Poetry Blogs (Memory)

Rumor has it, the story

went like this...

back in the '60s, baby Isaac

had just turned three,

waving the classified section 

of a discarded newspaper 

like a flag, but giggling

way too close to the heater. 

That's all it takes

to turn ordinary days into tragedy.

Heater met paper; 

paper, overheated, touched his shirt;

shirt mindlessly took in the flame...

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I liked the way he looked at me

Like I was the only thing he could see

or that was worth looking at. 

I liked the smile he made for me

A tailored face, specifically 

to tell me what he couldn't say. 

I liked the things that went unsaid

The message in the nod, the tilt of his head, 

the eye contact held too long. 

I liked his arms, skin brushing skin

A s...

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My step dad, Robin, passed away a short time ago at the ripe old age of 94.  An incredible man, he lived an incredible life, including working at Bletchley Park codebreaking during the war, putting out fires at ST Paul's Cathedral, living in Australia, India, Ireland and Scotland and writing numerous books in his role as a well respected minister and scholar.  He met my mum again after 50 years, p...

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Minds mould cannot always bend to the will - Look!

A blur of surreal reality:

it’s vivid, a memory, a means 

but travel through years 

and maybe it’s a dream,

or the worst fear:

(for the youth with infantile stretch marks to hear)

Forgotten.

For the youths with flat ironed flesh and barely dogmarked ears,

what we all fear

 is to forget.

Tell the boy with the newly ...

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The sun has finally set.
There's just one dim light on the horizon.
A burning light of orange, red and purple colors, All of them dancing on the music that the first stars on the sky appear to play.

I look beyond that light and I see you.
Just like the sun you seem to be further and further away...until you disappear.
There is only one thing that remains and that is the memory of you.

Fu...

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As I leave my home behind

To walk the far farm fields

The spirit of the land enfolds me

Its silence becomes my mantle

While I alone hear

Those wafted word

As the wind caresses the treetops

Whispering englynion

To lure me on

Through woodland and moor

Beyond fences, ever deeper into a land

Clothed in swirls of radiant mist

Rising from plashy pools and tarns

Amo...

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I step out

Into that mystic choir

That holds my heart

Where time, standing still,

Moves with the seasons

Quietly changing my world

With its elemental tune

While my song is barely heard:

A contrapuntal whisper

Struggling for harmony

For my land is my chancel

Hymns hum soft on its breezes

And prayer rises in its stillness

In this quiet place of remembrance

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The Voyager's Song

I see the shoreline,

black and unremarked

sleeping in secret, supine,

an open door, strong

as a broad Yorkshire

voice,

weak as rags of sea mist.

Soon I shall fetch upon its sands,

where cold silence reigns

uninvited like the early dawn.

Beside me shall burn,

in isolation and awe,

the last bright flower

of an ancient memory...

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This poem is a reverie and contemplation of my mother.

Time and Windows

If the past is a tattered old book,

then why am I a ghost

at my mother's window,

so clear I can sense her mystery,

and her brown eyes, so alive?

Look, I can fly to her

through the high windows

of my memory

until I'm so close that she disappears,

and the curtain flutters silently.

A...

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Wind rocks my boat tonight,
Sitting on this bed I feel little more than whole,
The nausea creating holes in my fickle heart.

Father walks cold in the streets of Paris,
Back turned to me,
I wander further upon this ragged terrain.

Distant memories fading yet again,
For in the presence of men and wind,
My skin becomes fatal.

The very blood,
Putrid,
And foul.

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From the first page to the last,

I absorbed the world around you.

I was there to witness the tears,

The anger,

The love.

Within each chapter I fell deeper.

As if under a spell, I lost control.

I was lost in another world,

Traveling to a place with no time.

I watched a story unfold before my eyes.

With each word,

Each sentence,

Each page,

I became ap...

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Am I to speak for your past?

                May I?

                Should I intrude?

