Crystal Visions

He had the look of sailor

Bushy trim, inbled ink

Lips to liquid elegance

Gave me cause to think

I saw his soul

---

People passed in passing

As they passed and passed on by

I was caught from passing

By reflections in his eye

I saw his soul

---

In vino told his verity

Crystal goblet crimson stained

Identity invisible

Absent but for pain

I saw his soul

---

He mused of distant lands, he spoke

Of places he had been

Of service, home, his children

And a wife he’d hardly seen

I saw his soul

---

He told of losing hope and faith

Of wishing death’s release

Of deepest well he’d ever known

Of falling to his knees

I saw his soul

---

I asked him frankest questions

And he did not balk from truth

He analysed and after thought

Depicted foolish youth

I saw his soul

---

He did not ask, I never said

His wine was eloquent

I lived a little of his life’s

Redemptive glass, a gent,

I saw his soul

---

He gave me food for future

In the telling of his tale

I gave him gloves and scarf, a coin

And wished him fair thee well

I saw it all

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Russian Roulette

This came as a song. Think one guitar, husky voice and slowish tempo. Or make up your own. I’m very democratic. 🙂 And I can’t quite get politics and the short and long term effects of austerity on so many people everywhere out of my head. 

Facing life’s rouletted wheel

Down barrel of a gun,

Bullet to the head would do,

Spent days nearly done.

Emptiness and hope devoid

One missile, once deployed,

Would end the pain, she can’t sustain,

Escape into the void.

He’s swept for mines upon his path

And joked at losing all,

Limbs and life and, lastly, hope

Prepared to take that fall.

A quicker blast than endless shells,

Wary everyday,

He’s the guy who’s being passed by

While gamblers poke and play.

Daughter, son, can’t be outdone,

They’re watching every stroke,

Nitro in their nostrils,

Aware they’re butt of jokes.

Nothing left to lose, they guess,

As parents lose their lot,

Power fracking system,

Systemic in its rot.

Grab the keys, on automatic,

Stakes higher than you know,

Hope berefted diffidence

Finds courage as it grows.

Dismal fog but headlights gleam,

Truth or dare the game,

No gamble on the future

When death and life’s the same.

Whose Muse?

She wanders in

when she feels like it,

tarted up, sometimes,

as if every eye in the place awaited her arrival,

flaunts herself

in naked abandon,

flourishing syllabic resonance wherever

wanton desire cherishes her arrival,

poses idly, at times, to capture flash,

smiling, leerily, on red carpet.

Departing with a sneer, she’s

off to sun herself in Grecian myth,

knowing she is

forever wanted

and desired.

A tart to all temptress,

scourging soul desire,

panting wildly when afflicted,

reddened pout

to tease all suitors.

So they say.

So say many.

Some fast while awaiting, and

she’s laughing with margharitas in the sunshine,

leaving clouds fermenting overhead,

idly casting aspersions on your value,

burnishing her limbs with languid poise,

her footstool, your soul,

querulous and querying,

while no great loss to her.

So I say.

A lecher.

No more than any other

of her kind.

Nothing to offer

but illusion.

Still she squirms inside your worth,

dedicates sacrifice to poisoned thoughts.

A tramp, I affirm,

designed and dressed in alter ego,

famishing your soul

until you realise the truth.

Just a bitch,

in the heat of sunny and overcast days,

becalming doubts as her mood takes,

laughing as clouds of despair

part words from mind.

Trust tarnishes her tan,

embittered exchanged coin of nothing.

Shylock,

feasting on flesh that waits

for her arrival

while life demarks

her worth.

May Music, Day 9 – Wings of Hope…..and mercy

OK. NOT he who shall be obeyed, but the pussycat with ‘the helmet that scares the bejaysus out of me’ is asking, for question 9  of the 25 day music challenge, which song I associate with hope. Oops, hold on. Need to insert a little image here. Every other bugger has it.

