Scene at Delphi
These old temples, ruined
for longer than they stood proud,
scatter on the ground to make hard walking
and, along with the unseen cicadas
and scurrying ants,
have become timeless.
The sun sends down
hot lances.
We sit on stumps of marble
under the meagre shelter of a twisted tree
and watch.
A young man,
an arm stretched backwards,
leads a girl.
They scatter loose shale
yet they skim the boulders
flying, it seems,
on winged Hermes-feet.
Both are beautiful,
god-like in their assumption of eternal youth.
A minute
or a lifetime later
an elderly woman
helps her frail husband
slowly, painfully,
over the obstructing stone
16/11/2010
Concord - Of a Sort
I talk to myself
and I sometimes reply.
I listen carefully to Me.
The cats stare
and the dogs yawn
and I talk to myself again.
And why should others
think it strange ?
I tell myself
- and I quite agree -
that this is so
and so is this
and how the world should be.
The world goes on
- no change..
The cats stare
and the dogs yawn
and suddenly
I feel silly.
07/10/2010
Where the Paths Meet - For Gary
For Gary, who photographed the place so beautifully.
It is now.
It is here.
Many paths meet at this place.
Casually
coming from all directions
see this
and that
leaves blowing
creatures living and being alive
people passing
and sometimes aware.
The seasons change
and still
always
the same many paths meet
at the same place.
But we
casual still
travelling our own concepts of time
following our own purposes
must depend upon chance.
09/05/2010
soredemonao asked: I'm really liking what you're writing! Great work!
They were written by my grandads best friend Ann Buckingham who died last christmas. It is an entire collection which we found on her computer :) Please Share!
Persephone, as Poetry Critic
Spring,
suddenly.
Flowers.
Birds nesting.
Newborn lambs.
Ah, yes, of course, the lambs.
All the old, familiar clichés
as you struggle.
Struggle
to describe – what?
The fleeting second of newness?
The ecstatic moment of hope?
I have heard it all
many times.
Many times
when you invoked my name;
when you remembered my name;
even when you forgot my name.
(Notice the magic of repetition.
You may call it poetry.
Or is that too easy?)
I have seen Spring;
the real spring.
Not for me the Olympian penthouse view
of lovers and songwriters
and of the cynics, predicting, protesting
protecting themselves from disappointment.
(Oh, the contrived alliterations!)
For me the Hades basement
where it all begins;
where the Dead discuss the Chaos Theory
and the unpredictability
of pomegranate seeds,
while casually creating life.
This is where the asphodel becomes the daffodil
and I follow it back into the world.
So now we have the flowers.
We have the nesting birds.
And then,
bring on the newborn lambs.
And, do not forget,
the Paschal, sacrificial lambs.
Spring has its shadows, too.
But the sun shines lightly,
even on raindrops.
And, yes, here is the fleeting second of newness,
the ecstatic moment of hope.
But don’t say it.
It takes too long.
Enjoy the as-yet-unsullied green experience.
Much better than your silly verse.
09/05/2010
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Persephone The daughter of Demeter, the ‘Earth Mother’. While she was picking white lilies, Hades seized her and carried her off into the Underworld. The lilies fell to the ground and turned bright yellow – the first daffodils. Demeter mourned for her daughter and refused to care for the earth. The crops failed. Zeus ordered Hades to release Persephone. But she had been tricked into eating some pomegranate seeds – the symbol of marriage – and she was therefore bound to Hades. A compromise was reached; she would spend four months of the year in the Underworld, and eight months on earth with her mother. The earth became fertile again.
Asphodel According to Greek mythology, the Flower of the Dead. It is also an archaic name for ‘daffodil’, sometimes found in old-fashioned poetry.
Chaos Theory I’m not really sure, but it seems to involve randomness, unpredictability and yet some logical element of cause and effect.
Paths
A collection of photographs found on Ann Buckingham’s computer titled ‘Paths’ 05/02/2009
Looking through Old Photographs
So many landscapes.
Which ruined abbey is that?
Which Greek temple?
Where is that mountain?
That lake?
A tree, a flower
can be beautiful anywhere.
I recorded them all
with the futile vanity
of the postcard-trained eye
(no people allowed
to spoil the perfect composition)
as though to attract tourists.
Now, a tourist in my own past,
I am lost;
feel loss.
There are so few signs,
few human guides,
friends, family, lovers
or those passing acquaintances
who helped to shape so many days.
Now I know.
People mean more than places.
05/02/2009
Continuum
The fog mellows, settles into mist.
Edges are blurred,
the branches of bare trees
are smudged patterns against the sky.
Silence is carved out,
shaped by birdsong and moving water.
And so …….
I am here again
ageless
in that world
that place in other space and other time
removed from everything
sufficient in itself.
It is a continuum that
for a spell holds me
enthralled, walled by solid insubstance,
and is waiting always
magically
for the next time.
05/02/2009
Altham Church
The church was very old,
squatting among dark trees
waiting for its millennium.
The child knew nothing of its history
but felt romance in the musty smell,
found magic in summer
when the late sun slanted through the windows.
There were stories told;
stories that had lessons;
Love and Tolerance,
Peace and Forgiveness.
The child skipped away
between the tumbling gravestones,
delighted in a world that held such virtues,
full of good intentions,
failing often
but always hopeful.
The church is still there.
The adult knows its troubled history
and talks of Power and Politics,
debates the Rights and Wrongs of various Heresies.
And turns to Current Affairs.
The child in the adult,
so well-grounded in the simple lessons,
still so well-intentioned,
is labelled “conscience”
and considered too naïve to speak.
05/02/2009
A Charmed Life
When very young,
life was a fairy-tale.
Magic abounded.
But there were dark corners,
harbouring hobgoblins which pursued
and persecuted,
even into dreams.
Nightmares grew.
But then sun glinted on water
and stars sang
and life was a poem in glowing runes,
that predicted great things.
Then came the popular songs,
so intense,
bare-flaying emotions and nailing them out
in the wind’s way.
Or beautiful,
promising love and revealing enchantment
in a friend’s face, or the glance of a stranger.
Next was the passage of hard prose,
concerned with facts and figures,
defined by shopping lists,
enlivened by slogans
which imposed a sense of rhythm.
Later,
popular songs were replayed,
sounding from shadows where ghosts were.
The shadows frame the light
and sometimes,
most unexpectedly,
the sun glints on water
or the stars sing
and life is a poem again
revealing magic in a friend’s face
or even the glance of a perfect stranger.
05/02/2009
