Poetry and Fiction
I miss the squeak of marker pens,
Just as the prophets said I would;
When small, controlled, of freedom dreaming,
I cheered for life and called it good;
When all around me, foes and friends,
Offended by improvement, and,
In league with time, then loyal seeming,
Still for a boundless future planned.
David
Life is good today;
Stay like this a while.
Don’t let things fall back
Where they were before.
Freeze things as they are,
Capture time in flight,
Bind its little wings,
Keep the sun alight.
David
I remember slightly, in dreams, our rattling
Down the orange pathways,
My driver glancing clever at the shadowed
Bill rolling;
His revived Euskara whispers describing
Beaten rival traffic;
A dull and leaden moan as the rum-coloured
bridge passed us;
Then unbidden, roughly, his quick revolving
On damp squeaking leather;
He awoke me with tapping and a sudden
Loud barking,
“Hemen.”
David
Brute gales incite a clash of arms,
A slapping brawl devoid of grace.
We stand hands-held beneath the palms
And over neutral water trace
Their drowning leaves, uprooted hair,
The chewed up shards of blasted bark
Submerged under a slimy lair
Of mossy skin steeped heavy-dark.
Another wave, invading winds;
They punch and strip, control the war;
Defecting needles fall and spin
And pierce the gloss to reach the floor,
Where plastic, gum and folded cans
Are shimmering inside the blue.
A seagull perches where we stand
And reasons intervention through.
David
In sight of quiet ferries sailing,
Our party on the moonlit beach
Is settled, festive ribbons trailing,
Beyond the thinning ocean’s reach.
Around us there are seabirds landing
With blue and white and pewter branding,
Thin-shadowed by the trees and rocks,
Pink miles from where the cargo docks.
The air is still enough for fire;
Opposing angels vainly rage;
Fill up a sacrificial page,
Tonight we light a cleansing pyre.
It’s time to count our worries and
Make smoke of them upon the sand.
Throw on your doomed or failed romances,
Your broken resolutions made,
The mess you forged from second chances,
Turn out your heart inside the shade.
Condemn to flames your long depressions,
The unrequited loves, obsessions,
That weighted you with misery,
Come lay them all down by the sea.
The heat will judge them into ashes,
As friends observe in calming blue,
As moonlight travels over you
And silent water winks and flashes.
Emancipate your heart and mind
From all that can be left behind.
And when your demons glow as embers,
Take ten steps back toward the sea,
A charming ritual time remembers
Will grant you new tranquillity.
Between the pile of evils burning
And waves of sapphire thickly turning,
Prepare a path, and three, two, one…
Jog slow, then gather pace and run…
And leap – leap clear – however daunting,
Transcend the fitful crowd of flames,
The curling papers etched with names
Of all that lingered haunting, taunting;
And land the other side renewed,
No longer by the past pursued.
David
A time-wave, cold and wintry white,
Rises out of moonless night,
Shining like a lamp-struck puddle,
Cleaning ancient tracks with light.
The air is wet. Each narrow pass,
Fashioned ugly by its task,
Softened in the glow of morning,
Catches dew from bending grass.
Every surface bears a stain,
Drying coats of slept-through rain,
Polished by the paling cloud-work
Of the morning’s high domain.
Not long before about the town
Yawning children cycle round;
Staccato noises, tyres whining
Over hard and giving ground,
Not long before the chapel, grey
And darkest at this time of day,
Speaks, reminding thoughtless natures
Luck and trouble pass away.
Already speaks its haunting gate,
Padlocked like the heart of fate,
Conducted by the mocking breezes
Leaves and litter populate.
David
In no strange way the sun was shining,
From what I conjure of that day;
Around us were no signs combining,
Just people, in their local way,
Discussing things of no great matter
Beneath that undramatic sun,
And no alarms; besides the clatter
Of coffee cups, no distant drums.
I might recall the way the mountains
Slept lovely in the lemon light,
And how the grey Pereda fountains
Made for a cool and calming sight.
So many happy, wasted hours
Were spent in gorgeous ignorance;
We took the heat and monarch flowers
As if a just inheritance.
Today, beyond a veil of terror,
Dull creatures bask in naïve peace;
And though we might resent their error,
Once good for us, we cannot cease
Reflecting blame upon ourselves;
A wealth of light we chose to shun;
And now, with life upon our shelves,
We crave the ordinary sun.
David
David Carlewood 