Nod To BTTF

I hung around too long in tomorrow

awaited you in dated yesterdays

loitered on the cusp of nearly knowing

debated future’s past, dismissed delays

missed you moments melded into timeless

motility I rued and cursed the dream

fusion forced all time into the present

I’m stuck forever in a damned zone while

you’re lost to me in spatial time machine

 

I don’t get it either but it was a great movie. Anything with time travel in it has me losing a chess game in my head after the first couple of moves. Doesn’t stop me loving it though. 

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Without Us

The echo of a dream still sounds,

I stand alone, the world turns round,

Without us.

There’s no one left

But me, bereft,

Without us.

The sky so blue with height astounding,

Sweet clean air, green grass, surrounding,

Without us.

Silence deafens, no birds in flight,

An emptiness as cold as night,

Without us.

And I’m stood there, quite all alone,

A lonely beauty now my home

Without us.

A hellish dream, to be apart

Amid such glory, there’s no heart

Without us.

Such hollow sight though stunning seen,

Nightmarish, really, sort of scene,

Without us.

I chose life when sound was heard,

Arise, it said, an awesome word,

We’re here. 

Old and New

New class, brand new school,

Old ways and new ways combined

Harmony in action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday saw me move into this wonderful new school building. We’ve been going at it solid for three days, unpacking and setting up again, getting prepped for the return of the children today who scored three days off in the move. I’ve been climbing all over furniture hanging frieze paper on to fresh, new walls.

From this..

Rotting from inside,

Beneath papered coverings,

Old gone very wrong.

The dilapidated decant building used while the new school was being built. What lies beneath the paperwork, right enough. Uncovered in all its glory while we stripped every inch of the old bare to salvage the worthwhile. January has been a different sort of job, teaching while packing and uncovering the horrors beneath. The Scottish Parliament has been investing in new schools the length and breadth of the country. Investing in the future. In our children. I, for one, am extremely thankful that some old things, long past their sell-by-date, will soon be demolished. It is possible to keep the old if we care for it. And it’s beneficial. The above fits no criteria worthy of retention.

Before first footprints,

Aged in fresh fallen snow,

Serenity known.

I took this from my bedroom in the early hours of this morning with my new camera phone, without a flash, on night time smart-setting or something that this auld bugger doesn’t quite get yet. But I like old and new. And I liked the results. About four minutes from here is my youngest daughter’s lovely new school at which I’m teaching for the year. Falling out of bed now. With the snow. Old(er!) and young, hand in hand, as off we walk to school. 🙂

In The Cloisters

One of my nieces graduated yesterday from Glasgow University, a beautiful young woman now independent from the hallowed halls of a structure of sublime architecture. My camera phone does not do the cloisters justice but I hope my words may. There were tears of pride and happiness as the 100 or so new graduates from the Veterinary School took their Hippocratic Oath and tears of familial love as the sworn-in veterinarians applauded their family and those who had guided their path for their five years of study. It was very moving. I slept for 10 hours straight when I came home!

 

 

Under shelter’d walkway ’round the courtyard of my soul,

In custom-built protection I may stroll

Some time or two, meandering in seclusion,

In contemplating fragments of the whole.

 

Colonnades supporting covered arches, portico to all that lies beyond,

Finger’d thoughts meander deftly, softly, touching swaying ferns and synapse’d fronds,

Face uplifted to the filter’d breezes,

Spirit sails on sun-streaked golden pond.

 

Arcade where columns peak to vaulted vantage, background buzz of bees and dulcet drone,

Nestled hemisphere of hermit’s haven, causes sought beneath a hallow’d dome

Where intersections advocate for essence,

Intercede and plead my way back home.

 

In teardrops’ rain a moment of calm capture, the briefest sort of pleasant reverie,

Infused prayer, exhaled from central solstice, length of one, eternal brevity,

Whose hush of rapid rapture leaves me breathless,

Gasping for source-poured liquidity.

 

In quiet cloisters fit for pensive purpose, open galleries portray their ancient frames,

Past and present catch up to the future, in cathedral’s mind where echoes may be tamed,

Till tumult teems again ‘mid errant pedestrian,

But solace sought in silent space still reigns.

 

Rebecca’s graduation coincided with her dad’s – my brother –  34 years ago and the Independence Day celebrated by Americans everywhere. I hope your day of gratitude for liberation was as special as that of my niece’s. I hope your future shines from cloistered thought.

Unplugged

Drawn from deepest recesses,

Risen from dead to haunt,

Levered occasions long buried,

Memories suppressed yet taunt.

A song, a whisper in spirit,

Voices exhumed from the past,

Post-mortem’d questions reflected,

Power unplugged with a blast.

May Music, Day 5 – Prophetic Ghosts

Qustion 5 for day five of Twindaddy‘s musical challenge asks if there is a song that becomes caught in your mind. For me it’s not a whole song. Three lines of a song heard many, many years ago shift in and out of my mind on a fairly frequent basis. I never know what comes next and never bothered about finding out. It never troubled me.

All I knew was that the words were from a Genesis album one of my older brothers owned when I was about 12. As is the way, when you have older siblings, their musical tastes are often absorbed and become your own. I found this to be true of so many different artistes that they listened to. Later, I would find it to be true of my older husband! And now even with my kids. It makes for quite mixed musical tastes.

