DISCLAIMER: All these poems were written by me, Maggie, and are copyrighted to me (July 2000).
The muse supplied the lines, often in the most inconvenient places.  So, if any of this poetry really doesn't make any sense to you, be assured that it took me years to find out what some of it meant, as well.
Any thoughts or questions, just contact me.

CONTENTS

ABSTRACT
(Memories of the old centre of learning)

CAUTLEY SPOUT
(The power of the Yorkshire hills)

CIEL ...
(Dreaming before conception)

ALSO, CIEL
(Dreaming before birth)

CRYSTAL CARCASS
(Class 3N, 1968)

THE DIFFERENCE
(Reflections on a Rock Star.  22nd May, 1976)

MAKING DON QUIXOTE
(Inspired by the song 'Don Quixote', by Gordon Lightfoot.  1972)

DOOM
(This is what you get when you try meditation at a creative writing class ...
well; it's what I got, anyway ...
Mid-1990's)

ON THE FACE OF IT
(Ever considered what's underneath that peaceful, rolling countryside, going past your train window?
Zeus' father ate his children.  Perhaps his crime was only symbolic of a less-acceptable truth.)

FRAN'S PLACE GIVES ME A CORNER OF MY OWN
(Written in an old study-buddy's bed-sit.  1973)

FROM THE GREEN ROOM
(One of the best views from the base of Glastonbury Tor)

CIEL.  ALAS ...
(Dreaming of Annihilation)

LAST SONG
(A stairway to God's Place.  Not inspired by the Led Zeppelin song.  Sorry, lads)

IMAGINATION
(This one kinda explains itself.  1967)

ACTOR'S GOLD
(Various really briliant actors inspired this.  For the sake of their vanity and mine,
I'm not going to mention their names ...)

MOM, GONE NOW
(2000)

MOONRISE
(Written for a friend's homework.  1972)

MILTON KEYNES MUDBATH
(Written for my best pal from across the pond,
in remembrance of the Genesis reunion concert, 'SIX OF ONE'.  Oct 2nd, 1982)

NIGHTWATCH
(1975)

OCEANIC
(Thoughts occuring during a stay at Pete Townshend's spiritual centre,
which he centred around The Boathouse, his studio, near Richmond.
Written 14th November, 1976)

INVOLUTION
(Hints of the beginnings of too much deep-thinking about the universe.
Maybe this is what most call madness...
Better a wise madness, than a foolish sanity@.  Written, 1969)
@{taken from 'DON QUIXOTE'  by Cervantes.}

NOT A TALL TALE - (in short...)
(Three pithy tributes to Iolaus, a wonderful character, who has his own life now,
thank-those-responsible-very-much! - from the ground-breaking and often
misunderstood, TV show, HERCULES: the legendary journeys.
Written mid-to-late 1990's.)

DID YOU PRAY FOR ME?
(Inspired by Ian McShane's performance of Judas Iscariot, in JESUS OF NAZARETH.
April 12th, 1977)

TWO PERSONS
(Some deep evaluative process provided these thoughts about the character
Morgan, 'Two Persons' Beaudine, played by Kurt Russell, in the 1970's TV Show,
THE QUEST, which was based on two real brothers, who lived in the latter half
of the 19th Century, in America's old West.)

EIGHTEEN
(Written in 1973, when I was still only eighteen, this is about as pretentious as I get ...)

SILVER
(This one's about mistakes; some fatal, some not.  April 17th, 1977.)

THE SWORD AND THE YO-YO
(The indestructible and wily spirit)

ONCE A CELT, ALWAYS ...
(Sort of a lighter, companion piece to On The Face Of It.)

THIN LINE
(30th January, 1977.This one came out of a dream.  It's about the difference
between the Obsessed and the Witness;how it ties them together and how it separates them.
Also, how no matter how right the cause,the most passionate, the most righteous efforts, often end in failure.
I believe that Obsession is one of the tools of the impulse to destroy.)

TREE STANDS
(The cryptic journey and the ones you can't turn around and wait for ...
Written in 1975.)

WOOD SMOKE
(A Personal journey's diary.
Written on 14th November, 1976, after Meher Baba exploded into my life.
A curse and a Blessing.)

Return to Original Fiction Page

ABSTRACT

Bizarre-painted echo trickling down

from the chandelier;

Glass-cracked hanging memories

They leave a shadow on the

Wall when they've gone;

The mirrors in odd corners

Of odd rooms will soon forget you.

