My Dancing Heart

My heart has danced
has trembled to the music of time
has rejoiced in the moment
throbbed in both joy and pain

I’ve moved to the music
done all that
travelled where no one has been before
listened to the wind
whispered to the trees
sighed with the sea
in its motion-hungry fervour
and trembled with the waves
as they shuddered towards the shore

I have given my time to the poetry of life
sung its stanzas
rhymed with its lusting lilt
in tune with its echoing cadences

Now in the fullness of my seasons
I recline and muse
over time passed by

Is it to be experienced again
does renewal with the Spring follow
perhaps
in another life
whilst this one fades

The gaps which are left
the shreds in the curtain of my hopes
tear through the seams of my mind
crossing the border into
the parallel worlds in which
my existence lives on
matching my movements
mirroring the moments
since birth in the old
to death in the  now
thus bringing on the new

And my heart now murmurs
to itself
in mockery and mime
bridging the chasm
that separates this world from the next

 

DREAMLAND

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones … ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ 1871

My mind
enfranchised in sleep
liberated from rationality
my unconscious
set free to roam my history.

The blurred narrative
picks and chooses
what it wants to portray
to examine
to reconnoitre.

Personae and locale
juxtaposed
regardless of sequence
of time and of place

A current friend
a past acquaintance
someone who is no one
brought together
and the scene is set.

I wander amongst its passage ways
through its disjointed scenery
meeting both friends and strangers
so unclarified
and yet telling a minimal story
its sequence uncontrolled
unfettered by personal decision
moving on at leisured pace
subject it seems to no control
seemingly governed solely
by its own momentum
no decisions involved in the flow of events
linked by no conscious reason
aware of scenery
of being somewhere half-known
but insensate
unaware of how I feel towards it.

Then,
an arbitrary end
to these inconclusive series of events;
sometimes just a fading;
but at other times
an abrupt cessation
of the out-of-focus story’s flow
an abrupt end
often in mid event.

And I am left with traces
vague recollections of where
indistinct awareness of who
no understanding of why
no connection to past
no sense of a future

Just dreamland
half-remembered
soon forgotten altogether
lost in another time
another life
a parallel reality
or even outside reality
but it must be my reality.

My mind
enfranchised in sleep
liberated from rationality
and conscious executive decision

My unconscious
set free to roam my history.
How that happens to be
to me that remains a mystery.

Time’s Hold

‘Hope’ (2nd version) by George Frederick Watts . . . 1886 . . . Tate Gallery

 

TIME’S  HOLD

You are what might have been 
on that alternative path,
my abandoned way re-discovered.

But what is now is salient; 
you make me an offer,  
propose to me a future 
that will not arise  
unless hope turns to reality
before Time tires. 

When life was fast dissolving,
when my world
 was being wrenched apart,
then, supporting your own cross, 
you came from nowhere
to reach out, to connect,
to take my hope
and cherish it.

What I am left with
is no longer despair, 
but the veiled thrill
of tomorrow’s augury.

You could resolve my need,
bring me that accord, 
of touch, of feel, of senses, 
of minds in tune. 

What you do – for me, now,
is to engender lust, 
that lust of my youth,
for life, for certitude,
which can repel my languor, 
now sequestered by age,
and bring a new intensity,
revivify that spark
which once embellished all.

No longer my past innocence, 
but a considered offering,
a last grasp at time’s hold on me.

 

 

 

AN ALTERNATE REALITY

 

MY  TIAN AN MEN

As the sun dispersed the dew,
as it dried the damp air,

Slowly …

out of the emerging
morning mist,
marring the way,
… the path ahead unfolded.

The cloud cover cleared,
A cleft in the curtain,
… and perhaps,
a rift in my resolve?

The image I’d searched for,
my promised land,
was there ahead of me.
Destiny delivered,
my soul-searching’s end.

My pilgrim’s way;
my midsummer dream;
my yellow brick road
… to pleasure or perdition?

There, a vision,
enticing, ahead.
An arched branch,
beckoning,
offering more than a glimpse
of an alternate reality,
a quantum of hope.

The rock-strewn pathway
to the portal,
gibbous,
curvaceous.
A mystical mirage –
Temping me with its
serpentine, sinuous symmetry,
… the  entrance to my dream …
To my  Tian an men.

‘Sliding Door’ to a new experience;
Alice’s rabbit-hole;
Lucy’s Wardrobe;
Will’s Subtle Knife.

A gap in time;
a wormhole to wonder.
My image reflected
In a parallel life,
In the spacetime continuum.

The threshold to Erewhon?
Or to Paradise Regained?

A dilemma confronts me,
Paralysing my hopes.
Now that I’ve found it,
Do I dare …
Take the road less travelled?

. . . If you are there . . .
It will make all the difference.

 

My photographs were taken in Loch Voil,  Balquhidder Glen, Scotland

Balquhidder (Balwhidder), village is at the foot of Loch Voil in central Scotland, where west Perthshire meets the Trossachs at the gateway to the Highlands. Balquhidder glen evokes emotions that are heightened in the knowledge that druids, Jacobite rebels, ancient clans, ancient Royals, famous authors and Rob Roy McGregor have tread before us. Punctuated by Munro’s, trout filled lochs and wildlife this hauntingly beautiful glen is drenched in history and folklore centred around a Kirk yard that tells a thousand tales.

Extract is from:   Loch Voil and Rob Roy Country

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References:

Tian an men  ( 天安門 )  – literally: “Gate of Heavenly Peace”
Robert Frost: 1916, Poem ‘The Road Not Taken’
Philip Pullman:  1995-2000, Trilogy ‘His Dark Materials’
John MIlton:  1671, ‘Paradise Regained’
C.S.Lewis:   1950-1956, The Narnia Chronicles .
Lewis Carroll: 1865,  ‘Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland’
Samuel Butler:  1872, ‘Erewhon’ (‘Nowhere’ reversed)
‘Sliding Doors’:  1998 comedy-drama film written and directed by Peter Howitt.
Frank Baum: 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’
The Theory of  Parallel Universes  on Wikipedia.
The theory of Alternate Reality on Wikipedia.
In Physics, Spacetime on Wikipedia

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