For I am the spectre of your years: I was there beside you

In your cot and at your play

Now

I am all that is left

                I am the breath of your childhood

                I am the oxygen of your life

                There is no limit to my presence in your life

             ...

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Quiet River

When the morning's flight

lifts the darkened blind,

and slows the speed of time,

be ready in your heart and mind

with gratitude, as you drift

on a sweet and quiet river,

lined by silent watchers;

remember their gifts, and the jewels

                           of the givers,

For that light is sure to glow

fierce and steady in your memory -

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She shimmers gold as barley

hands firm on trembling thighs 

in landscapes insignificant

where painted memories dry

the meadow fills all senses

where they’d laid the grass pressed down

her soft wrists under palms

flesh opened like a silken gown

stretching low he holds the earth

like god made mortal now comes pain

and as the memory faded then

it flows ...

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Did you feel that stretch?

when time went soft,

expanding over us

How odd we should be here,

again

So different

yet the same

But you didn't feel that stretch,

when reality got bent in...

the bulging supple arc

connecting two spaces

across ages

So time hardened again

and the world washed over,

                swallowing me

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Gave Me Up To Tears

"And all my mother came into mine eyes
And gave me up to tears."
— William Shakespeare, Henry V

The air tastes of mashed potatoes

When she looks into your eyes

And you look back at the fear and hurt

And she says she’s sorry for dragging you here

And you tell her it’s nothing

Even though you were complaining

That very same thing on the drive h...

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I’m caught up in the fog

I’ve got my hands out

Feeling my way like a blind man in a haze

Tap, tap, tapping my way along,

Through life.

I don’t really know what I’m looking for

But I keep searching

I’m like a blind man fumbling in the dark

And I sometimes think I need an instruction book

So I can be flick, flick, flicking,

Through life.

There are times; I ...

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There’s a quiver of violins,

and a flute floats high above

the bow draws gently over 

the frailties of love

A romantic interlude

the dark requiem mass

such symphony imbibe’s

all that comes to pass

Music can lament

loves loss and memory

with every moment spent 

to be carried in a key

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How sick is it that I want to strip away all your new found happiness

Squeeze your memory dry of her

Rip open the healed stiches on your heart

And find myself sliding down, inch by inch

Making myself comfortable

In what is rightfully not

Mine 

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Threads

Thread:
If only he hadn't had freckles.
Thread:
If only he had been taller.
Thread:
If only he hadn't spoken with a lisp.
Thread:
If only he had liked playing football.
Thread:
If only he hadn't been so shy.
Thread:
If only the teachers had noticed.
Thread:
If only he hadn't worn shorts.
Thread:
If only he had liked pop music.
Thread:
If only he had said something.
Thr...

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Herringbone

The pallor of the parquet floor
Brings recollections of
School, its classrooms, its corridors

Somehow the pattern pulls
Me into a journey through
Time; conjuring images

Of art and assemblies,
Of laughter and lateness,
Of parents and pupils and plans:

For a future unknown;
For escaping the lessons
And the chill of those changing rooms.

A mishmash of memories,
But...

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i watch it all change and i sit back here like a child watching his parents argue across the dinner table not understanding a word waiting for it to change back or change into fireworks and butterflies but i don't know if it will. Because... It's all moved on, everything moves into and out of decay the circle of life is an ouroborus much bigger than i thought it spa...

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Mare's Tail

(By Paul A M Palmer)

"There's only one way to kill it:
You have to dig it out."

It's what they recommend,
The locals: they have the knowledge.

Scrape and scrape the top, spade against 
The turf and tufts of lichen and moss.

“You have to deepen the trench and then
Scrabble and search for the roots.”

Black and brown in the soily ground
Its fibrous tubes and tendril...

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There are these nights
like clockwork I find myself
ticking up stone steps
at the lighthouse

There are these nights
cloaked in melancholy
staring out, wide-eyed
across the freezing seas of time

There are these nights
I sit, quietly, by the lens
wondering of all the other nights
I have sat quietly wondering…

A thread of light stretches backwards 
through all my life
sewing toget...