We need a Theatre ghost.

It won't be long.

It won't be long.

The curtains curl about you,

Smothering with a monologue

of patter: The ultimate in

Irritation.

One day the sprinklers will

shower down upon a brainstorm; drown all the

little ducks.

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CAUTLEY SPOUT

I stand on hill, small,

In valley, narrow,

With grey bank, steep,

And green;

And all the silence, still,

And all the valley sides

And hill

And sky

Seep into me.

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CIEL ...

... there is but one thing

and that is this;

only waiting

only blue

only sometimes

only days

only nights

only rain

only

the dangerous,

wonderful,

overwhelming seas,

the dangerous trees

parading down the mountainside ...

All in you

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ALSO, CIEL

If I could sing songs to thee -

to keep thee company -

and know them heard,

I would sing them;

But my heart, in doubt,

silences me

to despair.

Be there:

In that space,

the colour of you

Holds everything

that I remember

of your eyes.

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CRYSTAL CARCASS

Glisten and glow,

Sparkle and flame,

Like moths in the sunlight.

Glass-covered dew drops,

As fresh as the Mind,

Bubbling down the cool mountain stream.

Stand on the threshold and look at the life of butterflies,

Flitting before your eyes in enigmatic elusiveness.

~

Flake and fall,

Disintegrate, to lives of interminable,

Unknown dust.

Limbo.

Left forgotten - until forever ...

Or just until some dog

Decides to go and bury a bone ...

~

Musty and unwanted is the place wherein you lie;

Unliving, dead ...

All attempts at self-salvation to no avail?

Has the civilisation of the world that is best forgotten,

Mistaken its origin?

Are the miscreants that have bitten deeply

Into the Sands of Time,

Wrongfully wronged?

Their nature is no more.

The grass beneath their feet has withered and died.

Like them.

But is the life source still flaring in the souls of these

Cobwebbed, cardboard people?

Do you really want to know?

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THE DIFFERENCE.

He draws the lonely to him

With his loneliness

We ebb and flow throughout his emptiness

Does he see us?

Does he know we're there?

Or does the empty air just flow around him

Like his tears,

A wave,

Weaving dark despair?

Lightness is within him

But reflected in the moonlight

Just a shadow of himself

Like a seagull keening to the sea,

Grounded,

Stumbling with a broken wing;

Yet when we hear him sing,

Sending his cry, high,

Circling,

We sway and follow him,

And mesmerised into ourselves,

We see him.

Now we are moving onwards,

Outwards, from our start,

We leave him standing,

Yet he is going on a journey,

Far and farther;

As we move on,

With his eyes he watches us,

Knowing he is one of us,

And yet he journeys on without us,

By himself.

For him, there is no other way.

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MAKING DON QUIXOTE

A flash of white is come and gone

Within the mind of one who seeks,

For the courtroom now is empty

Of the thoughts of one who keeps

All the world together in a fist of tightly,

finely woven steel,

With the strength of twenty giants,

Governs what should happen,

Where and why,

Before all men should die.

Silence spreads the whole world over,

Taking with it dusts of peace.

Years away a fish emerges,

Grows some legs,

A better brain,

On some lonely, distant planet,

The work of God begins again.

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DOOM

Black door; back door.

Red door; dead door.

Green door; seen door.

White door; night door.

The black door was at my back.

The red door was dangerous, like death.

The green door I had already passed.

The white door, like the night, drew me.

I went through the white door.

The stars shone in my eyes, blinding me.

The deep night called to my insides,

Come back, come back.

White door; back door.

Black door; dead door.

Red door; seen door.

Green door; night door.

The black door opened; I entered.

There were memories there.

I looked at them, but then turned away.

They couldn't help me.

Black door; seen door.

Red door; night door.

Green door; back door.

White door; dead door.

I went to the red door.

I could smell blood, hear dying animals.

It was too much and I fled.

I would never come out the other side.

Red door; back door.

Green door; dead door.

White door; seen door.

Black door; night door.

Only the green door left.

It had been right under my nose.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

There, finally, was the blue door.

Green door; seen door.

White door; night door.

Black door; back door.

Red door; dead door.

Blue door; through door.

Thank heavens! All the puzzles solved, all the monsters slain.

I thought I'd never find my way out of this damned computer game!

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ON THE FACE OF IT

On the face of it, it's only earth

On the face of it.

