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Red Leb

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Staring at the red candle,
remembering the smell of patchouli oil,
mixed with cannabis from all those years ago.
On Saturday 4th July, 1846 the London Daily News 
extolled the virtues of this peculiar
Indian oil in preventing the ravages of the moth.
Nothing to do with hippies, no new age communities
Except India, and olfactory-based imagined communities
that take a grip that will not pass. 
Ad agencies now use the association between hippies 
and environmentalism to sell boringly green cars to the Saga
Generation. Forgetting their decades spent mocking
tree-hugging, new age travellers, Swampy’s anti-road protests.
Greenham common women who risked everything for peace..

Then there is the half a breath we take
When we reco
gnise a fellow traveller;
When we hesitate to step towards love
There is a dark stone settled in the heart
We hold ourselves in check
And allow the queen to fall, fragment.
Yet, even as you fall your pupils weave a wonder
In my soul, a gift that will never grow old.

In the depth of night a whisper of light
Enchants me back to dream. All is quiet
And the night is long:
I listen to songs in the key of blue
And imagine you breathing, you. 
Sometimes I forget that I can breathe too,
And I forget that everything
Becomes stuck in my throat
Even as I sing and write
I am subdued in my thinking of you.
Identities are stolen all the time. We are bound together
By what we forget: and what we forget is our commonality,
A minor key craving for an imagined past that can not last.
Some long for dear-bought security above all things.
For them exploration, sharing, risk taking, are anathema,
They think dying can be halted, chance dispensed with, 
That only those who fit the mould can be saved.
Thank God. Nothing lasts.
 
 

◄ A sonnet for Sylvie

I have no words ►

Comments

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John Marks

Fri 11th Mar 2022 21:26

Thanks Ray. Every thing you write is worth reading. Yes, as I've become older smells have become more evocative to me: a woman's perfume smell, a baby's milky smell, a man's beery smell. Also fusty smells of maiden aunts and clearing out the houses of the newly dead.

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raypool

Fri 11th Mar 2022 17:46

This makes a real tool of the power of smells that remind us inexorably of life lived and its potential to move us. Great lines and the ad reference is quite ghastly in its accuracy. Sometimes I think the repetition of ads is like a frozen orgasm that is supposed to titillate and captivate ad infinitum. There's a almost a Bukowski desperation in some of lines.

Ray

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John Marks

Thu 10th Mar 2022 21:23

Thank you Clare. I was lucky enough to see Jesca Hoop and Sam Beam in performance at the Royal Northern College of Music here in Manchester. I was mesmerized by their music and lyricism. Sam Beam is also known as Iron & Wine and is a great song writer.

"Sailor To Siren"

This tenderness comes as a surprise
Drinking where the riverbed was dry
Trees in the wind trembling with love

That morning light drew you out the door
Mama didn't need you anymore
She pointed in night but you saw the stars
Brace yourself and nestle into me
Bear it all like falling autumn leaves
You don't even know me that well

Now every blossom's ready to explode
Rooted in the cracks along the road
The world is a dream that we could freeze
While distant water shows me where to run
Papa let me know I'm not enough
Took out the life left me the hope
You sailor or the siren in the tide
Trust the tiny ocean and besides
You don't even know me that well

Your song is warm and coming through the wall
Hearts are only strangers after all
You don't even know me that well

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Clare

Thu 10th Mar 2022 20:43

Another brilliant post from you. What a talent you are! I need your playlist, please.

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