From time to time a poem

Tuesday

Your children, in their way
Fathered you to me,
Return themselves in you

Broken lines trace back
Adrift through shifting lands
And times to us unknown

All laying itself bare,
With eyes that cannot see,
With voice that cannot speak.

An outpost forms within,
A jetty, ocean-hewn
A once-glimpsed hinterland

Teeth can gnash, no fear
Through pain, resilience
These words an oath inside

One-handed, not one-eyed
The sundered throne restored
Within its living shrine.

I love it Alex!

In days of rain
Through nights of pain
When times are dark
I miss you

In moods of mad
In times so sad
With smiles so few
I miss you

In nights so cold
Without your hold
No thoughts of new
I miss you

In dreams so sweet
Through love I meet
The thought of how
I miss you

In times of change
When all seems strange
All that I do
Is miss you

In ways too real
How cold I feel
It hurts so bad
I miss you

In thoughts so deep
With tears I weep
I cry because
I miss you

With hope so strong
In pain so long
I hope you know...

I miss you.


- G. E. Marrs

The Birch Tree

The branches of the birch tree spread out above me, the leaves appeared still, and the white trunk glowed with a silvery aura.

I had not been away long, but in my absence this tree had grown strong, spreading into the space my mind normally filled. I sensed that the cathedral, though usually feeling enclosed, had opened to the sky and that we, me and tree, both stood beneath the stars.

I didn’t need to look at him to know that he was there, sitting back on the bench in sight of the tree. “I haven’t been away that long, have I?”

Neither did I need to look to know he was smiling at me, “time means little here.”

A breeze came from somewhere, rippling the leaves a little; it seemed such a natural action, so peaceful… I knelt down and sat back on my feet. Watching the leaves, hearing them, it felt like time might exist only within the loop of movement on the birch.. he was right, time did mean little here.

“Why is it here?” It had been, in linear time, perhaps almost two hours spent sitting watching the tree and only now had the question occurred to me.

“Come now, you know that anything here has been created by you. Why do you think it’s here?”

“If I had to guess… every branch goes in a different direction, and yet each branch is still connected to the central trunk. However confusing my path gets, however far I feel like I have gone, that path is still connected back to my central one… therefore any diversion I take is simply a distraction from the truth….”

“Which is?”

I finally looked back at him, I was right, he was smiling… “Which is… there is only one path, mine.”

He looked up at the tree, seeming distant, and it appeared that he was marvelling at the sight of such a beautiful thing within the cathedral. For a few moments then it seemed to me that he could exist beyond the confines of my own universe.

Fear and Victory

Fear and victory
Go hand in hand
For to achieve victory
One is uncertain

One is steeped in a dark path
One finds himself afraid
And unsure of his choice that
Led him on this foolish quest

But as one continues to do his best
He feels his burdens lighten
And his path begins to brighten
The strife is a'quieten

And then many years later
In peaceful serenity
He looks back and sees
The battle with uncertainty
As a time filled with glee.

Next random installment of my non-poetry...

~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been a while since the cathedral had served its first purpose, that of a place of worship.

The stone altar, which had so far been swallowed by the shadow unnoticed, stood now in a pool of candlelight. A circle of red church candles surrounded it, each barely melted and smelling strongly of their wax. The book from the plinth now rested on the altar open to a page around the beginning, one of the earlier writings and less legible. The robes I barely ever wore hung heavy on me, a mirror of the feelings I had about not having performed the ritual more often.

My finger on the page at the first words, I noticed suddenly that he was standing beside me.
“This is for you,” I said, confused.

“And I am here for you” he replied. I nodded.

I lit the incense and together we spoke the ancient words, their sound echoing not just throughout the cathedral but through my own body. They sounded like nonsense but each word held a meaning understood by flesh as well as mind. I was the priest, not just in robe and word, but in feeling and knowledge also. I struck the gong and the sound reverberated through every cell in my body and every thought in my head… for a moment the two of us were one within the sound, both vibrating at the same frequency. I knew all that he knew, felt what he felt, thought as he thought… all manner of being directed into this channel, him experiencing my reflection in return.

The sound dissolved, my consciousness returning to my own… I breathed deeply in the found silence and felt a new strength.

“Thank you” I said, turning to him… but he was no longer there. And I noticed, as I looked down at my hand on the book, that I was now wearing his ring.

Just Wait - Anon

I said to my soul, be still and wait,
And wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing
And wait without love
For love could be love for the wrong thing

And wait without thought
For you are not yet ready for the thought

There is yet faith
But, the faith, and the love, and the hope, are all in the waiting.

So the darkness shall be the light,
and the stillness the dancing!

Another one...

The sun was rising above the city; I sat on the rooftop of the cathedral, leaning back on my elbows, admiring the bleeding of red and orange sun into a lightening blue sky. The people down below, the few who were out, were small and difficult to make out. I had watched them only briefly when the terracotta tiles had first become my seat.

There was a slight breeze rustling leaves, and a pleasant chill to the air, the smell of the morning waking up the world.

