wild
and far in truth all summer long
my wheels would rarely stop
unless to mend a puncture
or buy some fizzy pop.
I had no need for helmet,
gears – I had but three
but the steepest slopes, the roughest tracks
held no fear for me.
I’d cycle umpteen miles to school
finding new short cuts
following tracks of times gone by,
their cobbles and miry ruts.
I’d try to beat the school bus home
up gradients steep and long;
my lungs and legs were burning but
my heart was full of song.
And so the quest continues:
this little piece of earth
to own in heart and soul this place
I’ve been breathing in since birth. 2014
THERE IS A CAVE
There is a cave deep and dark
within the canyon bleak and stark;
Time drips from its colossal ceiling
where generations sought rest and healing
staring into a darkness deep
pleading to escape eternal sleep
or at least the light of dawn to break
and fresh familiar breaths to take.
Those who could run, surely ran,
loping prints left in the sand;
those who could crawled through the crowd
leaving those who could cry to cry aloud.
Assembled, they shouted into the void
listened in vain for echoes buoyed
by the deep soothing hum of Time within
but were swallowed by the roaring din.
And still they shouted, a thousand questions
threw spears of barbed suggestions
until with the echo of voices the mountain shook
of those who had suffered since the sacred book
sprang from the very earth wherein they lay.
Our people have shown you the truth, the way
but can no longer wait for your reply -
we are born, we cry, we feel pain, we die.
Bubbles of hope burst all around us.
Compassion has limits, intolerance confounds us
and yet our faith goes unrewarded
even now lives go unrecorded.
If you can hear me above the moaning serge
now is the time from the shadows, to
emerge. 2014
A GUIDING VOICE
From the oldest living things I know,
wisdom from the forest;
but to tell her how I truly feel
I need advice from my high street florist. 2013
FOR OXFAM
I’d like to donate my feelings
wrapped in leaves of gold
but I know that freely given
such things can’t be resold;
so, I’ll give you his clothes –
no need for them now;
he would have been seriously pleased
to donate them anyhow.
Please take these books –
they just clutter up the shelf -
they’re not really my taste
having read them myself.
And have his CDs
and the tapes and records galore -
to which I can honestly say
I’ll listen no more.
His poems and paintings
you are welcome to sell
though what they are worth
I really can’t tell.
And you may as well have
all these guidebooks and maps,
places we’ve been
and one day perhaps I will visit again –
in my memory at least.
Anything else that I find
you’re most welcome to take –
all but the love that so makes my heart break. 2012
EMPTINESS
And in those times the people wailed
And in those times the nations watched
Adding leaves to the book of disgrace
Empty as a plate, empty as a pocket
Empty as a wallet, empty as a gun
Empty as a diary, empty as a suitcase
Empty as a song, empty as a conscience
Empty as a future, empty as forgiveness
Empty as a promise, empty as a heart
Full as a graveyard
And there was no rejoicing in the nations of the plenty
And the children learned their lessons well. 2012
DEATHBED
Don’t come to me on your deathbed
complaining of tracks in the snow
when all you have done is admire the landscape
too tired, or afraid, to get out and go. 2014
YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE
This is text just to say
I have sent you an email – seems no other way.
Your recent behaviour has shown quite clearly
You don’t want to write or speak on the phone,
a feeling perhaps mutual for all you do
is slag me off wildly
saying things quite untrue.
I know you resent me –
for some reason feel bitter –
I’ve read all your comments on Facebook and Twitter –
to my mind completely under the belt.
We could once have talked about how you felt
at the brink of the grave you said you loved me
but not to my face –
you’d rather have shoved me In –
no doubt some strange retribution
though for what I don’t know as
you make no contribution
to building a bridge over water so troubled –
you just tended your cauldron till it boiled and bubbled.
As children we fought – yes, and perhaps I was mean
but that’s what kids do and it’s frankly obscene
to carry round and display your poisonous sac
smearing my name with venomous attack;
searching for sympathy – is that your game?