I travel, I walk, I run, I drink,

I cry and yell and whisper

On the face of it

I think of it before you say it,

On the face of it

Hands wipe the blurred face clean

Each of us, like a husband,

Paints his wife's face like a harlot

Exclusive, high-powered machine

Executive Convertible, like every other -

A blurred face

Hands wipe clean that face

Every hand.

I ate my Children then,

and you condemned me for it -

I still eat them

and you still condemn me -

But they don't.

What's my name? You don't know it -

But they do.

It's all for Nothing, this -

On the face of it.

I walk on my own face

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FRAN'S PLACE GIVES ME A CORNER OF MY OWN

Under this roof

Within these four walls

Home is new to me

I never knew what home was

Here, here is comfort

These bare boards a welcome mat,

as pictured carpet never could be.

Warm feelings

The floor of contentment

Familiar pictures that I know I've never seen.

What dark and homely secret hides behind that cupboard door?

The vibrating hanging on the wall behind me

Shows me sea and sand,

I feel like I am sharing a million different places;

All I want's a corner.

Soft sounds I never knew about comfort my ears.

There's a lion on the wall;

He's smiling at me -

At everyone

But then again

Just at me.

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FROM THE GREEN ROOM

'And I lifted the Stone.

And the clouds drifted

And the water beneath

The spirit, hanging in the

air, quivered

full of possibilities

And the wind sang in the sky

All still and waiting

Awaiting Trumpets cry

brazen and heart-breaking

*

You cannot break my silence.

Heart in the Hill

beneath my feet

fills me to

Shiver and throw wide

The Gates

and all asunder down to

the barest depths

In a single touch, the

heights sound

And full and blowing

and nothing but nothing else

Only thee

Thee

I feel no cold glass

of the water

There is the Heart's Storm:

Only the Heart's Storm.

Across all the plain

- the Thunder of it -

I have no belief

There is nothing but thee

No faith

Only the wind

No knowledge

Only the light - all and

unbearable

Then the Brightness in the

Blackness gathers all

that is left of me

in its warm arms.

Goodnight.

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CIEL.  ALAS ...

to Kiss You

again

would be the sweetest thing

I know

but there is

only one

way

and that is

to never Kiss You

again

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LAST SONG

God stood at the top of the stairway to Heaven and looked down to see who it was coming up at such an unaccustomed hour:

Coming with such a noise of singing and coming, it would appear, quite alone - but rejoicing for all that.

Who is it who dares to climb by himself, in the middle of the night, and to sing with such a loud voice?

The singer stopped singing and laughed, and kept on climbing.

I am climbing because I know how, she said, and I am not alone.

And I am singing because of the others who come this way, singing, and believe that they, each one of them, comes alone.

So God sat down and waited for the woman, as she climbed,

And they sang together.

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IMAGINATION

I say to myself

How does that person

manage to be like that?

I always fall flat

When I try to be someone else.

Not being someone else

I have no idea of how

to set about anything

so complicated as this.

I sit locked in my own

Ugly, dead-end, little world,

Searching, searching for a

Way to burst into

the world, reborn

As someone no-one

has ever heard of.

That person that I sort of

envy, holds the key

to my enlightenment

But I can't buy.

The key not being hers to sell.

So she carries on as she

always has.

Happy?

I imagine happier than I.

I who still sit here, in the dark,

imagining strange things.

Imagination.

Never should have been invented.

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ACTOR'S GOLD

Your head thinks their thoughts

Your courage bares your soul, mirrored in theirs,

The faceless soul is silver - mirrors ours -

"Enough!" I cried.

"No more," I whispered.

You must have been there in the walls I have

beaten with my screams, when I thought there

was no-one there.

You, I am sure, would think all this very bizarre.

I am only saying what I see in the mirror.

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MOM, GONE NOW

I can't even imagine what it was like inside your head, ever.

At any time of your life.

At any time, anywhere near the end.

The past ten years.

What did you think of me, then?

How did you feel about me?

I feel like this is just a new phase of your life;

A summer holiday, and then a new school,

In a new country.

A much new understanding.

What do you think about me now?

How do you feel about me now?

I can't even imagine.

I wish I could feel comfortable about you watching me.

I wish I knew you now.

I don't.

So, please ...

Don't watch me too closely.

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MOONRISE

The black needle-barbed firs

waved their angry arms at the

oblivious dark

Which was answering back

with stars flashing stabbing whispers

encouraged and enclosed by the depth around them.

Futile anger.

I don't know why they bother.

For every night the Pale Protector

awakes in her perennial 'sleep-and-wake'

And the demons vanish.

