LIFE FORCE – ONE

LIFE  FORCE – ONE

When shadow turns to substance 
In the still of morning’s birth, 
Then once again I wonder 
How much my life is worth.

 Have I in the scheme of things 
At last outlived my time?
I want to last a fair span yet,
To hope is not a crime.

 I long to do a thousand things 
I’ve not had time to do, 
But is that just a selfish wish 
I’m not entitled to?

 So many of my friends have gone,
Lives past while mine’s still here. 
Do I deserve more time on earth, 
Or is my ending near?

 Such morbid thoughts occur to me 
More frequently each day. 
I rush to pack more living in, 
No halt, pause or delay.

 Despite the limits on my life 
My time is filled with actions. 
Yet still my mind frets at the thought 
Of those un-lived attractions.

 Why am I selfishly intent 
On hurtling to nirvana, 
Grasping at each passing chance 
More enhanced life to garner?

 I could so quietly subside 
Into a life of ease; 
No rush, no great exigency 
My daemons to appease.

 Yet I am not content like that, 
I must remain on course, 
To stay with, in the time I’m left,
This imperative life force.

---

The two photographs were taken by me in London’s Roman Amphitheatre, which can be found in its restored state in the basement of the City of London Guildhall.

These Roman remains, thought to date to the 1^st Century AD,  were discovered when the Guildhall Art Gallery was being re-developed in 1985.  The original structure could house over 7,000 spectators seated on tiered wooden benches in what would then have been the open air, where they watched the execution of criminals as well as fights, usually to the death, between wild animals and gladiators.

More can be discovered about these little-known remains of the Roman Londinium on the City of London website at:

London’s Roman Amphitheatre

---

 

LIFE FORCE – TWO

Pen & Ink drawing of Andrea Mantegna’s ‘Samson and Delilah’ Oil on Canvas, c.1500, in the National Gallery, London. . . .   WHB – 1994

“These fragments I must shore against my ruin.”

I wish to put a hold on life,
freeze it at this instant;
stop my headlong race to reach
some intangible resolution
before life, and with it death,
overtake me.

Yet, a wanton fervour
forces me to write;
a defining greed pushes me on;
a need to achieve,
to find the telling phrase
to verify my competence.

There is a frenzy on me,
a new lust for life
alien to my past;
but still I draw on that very past
to colour the present
and steer me into my aspired future.

My imperative is to leave an imprint
on the foreshore of my life
before its tide recedes.
Regardless of renown,
I wish to leave a noble fragment of myself
with a proven hint of worth
to carry me beyond my grave.

Such fragments,
the flotsam of my endeavours,
washed up  and left
for those seashore scavengers,
those ardent beachcombers
of other people’s detritus;
my scraps left for Autolycus to pick over.
I need the harvest of my life to be
another’s prized perception,
their acquired inspiration.

And yet I know I must desist,
I must allow those morsels,
slivers of myself already extant,
to speak for themselves,
to represent me to the future.

I must accept
that already
I have utilised my credit with the past
and created my memorial for the future.

“These fragments I must shore against my ruin.”

The quotation appearing at the beginning and end of my poem is, slightly adapted, taken from T.S.Eliot’s poem  “The Wasteland”.

 

The impetus to write my two ‘Life Force’ poems – this second of them in free verse – also derives from Andrew Marvel’s poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’ – in particular, many readers will recall the oft repeated couplet from this poem . . .

But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

 

Delilah, of course, took away Samson’s Life Force, his strength, by cutting off his hair whilst asleep.

 

 

LIFE FORCE – ONE

When shadow turns to substance
In the still of morning’s birth,
Then once again I wonder
How much my life is worth.

Have I in the scheme of things
At last outlived my time?
I want to last a fair span yet,
To hope is not a crime.

I long to do a thousand things
I’ve not had time to do,
But is that just a selfish wish
I’m not entitled to?

So many of my friends have gone,
Lives past while mine’s still here.
Do I deserve more time on earth,
Or is my ending near?

Such morbid thoughts occur to me
More frequently each day.
I rush to pack more living in,
No halt, pause or delay.

Despite the limits on my life
My time is filled with actions.
Yet still my mind frets at the thought
Of those un-lived attractions.

Why am I selfishly intent
On hurtling to nirvana,
Grasping at each passing chance
More enhanced life to garner?

I could so quietly subside
Into a life of ease;
No rush, no great exigency 
My daemons to appease.

Yet I am not content like that,
I must remain on course,
To stay with, in the time I’m left,
This imperative life force.

 The two photographs were taken by me in London’s Roman Amphitheatre, which can be found in its restored state in the basement of the City of London Guildhall.

These Roman remains, thought to date to the 1^st Century AD,  were discovered when the Guildhall Art Gallery was being re-developed in 1985.  The original structure could house over 7,000 spectators seated on tiered wooden benches in what would then have been the open air, where they watched the execution of criminals as well as fights, usually to the death, between wild animals and gladiators.

More can be discovered about these little-known remains of the Roman Londinium on the City of London website at:

London’s Roman Amphitheatre