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Winter Romance

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Fearing untamed animals
on the dark and lonely moor;
seeing only wintry sunset
vastness through the door,
we take the lowest road,
the line of least resistance,
the better safe than sorrow way
to painful raw existence.

Frostbitten, frozen, we resist
those things which have to be,
while secretly (resentfully)
wishing we were free;
rebuffing those within whose
hearts encirclement awaits us
and for whom we have a boundless
space within our own.

Iceberg memories hidden hugeness
floats in frozen skies,
in terror of the infinite —
a lover’s limpid eyes.
Afraid to lose our selves,
preserved in glacial pride;
in squand’ring Spring’s fertility
capacity for loving dies.

Love — when seen through falling
snowflakes crystal vision —
becomes a cold and clever mimic,
object of derision,
suffused with chill insanity
(the mind’s mad moorland surge).
For only from the seeds of Death
can Love’s sweet bloom emerge.
 

◄ If

I am of the Street ►

Comments

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Elaine Booth

Fri 24th Jun 2011 23:47

This poem weaves some sort of magic that I really liked. Would like to re-read it again - and all these comments. Some essays here - nice to think you can inspire all this!

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Noetic-fret!

Thu 23rd Jun 2011 23:17

the poems technical sway gathers strength with each stanza, till at the end you find yourself marveling at the truth within it. Should be printed, but then, would you want too see it in a book?

Nice one Alan,

Much love

Mike

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Noetic-fret!

Thu 23rd Jun 2011 23:13

Hey, I can strongly recommend Gorecki, Sorrowful Songs. You can download it from amazon and its only 3.19 for the album.

I read your words. It was heartwarming to see such a response. In all honesty, I sit within a morbid state half the time. I cannot seem to fathom how life has become the affliction. I look back and it would seem that my existence, my being here was pre-empted a long way back, and in all essence, a lot of the good in my life has been tarnished in some way. I try crack on with a bad hand, a bad deck of cards, but there are days I long for it to be over. I am not in control you see. There are in many ways, factors outside of my control that see me reach the pits of despair sometimes. Maybe all who live with disability feel this way. The thing is, if your leg goes during service career, then you can try adjust with prosthetics, and often many men and women who lose limbs become a marvel to themselves and the community because in true grit spirit they crack on as best they can. But when your mind goes, there are no prosthetics, and each day is painful in so many ways. Still, i try crack on, but i interpret things a lot different nowadays. Once I was a young naive soldier, now, I am open to all manner of theories and dramas of life, and in the main I see a lot of negativity that I cannot comprehend. I also see how people are being duped from an early age, and I feel a sad sense of loss for many.

Your work by the way, I have cut and paste into my own collection. I was astounded when I read it. It spoke absolute volumes, and all the main poets I sometimes read, the famous ones from Spike Milligan - Ben Okri, from all the poetry I have read in volumes I give scant read too, I have never been so grasped like this before. I have read verse that makes me cry, but this one went beyond the tweaking of just emotions. Before I become to grandiose, it as if I have read something from someone who has looked into a light, a powerful one that cuts through the cacophany of noise. I have kept it, becasue I need to know why it has grasped me so much. I will come back to it, time and time again, because there is something profound about it that seems pure.

I have gone on a bit i know, and i may be running my crackling mind, but it struck me as writen by a man who speaks truth, not witticisms, not audciousness, not grandiosity, not deliberate intent to pull the heart strings. Just plain simple truth. And I was gobsmacked. Not one jot of contriviality.

That's why I kept it.

Hey, I even dare not listen to it, for i don't want my interpretation of it to be changed in any way.

I hope your life is good, and I hope you are fulfilled. God bless you Alan, I was touched.

rgds

Mike

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kath hewitt

Tue 21st Jun 2011 20:36

I did like this and i thought the lyrics were as Mike says, very true. I found myself thinking ' i know how that is'.

I did think the melody and music were very pink floyd, but i'm a huge fan of theirs so i didnt mind!

K x

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Alan Morrison

Tue 21st Jun 2011 12:23

As I read your comment, Mike, I was moved to tears.

My initial response: There is nothing uncultured or vulgar about you. Nothing. You are a shining sun on the orb of an unfeeling world. We don't belong here, you and I. But we have been put here (and kept here, often against our wills) for a reason: To be a blinding mirror and to point the way to the parallel world which this one could have been, had it not been hijacked by a cloud of evil and deception.

You say "that is how I was conditioned". Let me tell you something, Mike: Pavlov's conditioned dogs suffered an accident in the laboratory. A burst water pipe flooded the lab and some dogs died, others were traumatised. But the truly interesting fact is that the remaining dogs lost their conditioning. In other words, we can be shocked out of our conditioning! It isn't written in granite! We can reinvent ourselves whenever we want to.

You have no need to be jealous of me. No one has any need to be jealous of anyone. Everyone has their own private hell to live - although it may not seem apparent to others. Why should anyone swap their version of hell for another? I guess the only reason could be to relieve the boredom ;-)

The "gift of verse", as you put it, isn't something which is "harnessed in one's younger years". It comes from somewhere else - somewhere au-delà - outside of ourselves; but so far outside that it really comes from deep inside us. (There's a circle there). So you do not need to regret that you didn't harness certain things in childhood. It was your later unique experiences which, in your case, opened you up to the self within and the prompting of the Muse. The timing may be different for each poet but the motion behind it is always the same: Being able to go beyond yourself and the world in order to to draw from the well of wordsome heartache and the much-needed architecture of unseen reality.

The real Mike is this:-

"A veteran
so much better than
he thinks himself
to be".

Your words "I am from the street" will be the title of my next poem.

I love you.

Alan

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Noetic-fret!

Tue 21st Jun 2011 11:54

That should say impatient, but yes I have been an inpatient in case you're wondering.

I was butchered Alan.

rgds

Mike

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Noetic-fret!

Tue 21st Jun 2011 11:40

Hi, this is a dark and mournful poem Alan, but one that I have to say, is a true poem. Its language tells me of a writer that has understood a great many things, and knows well, how to articulate what is bitterness. Bitterness that someone less cultured (like I), could only write about in profanity and vulgar tones. This is a great poem, and if ever I can pull myself away from the Bitterness I feel, I would perhaps learn a great deal from studying your thoughts and prose. I am from the street, and was brought up in ignorance and brutality, sometimes, often in fact, I sincerely wish I had the chance in my younger years, to have been able to harness the gift of verse that I try so forcefully to thrash out of me. Forcefully because that is how I was conditioned, and my eloquence, like many from the street, was lost a long time ago. I admire this work and others done by yourself, and in honesty, I am jealous too. Maybe if I could have been given the chance when I was younger, like many, I would not be sitting here in ignorance of how it is to truly write. I can read it well, and understand, but if I was to try to write like this, my inpatient hardened attitude would take over.

A pleasure and honour to read your work, and talent that someone like me could learn from.

Brilliant Alan.

Stay well.

Mike

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