Pale in the night,

Dim in Street-light,

Sharpened by frost, not frosty.

Same night,

Same sky,

Same waving arms.

Light brings many changes.

A hearth-warm night embraces a

cat-sleeping sky.

Arms seeking alms, move softly,

in a humble way.

Stars glow 'comfort' 'til the

tensions melt away into a peaceful

state of mind.

Moonrise ... a necessary thing,

and alone in its solicitude.

Until we rise to meet the moon.

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MILTON KEYNES MUDBATH

Every single problem created by the day,

Soaked into a solid sodden mass of 60,000

Dripped off rubbish bags

to pool into the mud -

We were a vision in brown,

Was washed away.

The bouncing punk up our cold, wet paper problems

On the Souls of his beat

and drummed them into the mud.

We were drowning at the feast -

Drowning in the Danger

and the Joy.

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NIGHTWATCH

You have written,

Cuneiform

High,

Flying high

Higher flying

Higher, flying

Highest.

Still, through the water, the bird slides,

Flowing with the current,

Creeping with the darkness,

Soundless creeping,

Sleeping through the dawn -

Not aware to face the Piper when he comes.

And I am waiting

There, on the shore,

Feet, wet-sand-sinking.

Still, and grey light

Daring to stray

Into the light-flute image of my dream.

Gull call.

Wait for that.

A single beating heart,

Beating, wing tip to wing tip,

Messenger in purpose,

Hungry in form.

I caught fish to await his arrival.

While he ate his fish on arriving stateside,

I read the proclamation,

Chewing on a chicken bone.

Had the Queen of Egypt waited so long for an answer?

I looked up.

There were rain-skies moving inland,

Growling down from some place East Nor' East.

You were coming home.

So I would get wet waiting for you.

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OCEANIC

Now the time for leaving.

This place of wood, very comfortable wood.

The wood is the trees,

I am surrounded by trees

Very still.

And when I go,

The wood will still be here,

And it will be here

When I come back,

This wood;

Safe as Mercy.

Birds in this wood;

You can hear them

Or not hear them

A walk in the wood

Is very quieting to the soul,

All different trees

Go to make up this wood,

And in the still air

You can see them very clearly.

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INVOLUTION

Pictures of me in a space in the wall,

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,

'Pictures of gliding through airless confusion

Are coming to you, so they say,'

So they said.

Passing from nothing, through something,

To nothing,

Is nothing like anything I've ever known,

Seeing the Universe blinking an eyelid to see

Only mutes,

Like the birds that have flown.

Mankind in a vacuum,

A speck of dust caught on a slate that is yet

To be written upon.

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NOT A TALL TALE - (in short... )
A TRILOGY

Once tested, not found wanting -

tried and true.

Short in stature, heart of fire -

eyes of blue.

Always hungry, never greedy -

past to rue.

Crowned, untitled, lover's bounty

Overdue.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shine and

Blue Shine

and Purple

Shine and

Bright Shine

and Light

Shine and

Out Shine

and Lightning

Fast and the

Mast will

each Storm

Out Last.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Winter Tree

No leaves

Cold, White

- getting lost in it all.

Spring Grass

Springs Back

Still Green

- grass is king.

Summer Bee

Flower Forest

Honey Blossom

- light heart's flight of fancy.

Autumn Leaves

Tree Bare

Change Again

- losing today for the Future.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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DID YOU PRAY FOR ME?

The waiting is the longest part;

Knowing that they paint me black

When they cannot see.

I see no-one;

There is no-one here, but me,

Waiting in the tunnel dark,

Hardly believing what is there behind me,

Greatly fearing what my lie in front.

Fear takes my breath,

puts the breath of winter into my heart;

It is difficult to move.

So, like an automaton,

Forward, inch through outstretched inch, My back near-glued to the oppressive tunnel wall,

I move.

So long,

(I cannot remember when I started),

So long I have been moving,

That it seems I do not move at all, but wait -

Wait for the light, Lord, to come,

To show me where I am going, if anywhere at all -

That light which I could never quite see, Lord,

My heart it seems, was elsewhere, when I saw you.

The eyes in my brain played wonders with my imagination.

Thus I darkened the sky by the indifference of my heart

As God sent his plague of locusts

To strike dead

To strike dead

That light - which I could never quite see.

But Lord, even as I betrayed you -

I, Judas Iscariot,

Whose name shall be the sacrificial goat

To slaughter,

In the hope that it will give sight

To the blind, blind men -

I, too, was betrayed.

