Dark was the day when love left me,
About Me
- Martyn
- I am a great admirer of English poetry from the time of Chaucer up until the middle of the twentieth century when it appeared to lose its way. I love all aspects of this planet but are sometimes sad when I think of what we are doing to it.
Saturday 19 November 2022
The Parting In The Storm
Dark was the day when love left me,
Wednesday 5 October 2022
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.
Tuesday 30 August 2022
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.
Monday 8 August 2022
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.
Sunday 7 August 2022
The Hillfort Abides
Friday 4 March 2022
Ukraine
Under shell-shot skies
knowing their war is just
resolute men with rage-filled eyes
attack the foe as they know they must.
Indomitable in might,
Never yielding the fight,
Ever gloried, they fight for the right.