memory – three good words

March 13, 2025March 13, 2025

“She’s tolerable, I suppose…

What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?

… but she’s not handsome enough to tempt me. Bingley, I am in no humour to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. Go back to your partner, enjoy her smiles. You’re wasting your time with me.”

I did not look that up when I wrote it down.
Turns out, I only got one word wrong.

#bbc #austen

July 8, 2020July 8, 2020

once outside

Bumblebees
tumbling about

drunk on nectar

dropping from blossom to bud
crashing into bees and walls
zigzagging

into people

spring to summer

one great party
from dawn to dusk

Remember

August 15, 2015August 15, 2015

time again

a hot flash of recognition
clear as cold milk
taken out with child’s hands
drunk in icy gulps
like music
to the blood-orange birth
of another cycle
laced with hazy blue
and grey and white
back when a year was
endless days x 365 = time
and time and time.

that and that and that
was always there
yet with life so busy
and things to be done
the snows drifted higher
the canyons deeper
until a sudden jab of desert heat
lays all bare
and time opens wide
from past to present, future
where here and here
and here again
hidden treasures abound

brilliant bracelets and flashing crowns
proof of glory once owned
for an eternal moment
now displayed in silent halls
of days and time remembered
fragments dismembered
to memory:

when was this kingdom lost
or rather, was it ever won?
as sovereign
how and why resign the sceptre
refuse the ring
and hide the crown?
what madness is this?
truly, one wonders.

alas, the scrolls unfurl
more and more
crystals cusping
over thresholds ancient-old
descending into time and time
and time again
singing spring
to once-known winter
calling fall
ruby-red and golden
to tales of summer
high and blazing
twice known
thrice remembered
twined to one.

February 10, 2015

maybe seven

no point
in playing it safe
no art
in not daring

look over the edge
all the way down
see it, feel it
know what’s waiting there

it might scare
one or two off the page
maybe more

madness, mayhem
insight, wisdom?
this is not peek-a-boo
not looking
doesn’t mean it’s not there

five senses
six, maybe seven
if you count memory
imagination

yes, think
feel
inner, outer skin

taste
touch
scent

trace and trace
the worlds without, within

sound
sight
detail

perception
understanding
defining real

January 19, 2015January 19, 2015

alma mater

strange to retrace
the steps you once took
eagerly expecting an eduction
and getting more, way more
than you first expected

not just the books bought
and the papers written
but the friends and heartbreak
the clandestine lovers
breaking up in furious tears and shouting
once discussed and inevitably discovered
yes, you two, I know who you are…

the novelties found
the loyalties broken
the real friends made
those many words said
and unspoken
in between and all around
the hours sitting, pouring, agonizing
studying, practicing, memorising
and finally, finally, understanding
all those things you’ll actually
– I guarantee you –
really need later on
in the big bad rest of the world
with its sharp fangs and cold snout

that wide open place where suddenly
being clueless is a country of its own
which you have a permanent visa for
coz it doesn’t get better, does it?
oh no, it gets so much more
like an effing sitcom

where time and again
you’re made to understand
the connection between bat excrement (urgh)
and fucking crazy, excuse my French
(why French anyway?)

and you know youth is not wasted on the young
it’s exactly what’s needed to get through it all
and not end up neurotic, eccentric,
not to mention unnecessarily high strung

oh, wait…
naw, it’s all good
it’s the simple fact that
now, years later
you’re no longer either one
or the other
you’re who you are:
still a kid and genuinely grown up.