Betrayed by lies, black cunning, the glib tongue of a serpent.

If ever sight I had,

That serpent, drooling his venom over my eyes,

Removed it.

Truly, Lord;

Truly was the hour of shadows, mine -

For I could not see.

They cast the tree in silver,

Moulded by experts,

Silver covered my eyes,

Silver tears squeezed from a silver heart.

Into the fire.

Hardened by time in the fire of hate,

Devoured by the licking tongues of flame,

Blackened by the smoke of rumour,

Choked by its suffocating breath.

Lord, Lord, where is the reason?

If only there could have been a reason.

Lord, you said,

You said you had prayed for Peter -

Lord, Lord -

Did you pray for me?

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TWO PERSONS

Hard rock

Wind - whipped

Half - Cast.

Sky like a silver bullet

Sand - scraped tin

Why so kind?

You shouldn't be, you know.

Shouldn't say things like that

The way you do.

It's in you

Like oldness and truth.

Perhaps you are hewn of Oak.

And now Two People are fighting for their lives again

They win -

You win -

At odd, unexpected times, you tell such nice stories.

Wait, wait the dawn

Cast the line across the lake

For the biggest fish.

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EIGHTEEN

One night, when the moon was dark,

My garden became a blaze of light to me.

The rope-swing on the Oak

No longer swung, as a hangman's noose,

But was still and quiet

Awaiting a discovery.

I walked in lonely solitude

And thought of how all things used to be.

The bark of the Oak was rough and free,

And spoke to me of simple things.

I thought of children's voices

And the tales this tree had heard.

I thought of eyes I loved and

Unheard songs;

This tree, this tree

How much it knows.

Oh, teach me, teach me

What I am and

Why I am -

It's simple,

Yes, I know, so simple.

Close my eyes and let me see.

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SILVER

I did not see the catchpole hid behind me, and

I fell headlong into the pit.

That same catchpole, like lightning,

Pulled me out again

with one hand,

The other demanding a bribe of

Silver to paint within his body, which

I was to procure for him.

Silver-corner, below the clock;

There I was to wait until served.

"Served?" I said -

"As in buy-things-in-a-shop?"

I said,

"Yes," he said.

"Price?"

"Yes, there will be a price."

He said.

Shivering streetly in a streetly city -

The city canvas blacked out, in places,

In indifferent paint,

Made those places cold,

(I was in one of them),

And shivering, I waited

Until served.

He was hasty to receive the parcel I returned with,

The silver weighing heavy on his arm,

And on my conscience.

He wished to leave me - let the paint begin -

Indiscreet withdrawal did not matter.

I was in no position to either help of hinder -

He had tied my hands with the thread that I could not help

but bring along for the occasion.

Working, professionally silent,

He prepared his own canvas,

Spreading from a streetly corner,

Like a blood stain spreading.

It seemed he used his brush to great effect -

Even as the little silver ring I had been given

at our troubled birth,

Turned my finger black,

So the flowing silver turned the canvas black within his body.

A complete black wash.

Then

Wierd colours splashed sunflower bright,

Dazzling his eyes, burning through them, sizzling -

but the black was, even now, beginning to seep through the canvas,

Dissolving all the colours, fading their crazy warmth,

Eating them into black -

All the time soaking deeper and deeper into the canvas,

Rotting the cloth, disintegrating fibres,

Clawing holes in the delicate fabric,

Holes meeting holes,

The black seeping even through the holes -

He was falling apart before my eyes.

He shivered there, blind,

Deaf,

and dumb to the world -

Neither yelling for mercy

Nor craving respect.

My obligation delivered itself

From my hands, as I

Drew breath -

No air in the room;

The black, like the plant from which it had come,

Had devoured the oxygen in the darkness.

I opened a window and

Looked up.

Saw a tiny slit of sky, pinched in,

High above the streetly city -

It seems the currency here does not pay for sky,

"The silver that melts has no value,"

I told the life inside me,

As I resolved to leave.

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THE SWORD AND THE YO-YO

In my Mind

You are there

Every piece

Everywhere

In my mind

The red of the Rose

Stays the same

Though it grows

In my heart

The Song and the Beat of the Drum

Intertwine

Round my mind

By my hands

Nothing done

Thru' my ribs

We are one

Kick my Soul

Hit nothing, it only thin air

End up flat

See you there

Inside you

I am there

Every piece

Every where

With my mind

Is my heart

And my soul

Is apart

Held in line

Same as yours

On a Once-in-a-lifetime trip

By Excalibur Tours.

