poetry diary

Sliding from the station
in Stafford, past empty brick-built
passions from a faded, failing world:
they dreamed of industry
and power, forgetting people, history
and time – as all who seek to change
and build, must.

Faster through the sensual farms
of sleeping Staffordshire,
with woods and birds and village halls;
two walkers, and a dog.

The morning light on English fields
is gold and green today;
undisturbed, from where I sit,
by any passing train.

We are so good at self-deceit,
in England, where we kill
with ancient dreams and paper knives,
each brick-built works at will.

———–

On my way to Liverpool, feeling wistful. Posted on Poets United.

Waters lapping at your door,
and your ceiling is the floor.

This fantasy you bought, built
on paper-trails and silt;
techno-arrogance, un-gilt
by respect for earth’s will –

has learnt her lesson now,
and bows.

So the waters lap softly and clear:

like kisses,
with fishes.

You will remind us for a week,
that we should be more meek.

———————

A very complicated and expensive piece of engineering and marketing tells a simple story in the Mediterranean.

Moon frost bright white
light holds cold lives
against new blue morning.

Still lives chances past
lived last spring summer
frozen know how futile.

Cold moon frost white
light touches earth
despite darkness hope.

———————-

An experimental poem (like them all!) inspired by the brightness of the moon and moonlight in the last week or so, and frosty mornings here in England at the moment. It’s cold and still, but somehow already warmer and less dark, more hopeful than December. I’m thinking of all the frozen plants in the first two verses. Maybe it’s a metaphor for human life too.

Mirage my memories,
murmuring mirrors, I

see shifting sand dunes; storms
sweeping shapes skywards, you

changing constantly, cage
chaos-created, my

emotions encircling
each entrance and exit.

Feeling for fixed frames, I
fly forward, finding me.

————-

I was given a book for Christmas called “Proust was a neuroscientist” by Jonah Lehrer, knowing nothing about either Proust or neuroscience. I now know a very little about each; it is an excellent read, stimulating some new ways of imagining how memory works.

To live with integrity
despite weighting history.
To love and be loved in turn –
self-affirmed, yet completed.
To create and contribute;
to change and destroy (which is
to let new life and hope through)
and above all, to turn pages,
run through dappled trees and leaves,
and feel this world’s living wholeness.