 And I will figure out how to put this fecker in my side bar. Makes life so much easier when things are organised. I aspire to organisation. Aspirations. Got to have them.

I thought about this all day.

I did.

Back and forth. In between other bits of things like work and weans.

And, at first, I thought of ‘I Will Survive’, because most hope is a wish for something in the face of adversity. And that particular song is a kind of ‘get-it-up-you’, sort of finger to the north wind type of song. Well, it is if you live where the north wind raises your kilt and blows round your nethers, irking every part of you that should be warm and cosy.

Then I came home from work and had a rethink.

And do you know what? I changed my mind. Woman. Prerogative.

Now, I’ve posted here before about my wish that if I could be any sort of creature I wanted (apart from a woman which, obviously, would be everyone’s choice) I’d want to be an eagle. Mainly because it can fly. And it’s gorgeous. And it is master/mistress in its own world. Why would anyone not want that?

Then. I had another thought. I’m not really worthy of being an eagle. Eagles are powerful, magnificent wing-beaters of immense proportions in their world. They are majestic. They demand and command the skies. They are the pinnacle of birds. And answer to no one.

I do. I answer to life. To responsibilities. To commitments. To so much. An eagle is therefore my metaphor for escape when I can’t cope. It’s my mercy bird. Please don’t eat me. Save me.

Then I got to thinking that I don’t want majesty. I want mercy. For all the times I’ve been a shit. An unhopeful, desperate, fall to my knees, gawd-somebody-help-me sort of shit.

Then I thought I’d have a wee nap cos I was up to all hours last night planning a lottery win with TD. (They’re on, btw, TD! Two nights worth!)

Then my brain went, ‘Aye! You think so?!’ Give me all this gear to work on then think you’ll wake up to a wee poem, ready made? No sleep for you, china. Have it now or not at all.’

This came to be.

shale shifts beneath my tread,

i flail and stumble,

a rumble from beneath, within,

i feel.

this mountain that i scale

pours forth its scarlet

and bleeds its heat through soles.

I fall. I kneel.

raising eyes, i spy a distant image,

nearing, circling, searching for its prey,

its majesty knows mercy

and i mumble, then cry unto its

eye to make its way

to where i’ve risen, on this journey upwards,

on shaky legs, with stoic heart and hope,

and, just when all seems lost to fear and reason,

it dives and lifts,

i’m airborne and i cope.

the wings beneath my essence

are much stronger

than the wind beneath my own

when all seems bleak,

heavenwards i raise my heart

and mind and spirit.

Inner core is known. No need to speak.

So, ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ it is. Only, most days, I fly without wings. Depending instead on the wings of others, in whatever form, to raise me up.

And, on a slight aside here, TD. One of your other contributors commented in a post that it was becoming more difficult.

I know where she’s coming from. Unlike my self-imposed A-Z mythology challenge, music permeates everything.

It’s in every part of our lives, from the first arse-rocking rhythm that a babe sways along to, to every piece ever heard in the course of our lives that ever meant anything to us. That’s a lot of music. Tons of the stuff to try and filter to something that encapsulates your questions.

But, do you know what? It rocks.

From the moment of thinking, ‘This is the one’ to the realisation that, ‘No. This speaks better for me.’ Quite a feat.

And I do so like a challenge that seeks to condense.

How many days left? Apologies to all the bloggers I’m not reading as frequently as I would. Blame the guy in the mask. And my own need to rise to a challenge. Aspirations. Got to have them. 😉

Ragnarok

No twilight here

of gods

in surrender

but battles raging,

ending

longest winter.

No hope apparent,

wounded,

raging thirst,

godless, manless

world

consumed by lusts.

No skies above,

no earth

or hell below,

emptiness,

forgetfulness,

old ways forego.

No end in sight,

each dawn a new creation,

old worlds

evolve and die,

rebirth nations.

No fear, despair

in prophecies 

foretold.

Emerge, arise,

fire purified,

warmth from bitter cold.