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ONCE A CELT, ALWAYS ...

Forsaking all others

We go forward to the next sky

Of one accord

Future We Are

Deep in the realm of the Tree Master

We come together

A green temple

Shadow and Light

Leaves and bracken

Around and underfoot

Goaded by outside forces

Clinging together

For Strength and Will

Walking the Line

Trancing our eyes ahead

Not to be distracted

We will survive

If we can keep our own Mystery alive

In the face of adversity

Keep our faith in

The sense of what we find

Beyond us

Walking in the line of Truth

We will come to our own Time

Our own Place

Our own Immortality

Truth is a game beyond a game;

It must be played without rules.

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THIN LINE

Your words all rang true when you said them,

My love,

Though they weren't very clear

When you said them;

But they jumped round inside me,

(You know what I mean),

Like it wasn't quite you that had said them.

The words came out hopeless, and gasping for breath,

Just looking for someone to save them,

Like a coloured man drowning in the whites of their eyes,

And knowing that Jesus forgave them.

I could see you would fight with your head and your heart,

Never sure of quite where you were going;

Just speak the words, let your convictions be heard,

And your strength will be there in believing.

But you won't fight alone,

For the fight is mine too,

I've carried it since the receiving;

And I knew from the start,

You were linked to my heart,

We're together now, past point of leaving.

And though we may live with the parting of death,

We're way past the thin line of grieving.

*

I left you last night with a thought that was veiled

In a colour too bright for the morning,

And the thought was a word that I've never yet heard,

So I left it to you,

With the evening.

And the reverence paid, in the chapel you made,

Was a soft winter song we were singing,

And the people around us were joining the sound,

And their voices, like bells, clearly ringing.

They said that the starships were floating aloft,

And we knew it was time for the leaving,

And we left all our tears in the villagers' eyes,

We were way past the thin line of grieving.

*

I remember your voice as I heard it

That night,

Through your eyes that had silently spoken,

You said I was wrong to believe what you'd said,

As our fight was not more than a token.

I watched once again as the coloured man drowned,

And I wanted to reach out and save him;

But your words in my head,

Told me this man was dead,

And the starships were leaving without him.

As the night swallows up the drowned man's grave,

The drowned man I couldn't save,

I'm awaiting the thin line of grieving.

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TREE STANDS

It seems that I can see thee, even now,

Sitting here, silent and supportive,

As if my thought had conjured thee from air,

The wind and rain.

The storm drawing on,

Heaven's countenance grey and thick,

And the dull, oppressive air lies heavy on the limbs,

A heavy wall I yet can beat upon.

It is however, not a wall that holds my spirit prisoner,

But chains - I cannot move.

The padlock holds no promise of a gaoler.

*

I remember; greener than grass

It was - and Summer's hue

Warm, as sunflower, roundly beaming

As an infant's plaything.

I remember you then.

Different seeming from other golden hours and

Memories threaded in cobweb's garret,

Powdering into silver,

Flaring into ash.

Or that night when we lost the light

Climbing the hillside.

We could hear the sea crashing on the cliff-top beyond us.

We lost each other in the dark,

Deep, down we plunged.

By my stumbling footsteps

Silent shadows grew, that pushed upward

To the rocky brink.

This I would NOT have:

I turned and faced them, I looked through them,

Through the darkness and found you.

There, ever afterwards, our hearts beat light,

And shadows darkling countenance,

Knew no more.

*

So this is where we have come to.

They stare, grey faces,

White eyes, pink, fleshy hands.

Here we stand.

Until we fade out.

We are flowing, outwards, onwards.

They won't go when we go.

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WOOD SMOKE

Please be patient with me, Pearl;

I will come.

I am not full yet,

Neither am I empty,

Yet I feel something stirring,

Nudging as yet, only at my conscience.

There is so much here that is gross, Pearl,

I am swamped by the heaviness of it.

Yet is there any other way that I can go?

I must wade through the mud, Pearl,

Shoulder high through the undergrowth

that is very dense and tangled;

My mouth is very dry,

The intoxicating smoke from the woodfires on my

Right and left,

Attempts to stifle me,

So that when, on rare occasion,

it does rain,

I weep to feel the rain on my face.

There is a cleaing ahead;

I will stop there awhile,

Before I continue on my journey,

So that I may feel a fresh breeze

To breathe, and clear away the smoke.

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