history – Page 3 – three good words

August 20, 2017August 20, 2017

toxic

Corridor, Windows, Dark & Light

I remember this anger
the slow-simmering boil
clenched tight just above the gut
that sleepless certainty of knowing
you have been wronged
on every scale.

‘Stupid is as stupid does’
But I’m no Forrest
I can see the trees for what they are
the beginning of a long Heart of Darkness
where everything is warped
and wrong and upside down
because even the mood is toxic

and suddenly I can trace the battle scars
fading into the foreground
like that tattoo you forgot about
or those combat boots out back
grown dusty in the shed
the ones that helped you cross
that violent overgrown desert.

And now it’s time
time to take down the gas-mask
and strap on the worn leather
find your trusted binoculars
the ones without the fancy bits
but excellent night vision
now it is time to get out the maps
the combat notes, the exit strategies
and scout almost-forgotten terrain

because you know this is no joke.
this is as real as it gets
this is the old and known
enemy.

October 3, 2015

once more

the sun once in bloom
now alive, hidden
in a land of green and black and gold

O, what grace is given
to know
all that we have known
and seen amongst us all
paved along the waves
once crossed, bound in stone

built in those days
when we still knew forever
a time of tears and laughter
flesh and bone
not lost
but no longer known

and so it goes
or so they say
the bells chime
the wind blows
and time is born once more.

June 14, 2015

white stairs

quiet steps
across sunny stone
scaling the depth of summer

white stairs
solemnly clear
bright
in their commemoration
of a cruel time

now used daily
as a resting place
by those visiting from abroad.

after sunset
voices rise
to glasses raised

laughter rippling
across fountains
sparkling in fanning light

lives lived
among strangers
together
on ancient steps
once built by a great power

then everpresent
now lying low
among the weathered stone

remembered
but no longer known.

January 30, 2015

clarity

where do you draw the line?

now that your reading’s done
and you’re aware of lives
lived by codes outside and beyond
everything you know

the accepted nastiness lingering
behind the famed glory
the casual cruelty accepted
behind the ingenious order
praised since time untold

…

and yet, there is such a thing as reception

that old question
how much is too much
and what of honesty?
what of that which happened
often, far too often
and must be thought of
retold

clearly, without softening
without any lenses blurred
sharp contours of thought
and feeling

of all those grey areas in between
painful, upsetting
without clear lines from A to B

but that’s what it’s really about
or not?

exploring the edges
diving down into darker depths
drawing out the essence of storytelling
finding new ways to reach
what we all strive for

clarity.

January 4, 2015

imagine once

there is something in the silence of the clear lines,
the divine arches of the old orders, now long lost in time
where silver and marble, wheat, amber and gold
were the wealth of a few amongst many;
that time, once, so far away
celebrated today in lands of plenty
a time, once, where life was short, hardship unquestioned,
and the sweetness of solace a luxury felt to the core.

A time, yes, when fire was known for its ecstatic warmth,
the flames divine and terrible, their power
and presence felt too often on human skin and human soul;
a time, too, when water was the sword of truth
by which holiness was divined, though to drink it alone was unwise
unless in beer, ale, or wine;

that time where earth and air were powers that gave and took
that made and broke whole realms with wind and weather and storm,
by the droughts so dreaded, and crops finally growing,
the rains prayed for , the sun steadily glowing…

…can we, today, in our lands of plenty
imagine once, just once, what it meant to be, to live, back then
when time was sun and moon and stars,
legends holy and sung, the songs of praise whispered and hummed
over open fires, heating the cauldrons that fed all in house and hut,
after thanking with grace and gratitude
the great, the holy, the one clouds 1