A poets eye
quinta-feira, 12 de março de 2026
Maelstrom of me
In the middle of me a vortex hides.
one you can't see, veiled and wild
Only coming out in flickers through the eyes
What magnet is this that on the tornado rides
Rolling, jarring and rocking around the heart
I split apart searching the seen and unseen
Then reintegrate looking back inside
Every aspect of me together again
Something whirls and grinds inside me
words and whispers spin and spin
These messages come flooding out
Into the daylight of the page
Served like a meal
tasted and digested
thus fed back into the vortex
Of the unquenchable twisting
quarta-feira, 11 de março de 2026
Hempsall- At the broken oar(Ghostlights of the fens) 1700
Big bog there was an old tavern near the reed patches
Joseph Hempsall spent his day cutting reed for thatch.
Checking the odd trap with his fellows over the Wicken Fen
Life was simple bright and cheery the most part to spend
He had a pretty busy morning cutting the thatch reed
Checking a few eel traps among the thick water weeds
By two he'd labored much exhausted and sloven
So made the hour walk to the Broken Oar tavern
A bailiff, a shearer and a traveler drank cheap brandy
Talked of Lord Wentworth whom they slandered gladly
These men cursing and drinking from midday
Hempsall drank too, echoing their naysaying
Before long twilight came and darkness cast a spell
Hempsall chugged, grabbed his gear, then he said farewell
He stumbled across the narrow path within Big Bog
Tavern occupants called him back while croaking frogs
Their voices droned finally Joseph heard none
But he wasn't alone he was talking to someone
He continued his way blind across marshland half drunk still smiling
He began to shout his voice louder and louder... Then silence
The very next evening Hempsall turned up in the Broken Oar tavern
Nightfall and three distinct knocks at the door t'was his return
The bailiff opened the door to a pale wet Hempsall
Who cried ghostly mud tears and uttered appalled
"Seek my body in the bog among the cursed fens plants"
then the apparition fell like water on the entrance
It all disappeared in an instant out of sight
Only to repeat exactly the next night
Pushing the last cart
My Father complained as he materialized on the sidewalk. "Why have you woken me Simon. I was dead, I was in the calm of nothing."
I just looked at him thankful that I was allowed to see his face one more time.
"What are we doing here then, atleast answer me that." His face questioning and uncertain.
"I am supposed to take you to the market where you can buy some of the things you yet seek."
I looked at his face and realized, the half smile that came across it wasn't authentic happiness. Just programmed fed back from the memories of the forelife.
So we walked into the warehouse of stalls and ate food off plastic trays and checked prices together. "So when did you become a necromancer" My Father asked casually.
"I didn't conjure you here, old man." I responded. Vendors around us made their offers, jokes and impatient sighs as we left their stalls behind.
My honest brother came up to us and warned us. The market would close and Father would have to get back to his hotel. Before I could react he took his hand. I turned back to the curb, our cart was slowly rolling onto the road, I ran and grabbed it as I saw my Brother and my Father leave.
I rolled the cart full of things I had no idea why we had accumulated.
I pushed it along a dirt stained concrete sidewalk, then over wooden boards, the damp dim undercroft of a long city bridge. The sidewalk turned into damp cardboard and the wheels would no longer move.
I couldn't push it any further.
terça-feira, 10 de março de 2026
Tiddy Mun of the Fen brooks(Ghostlights of the fens 1700s)
Tiddy mun without a name
separate the water from the rain
Separate the stone from the mud
please let us know when it'll flood
Come ye out of those little pools
Bless our crops and wayward mules
Then pop back into the ponds of the bog
Where you nibble on reed and rotten log
Oh Tiddy Mun be the cure for what ails us
Let your ancient presence never fail us
You remind us one day we'll age and dampen
Thwart the mean ghost man with the lantern
Make our time longer indeed not shorter
So we can make amends for stealing your water
Guard our crop ol' Tiddy mun of the Fen
spin the deluge off, our farm steady friend
A symmetry off limits
How you turn around to me
you boldly face me
words don't come to either of us
I wish I knew what you sought in me
Lost want curved and curling
from Bom dia lips
Your grace doesn't go overlooked
How you keep yourself precious
Then what need is there for words
When admiration is our reality
When you are gone relief drips
like sweat on the machine
A polished smile
On good morning lips
Your routine exposes your litheness
Your gentle balance unforgettable
There is no goodbye
Only reminders of your harmony
Of the eveness we may feel
our proximity forbidden
segunda-feira, 9 de março de 2026
Dolls and empty roads
My head is heavy so i lob it forward to drag the rest of my body.
The gutters of both sides of the road are full of dolls that look like me.
Is this my voodoo freeway, divine limbo in judgement imposed on me.
I continue forward no visible cars or people just the sounds of rattling dolls
and my own quiet footsteps.
The crossroads are empty up head as i come upon them I have no notion where to go.
I keep walking legs humming, brain an audience of voices on a lonely desolate road
of abandoned dolls.
