Ann's World

Scene at Delphi

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:21:17 -0400

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

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:20:00 -0400

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

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:16:00 -0400

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

I'm really liking what you're writing! Great work!

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:13:52 -0400

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

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:11:29 -0400

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

__________________________________________________________________

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

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:07:00 -0400

A collection of photographs found on Ann Buckingham’s computer titled ‘Paths’ 05/02/2009

Looking through Old Photographs

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:04:52 -0400

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

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:03:00 -0400

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

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:02:20 -0400

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

Sun, 20 May 2012 18:00:23 -0400

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

Here was Hope

Sun, 20 May 2012 17:58:53 -0400

Late September.

Summer in the city.

Bliss suddenly.

Trees flourished

amidst stones and bricks.

Then a bright fair young man

stopped me,

so rapidly talking

his word sparkled in the air,

telling of plans and purposes;

the future

and

the planet

saved.

And while I signed up to his dream

- for here was hope –

we talked of other things;

of life and books.

Then we moved apart

and I walked on

into a newly burnished world.

I shall remember him.

I went straightway and bought the book

that he said had changed his life.

Tomorrow

when it rains

I shall read it.

02/12/2008

Time is Now

Sun, 20 May 2012 17:56:20 -0400

I am,

I was

perhaps shall be.

But you

are only now

and I

am one with the ticking clock

that records your being.

In case you die before me

live for me now.

Let me watch

and remember

the movements of your hands,

your face when you talk.

Let me hold your image

in each complete moment.

Let me learn

to share your silence.

Tomorrow

is a hope worth having

if now

continues.

But …….

Let me be patient;

for if I wish my life away,

I do the same with yours.

03/10/2008

Here be Dragons

Sun, 20 May 2012 17:55:15 -0400

Maps shift and change colour;

the waters are conquered anew –

they wash out old names.

The compass points

- so delicate, so precariously balanced -

are constant,

working with the historic stars

to guide travellers away

and home again.

No place is uncharted, though maybe unknown.

Must we inscribe on these new maps

our old fears -

“Here be dragons” ?

13/06/2008

Christmas Morning - Chorlton Water Park

Sun, 20 May 2012 17:50:30 -0400

Clear sky.

White frost.

A sort of singing in the atmosphere.

The dogs roll in the glinting grass

and we laugh.

“Strange they enjoy it”, we say

and imagine cold prickles through fur.

Then, excited, they run in eccentric circles.

The lake is a calmer place.

The birds,

self-contained in their various groups,

mallard, grebe, coot

float placidly past each other.

At the very edge

a heron stands still

above his reflection.

Suddenly

a commanding clamour

- no winged angels,

heralding the coming of Christmas,

could make more sound –

as a flock of geese

descends dramatically upon the lake

and takes possession.

The disturbed heron,

with a raucous cry,

flies off

and his reflection plunges away.

Then he moves majestically across the sky.

The lake is calm again.

The geese have joined the placid swimmers.

But we are left with the sense

of witnessing an “event”

and being privileged .

Dogs are greeting each other.

We are smiling

and wishing Happy Christmas to strangers.

This is a time

to feel goodwill to all.

To All.

Not only mankind.

Iguana

Sun, 20 May 2012 17:45:55 -0400

Stop.

See

and observe

iguana.

Old

still

stone-

ridged and rough,

only the throat-

pulse beating.

Stop

And stay

Wait as he waits.

Remember

what is before memory-

primeval rocks

an outcrop of the unconscious.

The pulse still beating –

blood affirmation.

22/08/2007

Theology in Autumn

Sun, 20 May 2012 17:43:00 -0400

I opened the book and found God

- the hypothesis -

and Heaven

- the argument.

The saints were dead.

So I closed the book

and went outside.

The limbo mist

hung in layers above the field.

Angels flew with a skein of geese

under a pearl sky.

My mind

forgot the sin

of contemplating sin.

Iridescent souls

gleamed on falling leaves.

God was the morning

and Heaven the possible day.

16/09/2006

Still Life

Sun, 20 May 2012 17:38:54 -0400

My memory creates the glow,

paints in the shadows.

Masses of green and blue

emerge from an unfocused mist,

darken and seek shape.

Light splinters through branches,

scatters on the ground

like silver leaves.

Light, shadows, colours move,

kaleidoscoping on the mind’s canvas,

blur iridescently

then stay.

No future is suggested here.

A still life.

Life

still

in a silent summer,

sounds dumbed by distance

- time.

I have found the purpose,

made the form,

the reality, which is you.

The negative space defines you,

positive,

eternal,

not ageing but being.

17/09/2006

Who Survives?

Sun, 20 May 2012 17:32:35 -0400

Scientific knowledge,

we believe,

tells us that some life-forms

are a threat.

Terms are not always defined.

Self-preservation

(or is it fear ?)

is a natural instinct.

We must act accordingly.

Scientific knowledge

tells us that these life-forms

need freedom,

food and warmth

and desire to reproduce.

Our instinct for self-preservation

demands that these activities be curtailed.

Scientific knowledge,

if pressed, may admit

that these life-forms feel pain

and maybe even a sense of loss.

Our instinct for self-preservation

will not allow us to discuss such matters.

I merely note,

objectively,

that having got rid of unwanted lives,

we are still threatened

by the poison we have used.

17/09/2006

Relationship

Sun, 20 May 2012 17:31:34 -0400

I watched you,

nervous in the room,

moving in the space I left you.

Then you acknowledged me

and so began

the social dance.

We found our movements,

the forms we made,

mutually created,

interdependent,

complementing

but avoiding contact.

Only once, in passing,

you touched me,

purposely.

Now I remember that touch

but dare not ask for more

in case you leave the room

for ever.

17/09/2006

Sounds In The Night

Sun, 20 May 2012 17:30:00 -0400

A church clock creaks

on and on all night,

loud, harsh.

The tap drips,

plop on wet plop

And the church clock creaks.

A moth flaps,

hits the wall,

flaps me,

a small, black, bat-thing.

And the church clock creaks,

the tap drips.

A man snores

in the next room,

low, soft groans,

and then he snorts.

And the church clock creaks,

the tap drips.

the moth flaps.

A door bangs,

sharp and hard,

then bangs once more

and bangs and bangs.

And the church clock creaks,

the tap drips.

the moth flaps,

the man snores.

A child cries,

shouts and shrieks

and will not cease.

And the church clock creaks,

the tap drips.

the moth flaps,

the man snores,

the door bangs.

Trucks roar

as they pass on the main road,

rev up as they go by,

a stream that does not end.

And the church clock creaks,

the tap drips.

the moth flaps,

the man snores,

the door bangs,

the child cries.

The bed squeaks

as I toss and turn

and stretch and yawn.

And the church clock creaks,

the tap drips.

the moth flaps,

the man snores,

the door bangs,

the child cries,

the trucks roar.

The man with the milk comes,

clanks it on the step.

His float shakes

with a clash of glass.

Time to get up.

And the church clock

seems not to creak,

the tap stops its drips,

the moth flops,

the man wakes,

the door stays shut,

the child shuts up,

the trucks stop,

the bed is still.

And I go to sleep.

17/09/2006