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Stumbling across a hidden river 
lost amongst lush greenery
where grass and stones collide
I feel my thoughts split open
the tacky pull of damp ground
the grand firmness of dry bark
and these muddy banks transporting me...

In my swirling senses
the immediate evaporates
I hear water rushing
rushing
rushing into the past

Where teenage bodies dive
and teenage bodies glide
where clen...

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2007

Rails clack, the Indiana RR
Midnight, or after
History blares brazenly in this town--

Sleepless, sweating we toss
on a 2 inch foam mat atop
years of green plastic Walmart totes filled
with your broken dreams

You light up again from your window perch
Serpentine smoke permeates 3AM
(and me, whose a non-smoker)

Staring down at dusky Church Street
Rather plain, the way to Vill...

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Though irretrievably
We had missed the boat
And in the meantime comfort
From many a consort
I did sought,
Still your substitute
I haven't got
From the lot
Fate's wind
On its sway has brought.

Yesterday's old flame
Has conveyed to me
The same!

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the night outside
grows colder
he is sitting
listening to the shadows
move from room
to room

there are edges
along the corners
of the narrowing room
where the yellow
light of the lamp
does not touch

he is tracing
his memory
along the curve
of her wrist

outside
the snow falls
in separate time

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There was you, heather, and I
this feeling of intact inside me
but so young into our lives
we've become departed,
leaving a feeling of emptiness
in my heart.

And as time continued
we've grown apart,
going in are directions
leaving nothing but a memory.

And now that we've become whole again
it seems as if this is only a dream.
A dream that i will soon awake from
but is a dream I wanna ...

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It was Sunday morning, 1941, the 22nd of June,

The day of the growing Moon.

The country peacefully slept

While Hitler a horrible idea had kept.

Without announcing the war

He had given an order

To bomb the Soviet Republics border.

By unexpected military actions

The fascist wanted to capture all nations,

To turn the peoples into the slaves,

To fill the country with grav...

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do you see in the windows, where moonlight shines

wee hands and faces against the glass?

the midnight orphans, dusty gust

carries their whispers and lullabies

of times when a stranger’s hand

pushed them inside and turned the key

and it was dark and cold

inside stray children left their dreams

in stern rooms

where now daylight invites you to ...

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1941, the 22nd of June,
The sky with the waning moon.
It was Sunday.
Today it’s the saddest day
In the history
Of my long-suffering country.

In the very early morning
Without any warning
Hitler broke the non-aggression pact
And my motherland was attacked.
The Great Patriotic War had started
With peaceful life the land had parted.

Many years have passed since then,
No one wants the war to repeat ...

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I do not presume to judge you

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Before you start reading this piece, I'd like to take your attention for one moment to remember Maggie Turner, the woman whom this piece is about. She was a firecracker of a woman and one of the most inspiring, intelligent, opinionated, caring, compassionate people I've ever known. She said what she thought and wore her heart on her sleeve. Not enough people in this world do that, and I love he...

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Adopt

Saint Stephen's tale

It's Friday, sweets from Mrs Smith

Degeneration X and anarchy

Frankie's words: two tables, four chairs, suspension.

Discovered passing the buck, and thus passed it.

Stole the show with Twenty-one Questions, four dancers, and a singer.

First girlfriend changed everything, "You're young, she has baggage - get rid..." … did...

A place...

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Hello there,

Angel from my nightmares.

Devil from my dreams

a grey spirit that weaves

its way through my existence.

What a Dementor does to souls

or a Dalek to a human heart.

Even a superhuman heart

can break.

Just ask Logan,

a force so strong

a returning phoenix

could not reignite remnants.

I miss you.

Whatever you ...

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do you remember
those nights
we placed hooks in our eyes?

waiting in our sleep
to catch the darting lies
that swam inside our heads

do you remember
those nights?

we should have walked
the chrome stacked streets
that rolled like silver eels

where stub ends sailed on tarry keels
in that vanishing space between
the night clubs gaudy hush
and necessities capital morning rus...

