The Watcher and The Rain

While the rain turned roads into mirrors

I saw you standing lonely there;

Your face so pale and empty,

dull beads of raindrops in your hair.

You looked both lost and lovely,

Your eyes wide and forlorn.

Endlessly searching for someone

with eyes seeming only to mourn.

For whom were you searching that evening?

Was it a lover you so longed to meet?

Had he said he’d be there that hour

to hold and to kiss on the street?

I could have moved closer to greet you,

I could have said “Look, here I am.

like you I am alone in the greyness,

lost and alone, just a man.

You have been forsaken this evening.

He lies with another, not you.

I have no-one to hold or to worship

but you and I shall love and be true.”

But I watched as you tightened your raincoat

and I stood like a thing carved from stone

as you walked sadly into the darkness.

I sighed and I went home alone.

The Parting In The Storm

Dark was the day when love left me,

savage the sky hung above.

Rain dimmed my eyes like cold teardrops,

tears I withheld from your sport.

Wild was your hair in the west wind,

Bitter your gaze like the storm.

Swift steps away down the platform,

A glance you gave and then laughed.

Off in the storm went my longings,

Given to him and his love.

Love! Once only I knew it

when skies were so still and so calm.

But thunder seduced you, and you ran to the storm.

Becoming

 

I am a cloud blown on her ardent breeze,

torn and reformed in her shining sky.

I am a ripple born of the stone she throws,

spreading outwards as the murmurs die.

I am the flame on the blackening bough,

leaping from the fire that links our hearts.

I am the thunder in the angry clouds,

heard in the halls where her lightning darts.

I am the clay. But hers are the hands

that press and flex on the potter’s wheel.

The clay loves the hands that wound and mar

for without the potter, Form is not real – 

Love’s Being is Becoming’s End.

Worlds Away

 

There is a world that’s much like ours,

a world that’s like the one we know;

a land of sun and clouds and showers

a world of joy: a world of woe.

But in that land, we walk together

and in that land we are as one;

as one we face the bitter weather;

as one we feel the summer sun.

If this sad world with sad tomorrows

would but mix and meld and fray

and, fraying, take us far from sorrows

we’d be together: Worlds away.

Kite

 

Up where the air is clean and sharp,

up where the wind is sharp and keen

like a knife poised between the ribs,

and the sun flings bright spears of gold

downward toward the distant earth

he hangs upon impatient winds,

wings at rest, without a beat

to trouble the clear air’s calm.

He waits and watches the far fields,

questing for the still signs of death

so he can sweep silently down

and tear the cold flesh from dead bone,

then arrow-swift return skyward

to scale again bright hills of cloud

that rise proud from the sea of sky

until he can soar no higher.

And I, earthbound wretch, can but watch

his stately path through spheres of air

withheld from me and from my kind,

doomed to watch and sadly wonder

how it is to ride the wild winds

and look in pity on the works

of mere men, shrunk to nothing, from

his icy throne. Ah! I must turn

my eyes from his circling splendour

patrolling his unchallenged realm

and pull the cord that links my hands

to the whirling shape that just I

can command, a pitiful thing 

of wood and paper that soils his

name yet holds it in awe and praise:

My servant of the sky, my kite.

The Pool of Avarice

 

A storm-swept night on the bleak hillside,

The moon hides her face under tumbling clouds.

Slowly he walks through curtains of rain,

despair holds a heart once full of pride.

On through cold wind, on through cold rain,

that lash his face with whips of ice.

Still no sight of the grand old house

where dwell his kin who’ll end his pain.

He thinks on the face of his sobbing wife

who weeps for children who cry in the night.

He remembers their words as they beg for food,

eyes wide and wet as they cling to life.

Not far to go in this wild, angry night!

Just beyond the ridge, just past the wood

whose leafless branches thrash blind in the dark

except when pale beams of the moon’s pallid light

gleam weakly on stumps of twisted, dead trees.

And then he espies it, lit by the lightning,

huge and ornate, rising up squat like a toad.

A place of sweet wine, fat meats, laughter and ease.

They will help him, for blood calls to blood!

A knock on the door and succour will come!

The door opens wide and rich smells of excess

waft temptingly over his grime and his mud.

He speaks of his young ones, his sweet steadfast mate,

begs to his kindred for some crumbs from their store:

a crust, or a ham, a rabbit, a hen,

some hope, some help to turn back their fate.

But there is no invite, no gifts from their store.

Instead, there is laughter and cruelty and scorn

and a finger points mockingly into the night.

There is no salvation, just the slam of a door.

Tears streak the mud from his woebegone eyes

as he turns back to darkness, to storm and to night, 

back to the young ones, back to his wife

with nothing to give them to quiet their cries.

Back up the ridge with footsteps of lead,

he trudges, his belly burning with need.

What can he say to those who love him,

to those he watches as they beg to be fed?

Then there is thunder, though there is no light!

He turns to see the house of his kin shudder

and fall, fall into ruin, stone striking stone,

down into darkness where there only is night.

Then with a rush comes a thundering flood

covering the stones with a cold, turbid cloak,

hiding forever the dread house of his kin,

hiding their screams, their prayers, their blood.

Now only a pool shows where the house fell,

a pool dark and dismal where no bird can sing.

No more will those people laugh, mock and jest

at they who must live lives trapped helpless in Hell.

And our traveller? What was his fate?

What of his children and strong, faithful wife?

There were others who saw them, saw their sad plight

and came with kind offerings – and it was not too late.

The Hillfort Abides

 

High above the Severn Sea

broods an ancient Sentinel.

Swift centuries have hurried by

yet still it stands, clothed in wonder.

First the folk from forgotten lands

with copper axe and shield of bronze

stood upon the windswept height

and dared to face its fearsome thunder.

Then the Celts, so brave, so proud,

trod the ancient ridgeway paths,

built the ramparts, fought the foe.

And still it stands, clothed in wonder.

Romans came from a land of sun

with spear and sword to tame the hills.

They slew the druids on the stones

And dared to face their fearsome thunder.

And the Sentinel watched them all,

saw them live and watched them die.

Roman, Celt, like mist they fled.

And still it stands, clothed in wonder.

Then the Normans, haughty, fierce,

built upon the windswept hill.

A tower they raised to watch the land

and dared to face the fearsome thunder.

Colliers strove beneath the soil.

To warm a world they gave their blood.

Cold, aloof, the Sentinel watched.

And still it stands, clothed in wonder.

And you and I, we stand here now

and look upon the Severn Sea.

We think of all who went before

and dared to face the fearsome thunder.

And still it stands, clothed in wonder.