This particular song comes from the album, ‘Selling England by the Pound’ and the song is entitled, ‘Dancing with the Moonlit Knight’. I couldn’t have told you that until a couple of days ago. And the only album that sprung to mind for me when I thought of Genesis was ‘A Trick of the Tail’. But, by that time, Phil Collins had taken over as lead vocalist while Peter Gabriel was still lead in the 1973 release of ‘Selling England by the Pound’.

When I researched the repeating lyrics I found myself further researching the meaning behind them. And this poem evolved. It seems to me that Peter Gabriel’s song was more than just an indictment on the seventies but a prophetic vision of the future.

Ghosts of future, past encased in music,  

spectral lyrics hint of prophecy,

reflections of a present found too wanting,

poor changes wrought for human dignity.

Genesis to revelations’ future,

selling nations, dollar, yen and pound,

drowning Thames, all rivers, countries flounder,

while money makes the world go spinning round.

Mediaeval music moving forward,

imagery writ by angel hand,

Gabriel’s voice, moving many mountains,

consumption, credit, death of earthly lands. 

‘ “Can you tell me where my country lies,” said the unifaun to his true love’s eyes.

“It lies with me,” cried the Queen of Maybe…’

intermittent medley in my mind,

no mere rhetoric in question,

Prohetically allegorical, I find.

A Good Time

Now would be a good time

To embrace and hold

In tenderness,

Comfort and love.

Now would be a good time

To recognise that compassion,

Empathy

And truth will guide the way.

Now would be a good time

To speak from within,

To share yourself,

To open to the world.

Now would be a good time

To risk and dare

In the name of love and light.

In blinding truth.

Now would be a better time

Than later

Or never.

Not at all.

Now would be the perfect time

To clasp hands,

Hold tightly

And leap into light.

Now is the only time.

Wandering

Thoughts turn,

Spin on an axis.

Centred elsewhere.

The veil lifts, reveals the real.

Flipped coin.

Is it heads or tails?

Chance, opportunity,

Passing moments.

Fleeting. Too much lost.

Life calls,

Demands attention.

Present recalled.

Progress

Progress moves forward, time cannot pause,

Past is unchanging, we know this because

Nothing, here present, allows us to alter

Yesterday’s stories, yet we stutter and falter,

 

To grasp our todays and heal where we may

Holding to history, as if we could say,

‘That never happened. That book is a lie.’

If we live in the past, we suffer and die

 

To future’s new chances, a life with less pain,

But still we persist in living again

In past recollections where sorrow is spent,

Move on with new hope, life is but lent

 

For such a short while, each day just a gift,

In peril we waste them, let soul and heart lift.

A new understanding, resume with your living

Reconciling with self, be much more forgiving.

 

As, many the times, we look and we see,

The burden of guilt is on you and on me.

Progress rewards us with many advances

But we must be watchful. Seize all our chances

 

To live our new days each present, here now,

For, come our tomorrows, they may not allow

The same opportunities to develop and grow

In wisdom of life. No secret. We know

 

That life and its loving, all it may offer

Is rarely mistaken, it seeks to proffer

Many a lesson, if we can but learn, that

Progress, development, come in their turn

 

To challenge our theories, our thoughts and our ways,

Embrace what is past but go on with our days.

Change is a happenstance, a gurgling stream,

Never stagnating, let not your dreams

 

Be caught in the yesterdays, where nothing can vary.

Progress is wonderful, though sometimes quite scary!

Smile at the present, resist the long face,

Being happy in now, knows no disgrace

 

If thought and a heart, cleared of distress,

Love and forgive. We can do no less

If some of the morals we needed to know,

Experience helped us and taught us to grow.

 

Goodbye to the past, although it has formed us,

Hello to today, yesterday informed us

In mercy and kindness where all who may seek,

Receive and give freely, all days of each week.

Unbidden

I forget sometimes.

Where I’ve put what,

Why I’m here in this room.

I go back out to where I began,

Remember.

Then I resume

 

To get on with what’s what,

Make a list of whatnot,

Take it with me so I won’t forget

To buy what is needed

For life to go on,

Still something will be missing, you bet.

 

I’ll try to recall

Why something is irking,

Just what I’ve forgotten to do,

Then thoughts will return,

I’ll be back in this room

And remember all about you.

 

Some things I forget,

The ordinary of life,

Minutiae, out of my mind.

Sublimate others, try to forget,

Resolve not to list,

Some peace so to find.

 

Ageing, my dear,

Is that what this is,

A memory all too long past?

Or does time play tricks on

What felt so real

But never was destined to last?

 

A scary confusion,

Life battered,

Illusion,

Dimly lit

Portraits of prior,

Acknowledged

In memories,

Never forgotten,

Resurface unbidden,

Conspire

To addle the brain

Live history again,

Rejuggle the words,

Recognise the absurd,

Fantasies gleaned from before.

Yesterday’s days

Should remain just a haze,

A myth, merely folklore.

 

Forgetting’s an art

Not an accident, no,

A deliberate longing for peace.

To recall unwittingly

Is torment for sure,

Destined to know no surcease.

 

So lists all in hand,

We jot what we need

To enjoy the now, day to day.

Rip up the old,

Discard what is gone,

Smile and go on, come what may.