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as the dew dropped tulip two-steps over my tongue

so a pubic slaughter of moonbeams and drag queens

leaves so little space in-between the longing

hung, low slung, below the eaves of this curious abode

where pregnant questions await the gaunt relief

of a crucified thief who has chosen his flavour

so sure the house has fallen on the queen of the east

love thy nei...

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Hi Everybody

 It's that time again and another new Poem is ready to be unleashed on the world. This time inspired by a photograph I took a couple of years ago in Arundel, Sussex. It has a bit of an old world feel this one which I think compliments the subject matter. Hope you enjoy it.

Lost Paths

Ancient bridges beneath crystal waters
Rotten dark and gone to slaughter
Duck...

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Well hello there,

 It has been a long old while since I last posted and lots has happened since my last post. I have a new job and am now officially a commuter which is inspiring a large amount of material as you can imagine. I have also had one or two tragic events happen which leads me to my latest entry.

 At the beginning of this month my Grandfather passed away after losing a long f...

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Memory, sweet memory,

That dwells within the heart of me,

Why is it that the things I see

Are not the things that used to be.

Did I walk those wild wood ways

Of make believe and childhood plays

That once upon a time portrays?

Did I really live those days?

The faces that I used to know,

The places where I used to go,

Now like the tide ebb to an...

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Some days, all we can do to see a wider world
is lie quietly in the sun, faces curved to sky,
watching leaves drop color and die, as clouds
paint a bleached collage of our other places.

All this radiance and warmth must surely
reach something deeper than skin,
higher than your mountains and stars,
less broken than my in-between lovers.
Yet, why does the wind winter swiftly?

If...

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These travelling shoes
lackadaisical partners
walk without weary wonder

they drift past
poplar-lined roads
into tangential horizons

and that is where
this wandering soul
goes off to, willing

and remembered only
by fleeted echoes
of short-memoried soles.

`

Please make your response or comment on my profile page. Thank you.

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`

Was it the yellow of your bright petals
or the way you danced in the breeze
that I brought you home from fields?
Was it the strength of your upright stalks
or the camaraderie, your solidarity?

There in the sun you sang hope,
songs that filled a mourning heart;
there in the wind you whispered
plaintive farewells on conflicted air-
fill this grieving with consolation.

Ou...

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We are bathing in light,

resting from shadow,

lamenting through night.

home fires are burning

in coloured glass jars,

flickering bright.

An afterglow of sweet memories

breaths soft contented sighs.

Moons fluid silk shimmers beyond sky.

Peppered Moth defies instinct

seeking safe illumination,

from magnetised flight.

We...

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A first kiss promise,

tangibly felt through fearful lips.

Smiling eyes offer more,

more than I could pledge.

Clutching at sunshine,

filtered through a darkened haze.

Through your gaze, expectancy

In your spoken words, urgency.

Writing down lines, where tears soak paper.

Pulling apart seams, a telling intent,

packed into a case, a delibe...

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‘Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep
He hath awakened from the dream of life’

Jagger tugs weeds, rakes a bed
of graveyard shale,
drags a copper wire brush
through moss lumps
gathered by the guest book 
and its dew dribbled plastic bag -
there to keep the water out.
He pulls cart-wheeling cellophane
from his shin,
paints a black shadow across the ultimate stone,
...

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Once in every while

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There is calmness

Like a Buddhist prayer

On the road

When it snows

And cars are afraid

To come down it.

There is softness

In the trees rustling

When the wind

Shakes it off

Which reminded me

Of my father

When he used

To shake off his boots

Before he stepped back inside

After gritting

The front path.

And as it gets so...

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Somewhere, nowhere, between the press of sheets and ventilator’s suck and hush, his hourglass drips. The moving mountains mark his time, his pulse, his pressure, as he slips and slides through crusts of consciousness. These walls can barely hold him now; what’s left could smudge and melt away through every crack, but for the weight of years ��" the slack tide of a fading past...

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