Touting the line that it’s me who’s to blame
for your lack of ambition, your confidence shot–
Well your life’s what you made it girl –
like it or not. 2014
END OF A GOOD MAN
He must have died
a thousand deaths of sorrow
trapped by history
entombed in a living grave
never to lie in woodland
or listen to birdsong
or the voice of a deadly frost.
He heard instead
voices of people who were not there
thrown about by an unforgiving wind
spectres shadow-close, swift as bats
that came to roost on his granite shoulders.
This hunter of non-permitted dreams
who had fought against the command
of everyone he had ever known
to stumble down the slipway
out of time and quietly insane
until the silent hillside had the last word. 2014
SOLDIERS
For those poor soldiers
who never get out of the past
dig themselves free from the mud
and the blood
never climb into their future.
The world continues to write
its chronicle of war
with lessons that in all probability
we’ll ignore. 2013
WAR POETS
Every age has its song
fuelled by love and inspiration,
muses that every poet craves;
the Great War gave us many young voices
and sent them to early graves. 2014
MH17
There is a field in a foreign land
where madness and death lie hand in hand,
the menace of power that toys with dreams
tearing faith and love apart at the seams. 2014
PAPER LANTERNS
To see the world as a toy, a game
where true badness has not yet risen –
just the temporary blotches of dawn:
Eat your breakfast, put your coat on,
put that down,
stop arguing,
don’t tease, be nice.
Just to be all the things they’re supposed to be –
paper lanterns lighting a darkening sky. 2013
MAY
Soft and innocent
May blossoms full of promise
busting with suggestion, delicate and fruity
the hint of summer days -
a bit of a cutie.
Say the name aloud –
the suggestion of a smile that puts you at your ease,
but maybe she will, maybe she won’t -
a Mona Lisa, a bit of a tease.
But those still velvet nights
she just promises with her eyes and thinks
to leave us with unpredictable hope -
a bit of a minx. 2014
AFTER AUTUMN RAIN
Bursting with fruitfulness, harvest home
before the first sign of winter
watching the hillside colours turn day by day
as the sun sinks, the last rays striking the trees with gold on gold,
leaves that will soon be strewn across lawns
clogging lanes with cool squelchiness;
plastering the pavement flags with latent injury
likewise apple and fig crushed underfoot, caking the ground
beckoning wasps from miles around
and the wayside blackberry –
farewell gift from summer
always stripped by the time I get there
cheated by autumnal flu –
always something to look forward to. 2013
HIBERNATION
If we could hibernate
pull up the duvet till the winter goes
we could have some answers to the nation’s woes – indeed
if we emerged with the arrival of spring
what benefits to the world might this bring;
surely it would be a better place
gving air a breathing space;
much less illness, reducing bills,
spending less on energy, food and pills.
No greenhouse gases, no junk mail,
no frustration when your broadband fails;
wars and crime and riots would cease –
cool the hot-heads who don’t want peace.
No highway pile-ups in the fog,
no time to waste on tweet or blog;
Give ocean fish a chance to breed,
waking to growth having sown the seed.
No more cooking for a while
no more Eastenders – what a trial! -
cleaning, ironing, washing up
put on hold till spring is up.
There’d be some regrets – well, we just might
be invaded by aliens overnight
who’d find us dozy, our minds a muddle
and take over the Earth without a struggle. 2014
There is no love left in
Syria, she says;
when she sleeps she feels
she carries the souls of
her friends
in her heart
and will do so till the end
of her days. 2014
WAR OVER
For her the war’s not over,
there will be no pipes of
peace.
The killing fields may
bloom with clover
but the guns will never
cease. 2014
HERE IS THE NEWS
Night-clouds of news
close in
blown by a distant
storm
a local rumble of
thunder
gust of hail
thrown at our open
windows.
