Sense The Siege Is Over

Sense the siege is over,
climb the stone steps
to the high watchtower,
look out across the plain
to see no blade of green grass,
no yellow wild flower,
just abandoned engines,
black craters made by the force
of one super power.
It seems the war was won
not by the one with the greater army,
the better air force or navy,
but by the one with the superior weapon.
See the bomb blasted cornfields,
the orchards are barren with no fruit to ripen.
The circle is broken that we failed to widen.
Ring of standing stones on a grassy plain,
blown by wind, lashed by rain.
What we lost we cannot regain.
Exiled from Eden with no hope of pardon,
we still remember the words written,
what the serpent is said to have spoken
in the ear of Eve in the first garden.
Only in vision can we summon
the paradise long ago to us forbidden.
The circle is broken that we failed to widen.
Sense the siege is over,
now there’s nothing left to defend.
What will be in the future?
How will it all end?
The door was not locked,
the window was open,
but the guests did not come,
once the beast had woken.
The circle is broken that we failed to widen.

The Chimes of the Clock Tower

Young as I’ll ever be,
old as the calendar tells me.
The chimes of the clock tower
make me kneel and agree,
from mechanical time
I cannot ever be free.

See the red and black graffiti
scrawled on the marble walls
of the grand halls of government and law:
you cannot chase vultures from the bones that they gnaw.
So easily done in the dusk before dark,
did for a lark by the culprits.
No one ever sees them,
even when away they run.

The folk songs of England
take me back to the green downs
under the blue sky of summer
near the south coast,
and up to the mountains in the north
that I love most.

It took a long time,
but I know how the world works now.
I know why it went wrong.
So many memories
can be waked by a song.
The sword of the seraphim
wards us away from Eden.
We cannot go back.
Our oath not kept, our pledge broken.

The Lion and the Lamb

The Lion and the Lamb

The cross on the peak of the dome,
the staff in the hand of the shepherd,
the crown on the head of the king,
the mermaid on the rock with a comb.

We know what they mean,
however much has been lost.
We live between wars,
a peace that came with a cost.

The maiden and the unicorn,
the hermit in the hut in the wood,
the knight on a horse on a quest,
the child on a hill with a horn.

They still mean something,
whatever you may believe.
You can believe in nothing.
The door is always open,
if you want to leave.

The lion shall lie down with the lamb.
A nice picture from scripture I first read long ago.
As it was in Eden it shall be in the end,
and as I grow to find out who I am,
I wonder if the world will ever know the peace
of the lion lain down with the lamb.

I feel I am retreating,
further and further away from any shore,
but I am not on a ship or an island,
I am sat by the fire in winter,
the season the spirit can tire,
but the heart still beats
like the wind at the door.

Wild Garden

Wild Garden

Leave part of your garden wild,
maybe that rough patch
behind the potting shed, if you have one,
or that stretch in the shadow of the back wall,
for the sake of bees, butterflies,
slugs, snails, caterpillars, ladybirds, moths,
dragonflies and other winged and crawling creatures,
to preserve insect species, save green nature,
he read in his newspaper. Seemed a good idea.
Yes, he mowed the lawn, clipped the hedge,
but he did not uproot the dandelion or the buttercup,
weeds as they were to keen gardeners,
wild flowers to him, fair to his eye as the hyacinth,
lupin, fuchsia or rose.
Warm afternoons, spring or summer,
sat in his wild garden, he imagined how it would be
to paint it in greens, whites, browns, yellows, reds, oranges and blues
on canvas or pencil it on paper.
In winter his garden looked hollow and sad as any other garden.
The sight of a bee in summer seemed a victory,
justifying his plan to leave his garden wild.
Let nature take its course, they say.
It could also be said, let nature have its garden.
Repelled by the very words, weedkiller, insecticide,
he let so called weeds flourish, insects thrive.
Before they were driven out from Eden,
did not Adam and Eve live in a garden
that was not tamed but wild?
Is not that the paradise to which we wish to return?
Green fingered gardeners want to keep the garden tame,
be its mistress or master.
In the same way, some see a mountain as a height to conquer.
Trowel, spade, rake, secateurs may sleep in the shed with cobweb and dust,
but at least he used the lawnmower, the hedge clipper,
fed the birds with bird seed, helped preserve the original garden.