Footsteps behind, then the familiar presence joined me at the edge.

“This is an unusual spot for you” he noted, as he sat himself, legs dangling, over the edge of the roof.

“Sometimes I need to remind myself the light is there” I replied, and it was especially beautiful this particular morning.

“Pensive?”

“Always.”

“So tell me about it.” It didn’t matter where I was or what I was doing, there was a warmth to his words that always comforted. Minutes in his company, or hours, he always had the time, exactly the right time, to listen.

“Whenever I think I have solved my issues with how I feel, I find that I in fact simply moved them about a bit.”

“Well,” he replied, admiring the sun briefly, “that is because it is not a problem that has a solution, as you think.” He tensed a little, “you see, whenever we talk you go away feeling that you’re somehow a little broken still. You put those feelings to the back of your mind and you leave here for a while, you go out into the world and be one of those little people below."

There was a shout below us, both looking down to see its origin, it faded, and our attentions returned.

“You hold everything in, retreating into yourself so you can be ‘normal’ for just a little while. But then who you really are starts to gain strength again, slowly taking hold and for a while you own that.”

Listening was hard and I found that I couldn’t look at him as he spoke, my focus honed on birds on a distant rooftop.

“Look at me!”

Momentarily I paused, before I broke my gaze and slowly met his eyes.

“But, you let the fear of being strange beat you down again. And in the shadows you show yourself only to the little flame, before extinguishing it once the day is done.”

He leaned forward and took my hand with both of his, “Be you! In all that you are, in all that you believe, seize it! And don’t be afraid."

I wrote this years ago when I was very sad with love and writing about it a lot. It's a short couplet, but it still strikes a chord with me now even though I'm not as love-hungry as I once was
(P.S. Sorry, the English version is pretty rough - I feel it doesn't translate as poetically, ha ha!)


Cette pauvre petite; cette Cyrano, cette Éponine,
Fait verser ses larmes en ruisselets de mine

~~~
This poor little one; this Cyrano, this Éponine,
Pours out her tears in streams of words

Brilliant !! Alexandre, mind if I print this out and stick it on my wall ? this is great guys

Here I stand
Three me and
a band
of brothers and
sisters and yet
to be defined

I stand and fall
and yet to be
all I
not I at all
but to me the creek
and to you the tree

We’re all in
and
yet
to
be

In the forest there grows
a tree
In the prairie there grows
a blade

In the city there grows
a child
From start to finish
a pawn

In the universe there grows
a galaxy
Captured by gravity
and drawn

In the force there sleeps
a soul
Waiting to become
I

The Five

In the wind it rides
integers abide
in the formless
divide

Galaxies collide faculties
decried by secrets abide
the senses visualize
arrive

Gnosis overwritten deeply
indelible illusions
emerges all grumpy
volatile and attitudinal
surprise

Anathema the noble
inscrutable the fallen
clinging and craven into
haven

It sees the dream
it feels the scream
I in the end delusion
Force

Dark and distant, lightsrider sings
deep and motile seastrider rides
hear the crackle and the crush
deep within the universe and
deepening the rust

In the deep ocean light blossoms
connects
In the galactic clusters light pierces
the veil
In the earth’s ocean bioluminescent
glow
every night’s hunt writ in the
flow

Deeply connected each one to another
instincts erected in a chemical glow
Forced to acknowledge we’re tidally
At One

such a tiny thing,

to grant release,

but such a cold path to walk alone.

And if I am so sure

why does my body react so violently to expel what my mind craves.

Can there be no peace

amidst the raging storm,

each breath counts for nothing

when measured against time.

If I step of this path I balance on so delicately

will you let me fall?

If it is what I wish

and yet I ask if you will catch me

knowing that it is an illusion.

Fly or fall is only within myself to grant.

33

Driving home, a crow atop
The driftwood tree
His eye aside, beak up, he seems
Inquisitorial, while below
Ancient bodies
Turn to stone.

Arriving home, a zephyr runs
And voices come,
Voices murmur, murmur on
A sussurus of leaves which fall,
Letters from the
Hospital.

Aching for this ghost behind
The darkest day,
Through brightest night, no fear, no fright,
Just no more fight, spectral flowers
Summer perfume
Turning sour.

Lights Out – Edward Thomas

I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose.

Many a road and track
That, since the dawn’s first crack,
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers,
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.

Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends;
All pleasure and all trouble,
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.

There is not any book
Or face of dearest look
That I would not turn from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter, and leave, alone,
I know not how.

The tall forest towers;
Its cloudy foliage lowers
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may lose my way
And myself.

Over the mountain
tall trails
brake lights and gas
speed to no avail
rocky bottom diving in
high mountain lakes
challenges arise too
situations in joy
signals made yet
decisions awry
life carries on wherein
calmness abide
inelegant solutions in
retrospect to evade
brute force or finesse
do aptitudes advise
peace and good order
illusions soon fade
Noblesse oblige
universally inferred
life is the path yet
no exit defers

I find myself thinking of this more often nowadays...

'Dulce Et Decorum Est' - Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.