Dark closing in to
swamp the screen
almost too hard to
bear
punching holes in the
walls
from where love has
frequently flown,
if ever it was there.
And something sinister
stalks the streets
leaving a trail of the
fragile and vulnerable
the innocent and the
weak.
War amid rumours of
war
powerlust and
repression
greed and spiral
depression
and the inevitable
decree
from whatever powers
there be
that of humanity there
will be a dearth
for it’s the bleak
shall inherit the earth. 2013
RAILWAY
CHILDREN
At the first faint distant
whistle
we don boots and speed
across dewy grass
that squeaks as we run
through clover and thistle
forging dark multiple
tracks that glisten with sun.
Then each holding the wire
for another to pass
we race through the timber
yard
with the growing growl of
thunder
of a monster panting hard
To be first onto the
briar-tangled bridge
and sling our knees over as
the engine climbs the ridge
we wait and watch for
trailing black plumes
huffing round the curve
beyond
the line of poplars before
the train appears
taking on the long slow
grinding of the hill
hauling trucks of ore from
Canada down to Shotton mill.
We tapped out the rhythm
with sticks
‘culack-culack,
culack-culack’
till the wild old man
drowns us out
with his snorting and
clanking
into the cutting where the
din pummelled our ears.
Engine driver - fixed stare
but
we know we have been seen
as we scamper to the other
side.
We try to count the trucks
as
blusters of black smoke belch
in our downturned faces
smut-flecked eager monkey
eyes shine.
Soon we’d be swearing
denial
though the signal to our
mothers is clear as a whistle.
‘Forty-two’ we mouthed,
deaf to our own voices
as the last trucks slowly
flowed beneath us -
Follow my leader ‘culack-culack,
culack-culack’
shrinking down the track.
A silence grows out of the
morning -
the sign to go, whooping
and chuffing
all the way along our own
clear tracks
towards breakfast – and a
hot ear! 2014
END OF THE WAR
Empty room, empty
chair
empty plate and mug;
empty bed on summer
nights
with no arms to hold,
no arms to hug.
The ghost of a voice,
silhouette against the
window frame;
she leans her head
and lingers there,
her heart too hurt to
blame. 2014
CLOUDS
Something about the
clouds today -
fleeing from the ravaged
north
ragged and raw, ripped
and shredded
as if coming in from
some monstrous maw
threading with their
sad stories
reluctant to let the
sun shine through.
Watching, I expected
to be spat on
by showers of
frustration
that wept their day. 2014
ST SYMPHORIEN
Enemies before kings
but united before God
in the tragedy of
Faith. 2014
WAR GRAVES
All lined up, waiting
for the day, blessing
their good fortune to
be facing the rising
sun.
Sombre, quiet,
well dressed for their
age;
well behaved, though
others now lying
they stand tall,
Christian soldiers,
not propped against a
tree
or slouched against a
wall.
Their age – often
nothing at all –
against the young
death bears no grudge,
nipped in the bud, so
to speak,
with a tune on their
lips
still as a memory
this bright, chill,
fateful morning.
Still as a broken
heart
a hundred years on. 2014
DO NOT MENTION THE WAR
Do not mention the war
or causes considered
worth killing for –
we’ve heard it all
before.
Do not mention the
million dead
or the cumulative
tolling in our heads
for which Time, when
all is said and done
makes inadequate reparation
after causing
community and friendship
and childhood and
humanity to die.
Don’t pretend it’s all
for God.
Don’t pretend it will
be over by Christmas
in time for the bells
to ring.
Don’t try to disguise
the truth:
daddy will be home
soon,
perhaps he has been
wounded in his hand,
perhaps he cannot
write.
So little solace in
collective love
and bonds of
motherhood.
Never has so much pain
tried to penetrate
the conscience of so
few
while they watch their
young ones
at play in the rubble,
sticks for rifles
looking for shrapnel,
ghosts of the future.