Wreckage

Wreckage

Nobody’s normal but not everybody’s strange.
Not every peak can be picked out
when you view a mountain range.
We each have our path way
on which it is easy to stall or stray.
Often things we can’t govern
will have the final say.

All is green in my garden,
the green of leaf and grass.
Sunshine makes it look more green.
Sadly, it will pass.
Good to see it for a moment,
a glance at Eden in a glass.

World is old, the breeze tells me,
as it blows low through the trees.
Soon as it comes, it goes.
What once lay beneath my feet,
no historian knows.

We’re drained dry, we can’t cry.
No more tears could fall from our eye.
We had it rough, it was too tough.
A high wave voyage under a thunder sky.
We survived, we’re still alive.
Where do the words come from?
How do they arrive?
Where is the wreckage now?
Will I find it on the sand?
What seas will take my boat
to let me seek my true land?

Hermit

Hermit

Retreat, hibernate, a hermit become.
Engineer, keep your pulleys and cranes,
mariner, your salt water and rum.
Light dims and yellows the land.
Hermit, you I understand.
From a child, I wanted the wild,
the marks of twig, leaf and bark in my hand.
Sun cannot reach so high in the sky.
Geese go, know they cannot stay.
From the far mere, west they fly.

Hermit, I wanted to be you,
stood in your coppery painting
in my local gallery, garbed
in your brown, rumpled robe.
From your rugged chin
hung your wild tangle of beard,
your eyes clear and sharp
as any weasel, otter, beaver or hawk,
outside the shadowy mouth of your cave,
sheer rock mounting behind you,
as on the cap of a toadstool,
a snail slid on its slippery trail,
and in the without wind silence,
the creak of a branch, the stretch of a root
let you hear the trees talk.
And I wondered if you lived on berries like a bear,
the nuts in the woods, along with the squirrels,
you hoarded your share.
And I understood, to be a hermit in the wild,
that would be good.

Vanity. Vanity. All is vanity, The Bible tells me.
Looking around me, I cannot help but agree.
But maybe if your face is your fortune
it is a way to let you be free.
With so many sides in the conflict,
no wonder they cannot all sit at one table
to sign that treaty.
No, to be a hermit is not such a bad thing to be.

When we are not there, where are we?
When we are not here, where do we go?
Exiles from Eden, if we are truly,
maybe it is not so strange to be a hermit,
alone as we are not meant to be.
But then, it seems only long ago
or in the never future can we seem to be free.
Why do we ever pine to be elsewhere?
Why in the here do we want to be there?
Is this not our home? Why do we wish to roam?

Sorry, the wind tells tales.
Wish I were a fish with ears to hear
deep ocean pipes, the song of whales.
A hermit in a coral cave,
that picture I save.

To Enter Eden

To Enter Eden

There is a beauty you cannot reach,
a wisdom you cannot teach,
but you can still be glad it is there.
What you can measure you can mark,
find fair figures in the dark,
but what you seek will be what is rare.
Though the true wine you cannot sup,
remember when you looked up
what you saw from the foot of the stair.

There stood a woman and not a ruse,
she had always been your muse,
the pilot on your path on the sea.
When she said your name she knew it well,
that was something you could tell,
woke wonder and the way to be free.
You knew not for you would she tarry,
to the man she would marry
to paradise she would give the key.

Those lost love shadows may haunt your heart,
once open, the pain will start,
fear your mind is clamped in damp despair.
Remember then the lamp you lit,
and let it shine where you sit,
see darkness sweep away from your chair.
You can still strap on your starry shield,
ride your fine horse round a field,
have the gold coin to keep that was spare.

Remember Jacob saw a ladder,
later he built an altar,
when he was in the desert alone.
Not men but angels he knew they were,
down from an arch in the air,
so he etched El Bethel on a stone.
A light lit his shell of bone and skin,
he saw what he held within,
the pattern from the root to the cone.

We pay for the loss of paradise,
could not be a harder price,
but visions of high heaven remain.
And the beauty of which I speak,
the spirit will ever seek,
however weak it will never wane.
No singer sung finer than a bird,
still the poet with the word
strains to enter Eden with no stain.