Life

I am fighting for my life.

My beautiful life.

My ugly life.

My life full of pain and wonder and creation.

The greatest war is the war to stay alive

Against your better judgement.

New Chapter II

Be a true friend

Or forever hold your peace.

There is too much darkness for death

To be a way of life.

The only way to live is with meaning, love and honour.

Memory

You pass down a dark lane

Choked in brambles.

The old house is falling down,

Long forgotten,

Uninhabited for generations.

Those who fled long ago

Like Lot

Never looked back.

No one turned to stone.

The sun is gently warming its back

As it lowers itself onto the few remaining tiles.

Darkness rising

Seeps into your stomach

And you run from here

Not knowing which terrible thing

Drives you back to the safety of home.

A lesson in avoidable pain

When you understand

It’s not you- it’s just a physical thing.

The wandering mind and hands.

The good intentions.

You should remove yourself from the path of pain and danger

With no further ado.

New Chapter

When you came, I felt a fire light up outside the door.

I expected fear. I felt excitement.

I know, now that I feel nothing, it is because I am a damaged person-

A child masquerading as an adult.

Home III

When I think of you,

I think of the daisy chains

And forest lanes

And schoolyard games

And empty evening trains

Darkening their way home in wintry rains.

Another life, a different set of sad eyes.

How many trains have known my disappointment.

The War

Only you, mother,

Could leave me

Halfway between the green hills

And dairy cows of home.

Haflway between childhood and womanhood,

Between love and estrangement.

Only I could live in peace with this great war.

Home II

How strong

The scent of honeysuckle from home.

How heavy my heart without you,

Mother.

Home

My homesick heart is hungry for a green hill

Topped with dark trees

And a haunting glance.

A lane filled with hawthorn

And a field of horses and fresh hay.

The day is as long as the starry night

And the streams are warm with honey.

Origins

When I was a whistle reed of a girl

And the wind blew through my bones,

I had only half-taken a glance and a twirl,

On the island’s soft green overtones.

My heart pulled me closer and closer to shore,

Where I walked with the song in my ears,

And every day a different tune

Danced me over the edge of the wide yellow dune,

And into the arms of the dot in the sky

That we once called in jest, our only sun.

Beaten, I was truly beaten.

How great the miracle of nature.

How vast my need for sun.

Here I dance rings on the darker side-

The desert, the images of jackals I dream under the black equator sky-

Sparkling, one might say beaming with stars.

My middle east was always far from civilised Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, Great Mother to all orphans,

I love you for the dream you offer and rescind, my lover.