So many shattered
dreams litter
the hall of mirrors;
so many skies on fire.
I have witnessed the
solid waves of Normandy
where heroes lie but
where are the other
ones?
At home in bed, or in
a foreign field,
or simply nowhere – known
only unto God.
Once we were an
island,
unreachable,
unbreachable.
There are no islands
any more
and obvious lessons
seem unteachable.
I’m tired of feeling,
rescuing thoughts from
each drowning wave
where hands were
washed centuries ago
and we, left to fulfil
our own dismembered
destiny.
So do not mention the
war –
whichever war you mean.
Fold away your flags,
show me no maps or
plans.
Spare me the horrors
of lives in flames
the choking statistics
that grimace
on our progress down
the road to destruction.
Don’t reassure me
things will be better
after the war, for
through the cracks I clearly see
the disgrace, the sick black hole of humanity. 2014
THESE WOODS
These woods and glades
I carry in my heart
and though apart I’ve thought of them as mine,
always, even into the
autumn of my days
as their greens once
more to golden brown
change and twist in
spiral down.
To see in springtime
buds emerge
as bright fresh leaves
induce a surge
of sadness as I
realize
how few such springs
will yet
please my ears and eyes;
and so for summer woods
I’ll not wait but see
and walk them through though
deep snow lies. 2011
STILL BORN
She comes to me
sometimes
from nowhere, out of
nothing,
plays around in my
head
bidding me lie with
her a while
to try to make sense
of her,
sculpt phrases that
pass through some inner lens
of approval and could
focus on
the conception of a
child –
my child, who may with
devotion grow
into my diamond
thought and emotion.
Often I lose the fight
- can’t get close enough,
can get no clear sight
of her,
can’t winkle myself in,
rhythm and metre
flawed as
the plight of the
child unable to thrive,
denied the oxygen
blast, the shot in the vein
who thus cannot
survive,
dumped in the vacant
world of lost words
washed colourless by
the rain. 2012
WHY DO I DREAM OF ....
Since a young boy,
waking in the night
sitting up in bed
surrounded by the dampness of my fears,
fears to soften the
white hot memory of TV screens locked on
entombed, forced to
watch the battleships move in,
a choking portent of
my mortality - I asked if I would die.
On other full-mooned
nights I’d find myself
chased by slavering
jaws inches from my leg
but from somewhere
summon the power of flight
and launch myself to
the heart-pounding safety of wakefulness.
Now in my later years
when it no longer seems to matter
I wake with the same
gasp of relief – my implausible
turbid existence no
threat and calmness of spirit restored.
Why do I recall so
few, as if they serve no purpose but to terrify
and why do I rarely
win but turn to flight?
I used to try to
dictate my dreams and drift away in golden thought
but it seems that
outcomes can’t be wrought at will.
Must I conclude that
the message is one of disconnectedness,
ensured to vapourize
and the only benefit I receive
is to greet another
dawn. 2014
PORTRAIT
From our perspective
her past seemed a
fuscous world
scrubbed clean of
sound and colour
leaving only
conjecture:
Was she gazing into
the lens or
looking out and
beyond,
looking out for her
daughters
to tell them she was
happy then. 2013
GEOLOGY
Absorbed by damp
accretions
weathered rock, cosmic
dust
the rot and
dissolution of time
till barely a stain
remains.
Choked for millennia
by bog -
only the mould of clay
the angle of bone
betray
the sullen arrangement
of stars
the elemental constant
of DNA
throughout ages of
ignorance
draws me into a past I
never knew
shared with the now
conserved for the
future
along with our own
slender horizon. 2010
HOST
I am your universal
provider
Your most benevolent host
Without me you’d have had
your chips
And your bread would now be
toast. 2013
HAUNTED HOUSE
They say the house is
haunted,
no vagabond nor vandal
goes there –
too scared to make the
creak upon the stair
that might wake the
spirit,
as spiders drop and
cobwebs tangle in your hair.
