Tag: Poetry

they were not my lights

Sitting in the deepest dark,
the competing lights begin to fade,
for months they’ve blinded me,
they’ve spun and flashed to distract me,
they’ve teased me with their glamour,
calling like the sirens, but,
they were not my lights.

they beckoned nonetheless,
too often I have reached for them,
not wanting to miss out on the fun,
not wanting to be left outside,
they looked so beguiling,
a dancing spectrum of life, but,
they were not my lights.

they promised me good times,
told me they’d help me forget,
they promised me a new start,
offered me security, identity,
an illusion of importance,
seeking to seduce me, but,
they were not my lights.

Sitting in the deepest dark,
my eyes began to open,
I saw others sitting there,
in the stillness we drew in,
we spoke in empty silence,
of the lights that tempted, but,
they were not our lights.

As we looked together in the dark,
and told each painful story,
with only grace in common,
we faced the empty space,
the smallest spark was kindled,
my spirit began to wonder, if,
this could be my light?

 

Lost

Young faces on the television News,

Old photographs taken in first day uniform,

Smart, expectant.

Premature combatants in oversized Khaki,

Armed, innocent.

Gripped in panic on ramshackle craft,

Blank, petrified.

Lost.

We are lost.

and then you smiled

I saw your cheeks break and crease,
your eyes flash wide as the light bounced in,
a tide of colour softly flowed over your skin,
and there you were.
some didn’t see it, they weren’t looking,
but I was, and I saw.
I saw the joy split the shell of all that stress,
and there she was, the child,
peaking out and looking straight at me,
She came to play, to sing, to spin.
She came to shake off the struggle, to dance,
and there you were in the moment, freed.
The strength it took even to be there,
to make that choice and stand,
and then to let the smile live,
to give it breath and heat,
to give it space,
to give it you.
And then I saw it fly.
it touched me,
it broke me,
and I smiled too.

A place…

Ragged raw hills of history,

bathe the patterned troughs,

Where we sew lives together.

The now,

catching it’s breath,

under raised umbilical wires.

We cluster,

clinging to each other’s places.

Black and grey slashing movement,

through the gaps.

Ways made first by feet,

wood and finally metal.

Ordered land given shape by people long lost,

carved into purposeful pieces,

bound, walled and walked.

Names and stories that have lost meaning for us,

but still, now, our place.

Here we dig our holes and raise our temples.

Here we find rhythm,

living,

love,

home.

Here we find a place,

to dream of unfettered heights.

to talk to you

most days I find a space to talk to you,
I never quite find the right language to use though.
my words often pause in the depth of my mind,
as I wrestle with their appropriateness.
they shuffle on feet that don’t know where they stand,
like a stranger who has found themselves in a conversation,
they are not sure they have truly been invited in to.
do I even need to speak?
is silence enough?
is it too much?
without seeing your face it’s hard to know.
sometimes I feel the need to shout,
to wait to hear if there is an echo,
a bounce-back when I cry into the emptiness.
so sometimes I just sit,
sometimes I am still,
often I fight the urge to shift and resign,
I struggle not to impose upon the secret conversation,
and play in sand of my choosing,
or stare too long into the water at my own image.
my senses are wild beasts that run and roar,
as I become still they strain and pull,
for a moment I let them lead me,
and then return to the silence.
sometimes the silence speaks,
images painted,
melodies playing,
words form that are not mine,
and I listen.
and I listen.
most days I find a space to talk to you,
because some days you talk back.

The map

The map on the shelf was new. It cracked like a distant storm as I pealed it open and smoothed it out on the hard floor, a seductive letter of possible adventures. I take a moment to picture it’s contours shifting, hilltops and valleys finding form. Rivers begin to flow and roads harden against the landscape forming in my mind. My attention always pulls away from the structures and habitation and instead begins to follow paths out into the empty spaces. It traces them up through concentrating lines through the black angular evidence of crags and cliffs. Out onto the lighter open plateaus and mountain tops. I can feel the wind flowing in the pale gaps between the mess of lines as the paths follow ridges and moorsides, the patches of water.  The tarns and the lakes are deceptively uniform and unmoving, offering oasis amongst the detail of track and fence, rock and tree. Tiny triangles and numbers tempt the eye with challenge and vista. It’s these that draw the heart, they are the objective, they call. The lengths that cut the contours heading for these pictorial summits string together, they offer opportunity but at the same time they only show where others have already been. Before long a trip is planned, a starting place, a top to reach. But that’s all the map can show. As the map is folded back up and stowed, the journey can begin to unfold.