Darkest Night

When descends the tortuous night

And demons kneel to prey,

No blanketed enclosure

May keep such fiends at bay.

Tormented by the fearsome one,

Urges turn to need,

Horn’d spectres gather round in dark

To suppurate and feed

On souls of those whose black despair

Shrouds burdens into gloom.

Malevolence lurks in corners

Of even brightest room.

Bleak despondence, this the scourge,

That eats at wholesome flesh,

Annihilates hope, once professed,

Spirits to enmesh

With such as those who haunt the night

Or day, if eclipse persists.

Light within reveals the way.

Only this resists.

One Single Tear

one single tear escapes and wends

its way slowly down from eye to cheek,

to wake in night unknowing what

has made me weep

one single tear

yet despair and grief are cloistered in,

suffusing, spreading still from soul out

to my pen.

one single tear wiped so easily,

no more to follow suit, but wonderment

that all I feel shed only

one single tear.

And then there were……

So they sat down, as friends to start,

To share a celebration,

Remembering, with thankfulness,

How God had saved their nation.

 

Friends to wine and dine together,

Tokens freely given,

Conversation took a turn,

One self so unforgiving.

 

Temptation’s path and distorted dreams

Had all his mind perverted.

His answer, shameless in its crime,

Betray friend, and truth subverted.

 

Thirteen there were till one arose

And, blessed, went on his way.

In coinage, took his lonely walk.

Two more would end his day.

 

One to garden for a kiss,

A final, sad farewell,

His part, a thankless task ordained.

A friend’s version of true hell.

 

Betrayal done and trust full killed,

His final journey called

To tree, to end his misery,

With tears and heart embroiled.

 

All parts we play, unseen sometimes,

Chosen for a reason.

Judas, sadly for himself,

Was called as man for season.

 

So twelve remained but for a while

Till other one departed,

In pain and then in glory’s smile,

Salvation so imparted.

 

Eleven now to claim the cause,

To carry spirit’s light

And journey far, with few possessions,

Into strange and wondrous night.

 

Remembering our saddest days,

Though filled with great vexation,

May, contrarily, be found

To hold great expectation.

 

Our numbers swell as hearts do tell

Of forgiveness not still-born

When Man is cruel and others weep,

New hope and life reborn.

 

Unlucky though thirteen appears

For just the reasons given,

Surely parts, when played as asked,

Still call all souls to heaven?

 

For such as we in bitter times

Hope gone, hell’s finger beckons,

Remember still we cannot judge

Only God can count and reckons

 

The worth of soul, the value weighed,

Not in feathers nor in gold

But in doing what’s appointed us,

No soul has then been sold.

 

‘Tis hope and light that show the way,

Is mighty in its splendour

And manifest in all who seek

In source and God’s own wonder.

 

All answers to our sad ailments,

Out terror filled alarm,

In trust and actions may we sit down

At table, no thought of harm.

 

So thirteen then will live again

Till figures crowd our eyes,

Hands reaching out, all roles owned,

Source, Life, God, satisfied.

 

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A Fairground Life

The carousel goes gaily round,

We scream and laugh; ecstatic sound.

The rollercoaster scares my wits,

Flying high, then to the pits

Of flailing arms and screeching glee.

I grab you, while you hold me.

Giddy with excitement.                     

 

The tunnel of love and anticipation,

Or ghost train filled with desperation.

Hobby horses that go nowhere,

Rotating, flying bucket chair.

A fairground, stimulating rides,

Simulates undulating lives.

Fluctuating satisfaction.

 

Cory Monteith

My daughter asked me to write something that matters to her.

As it happens, this also matters to me.

Another child lost from life.

Thirty-one years is a babe.

Too young.

Too little.

Too late.

A face known to me by my children,

A voice, a smile, a song,

Talented, tormented and toppled,

Searching for far too long.

‘I’ve got the rest of my life to be a grown-up

And, for now, it’s ok to be young’,

Choices, drugs and pressure.

A life where the song has been sung