Down the corridors and
halls
there sounds the
mournful note -
wind beneath the oaken
door that whines
on crusted hinges.
A sudden flap of
curtain brings
dryness to your throat
and that thumping
is this frightened
heart of mine.
Above the cawing of a
bird
black and hooded a
scratching noise is heard -
a rat within the
rafters perhaps;
it’s hard to be
mistaken
with the air bled dry,
forsaken
But for the distant
sound of laughter.
Only once did I enter
–
must be two hundred
years ago
in a trick of mist and
morning sun,
something unexplained none
will ever know.
Some say it’s not
haunted –
just the decaying of
the past
though it attracts a
film crew to the yard
who fear to venture in
–
well, if it’s not
haunted, it’s been trying very hard
to get someone to
listen;
it’s been such a long
long time I
scarcely can believe
I have dwelt within
these walls, searching,
and never felt the
urge to leave. 2014
THE CHAPEL
A mouth once welcomed
believers in song,
that gapes at the
world in distress
through heathen slats
and wire mesh
daring to silence the
word of God.
The dearly beloved have
now departed,
their shattered
slates, their
desecrated walls razed
and gone
yet defiant the chapel stands
victim, snipers’ target,
collateral damage
left for dead.
Old years of worship
strew the splintered path
that polished feet long
since ceased to tread
and through acheing Victorian
ribs
lozenges of sky break
in
and try to form a star
from the debris of
devotion. 2015
ADVENT CALENDAR
We’re making an advent
calendar,
my grandson and I,
to hang on the kitchen
wall
with the Christmas
tree nearby.
It won’t show
traditional nativity:
behind each window
there’ll
a photo of a
footballer
from Everton FC.
The sky will be blue
and the ball, and the
grass,
to go with the footy
shirts,
the donkey, ox and
ass.
Only last night
we went to a grotto
‘Nil Satis Nisi Optimum’
is
the Toffees motto
so as the January window
is getting quite near
I asked Santa if he’d sign
for us early next year.
Only twenty-four days
–
no time for fatigue
if Santa’s going to
win us
the Premier League. 2014
BISCAHOLIC
I just had to eat all
them biscuits,
I was doin’ you all a favour;
I bravely thought I’d
risk it
in spite of their
dubious flavour.
Ys, I managed to eat
the whole plate
but they really were
quite small
and perilously near
their use-by date
so I had to eat them
all.
No need for you to go
on –
you should really feel
pity for me:
commiserate now that
they’ve all gone
I’ve nothing left to
dunk in my tea. 2015
RACE OF LIFE
Racing to the cemetery
quick as Nigel Mansell
-
arrived in the nick of
time
to find the funeral
cancelled. 2015
FROM THE RUINS
A man once owned a
ruin –
stones and moss
and shadow that had
lain together
through the dynasties
of kings
invisible even to the
reducing hand
of nature, with
co-conspirators
time and death
and regal pride whose
lost ancestors
may concede that the chaos
of old night
has been overcome,
captured and tamed
into beauty. 2013
THE KEY
A child gave me a key,
unexpectedly;
I tried it in the
nearest lock –
quick twist and a door
creaked open
letting in sound and
vision, revealing
the truth of what lies
below ground
concealed from everyday
people.
He could not fathom
these hoary depths,
nor say where the passageways
lead
unaware of the subtlety
of their ways
that may search till
their heart is dead.
SAINTS
The coast of Wales endured
such gales
and torments of the
sea
where cliffs collapse
onto the beach
eroding constantly.
Each tide returns and
sifts and churns
the debris on the
shore,
strips apart to reveal
the hearts
of saints who live no
more.
Though man concealed
the waves revealed
the contents of a
tomb;
no flesh nor bone but
shadows alone -
ghosts in a
cathedral’s womb.
TWO TRIBES
Two tribes fight by
night and day –
they’re not sure why –
always been that way,
vying to score, to
have their say
but there’s a hole in
the fence
where their children
play.
CHILD’S GRAVE
Bittersweet tang of
leaf mould
hangs in the air,
in dawn light young
sprigs
nod condolences – yew
tree berries
oak, chestnut, holly
to crown your head
and the rising sun to
gild your bed
with charms of the
mellow season
that prevent you
growing older.
Frolicksome costumed
gaiety says
your memory will not
moulder
with the closing of
the year –
you are still and
forever
part of the game and
in multiple hearts
you’re still here.
ON A STROLL THROUGH FLAYBRICK
Fallen on the cutting
edge of time
all these people who
lived and loved and
laughed.
Were they walled in or
walled out;
am I channelling their
feelings for this place
or am I just being
daft?
CLOCK FLOWERS
Rising sun shines
on flotillas of
dandelions
submerged in dew but
their
clock flowers still
working
reminding me of the
passing hour.
CUCKOO
I can squawk and
squirm and hassle,
of that I have no
doubt
and I can position
myself in the nest
with no fear of being
kicked out.
FROM DARK STRATA
Through accumulations
of dark strata
rising from an abyss
of lost memory
wherein lie nuggets of
evidence
since the first
fisions and fusings
and sheddings at the
dawn of life,
each providing an atom
of thought
or reaction to send me
on my way
to this precise moment
here and now
to whatever lies
beyond.
REST IN PEACE
I am writing of the
past
of locked drawers and treasure chests
brimming with
mementoes and golden ikons to outlast
frail memory’s earnest
request,
sensing the light
fading fast
that insolent knocking
of an unwelcome guest,
for something of
myself upon time impressed
so that thought was
not a waste, no dark chasm vast
but a renewable path
on an endless quest
in an eternal play
where I’m remembered as one of the cast.
CAVE PAINTING
What sharpening of
thought and feeling,
what accumulations of
experience
over countless
millennia
to produce this
adornment of rock,
this deep cave that
echoes a
message from its walls
where
bison and auroch
roamed –
these things once
existed here
but all things must
pass.
CLOSING DOWN
Each day dark shadows
flit like ghosts
urging life’s work to
completion,
thee folding of
affairs;
but it is not the
relentless ticking of the clock
nor the ticking off of
tasks that beguiles
though I seem obliged
to rips pages from the calendar
with increasing
frequency.
It’s a creeping
tautness in muscle and ligament
the insidious
degeneration of bone,
seizing of joints, a
fire in the chest
and the doleful
weariness of motion
where the wheels of
motivation have seized,
the slow enclosing
compactness of thought and reaction,
the creeping chill of
certainty that
for eternity there’s a
slot in the earth
destined for me.
RESTLESS
Restless in sleep
finding things I never
knew I’d lost
I spread the map on
the kitchen table
anchored by my elbows
marked with dots from
where I found things
but the more I found
the less I understood.
I tried to join the
dots
like the constellation
puzzle in the sky
connecting and
rearranging
like the ancients
to make almost
anything –
which made it a
worthless toil,
a search for the grail
in a desert of ice
getting no closer to
an answer.
Perhaps I’ll never
know what I was supposed to find
which is why I find it
hard to sleep.
QUEEN OF THE DESERT
With each waking hour
she changes, emerging
from mysterious dawn
through growing heat
to
the brazen light of
midday
then dresses down for
the mellow tones of evening.
Commanding respect
Glorified for
centuries
knowing no defence
against the ignorance of evil,
her resistance
betrayed,
to enrich nought but
the desert wind.
Palmyra.
TRAFFICKERS
The legend of a playing
field
that lies beyond the
razor wire.
Spotlights aim to
prick out
the corrosive wraiths
and gargoyles
who ignite fear,
feed on flesh and
rain fire on universal
laws
throwing about their
slogans and blasphemies
lords of their own
needles of shame,
a shame shared between
all carriers of blackened blood.
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