REGRET

Posted on August 20, 2021 by Roland's Ragbag

And now the past pains the present again
Those vivid re-lived passages smart
So I try to disengage my memory
And the sorrowing sobs do not reach my heart.

But the regret will end, it always does.
Nothing retains its sting so long
That memory can’t in time evade.
And what is left … is bitter, bitter circumstance.

A Death I Die

Posted on July 30, 2021 by Roland's Ragbag

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow.

T.S. Eliot (The Journey of the Magi)

I wrote this poem, as I did several of my recently blogged poems, many years ago.
In ‘A Death I Die’ below the sober thoughts reflect a dark mood, the reason for which I now have no recollection. For me, at the time of writing, they obviously represented the Shadow, that halfway house between knowing and not-knowing,
between what is and what might be,
between Eliot’s ‘the motion and the act’.

A DEATH I DIE

I have no heart for selfish love
that starts and ends with flesh.
It leads along an endless path,
it binds, compels afresh.

There is a sort of death I die;
Am killed and kill myself.
I am alone in this. I am a willing suicide.
I go on a journey bearing my own end.

This death is a habit, a nasty selfish habit
I know and hate it.
I both give and receive.
The giving is good
– but also a habit.

Receiving – an infinite regression.
We plan the means and the end is all.
Purgatory is the cemetery, time the resurrection.
And All is planned that This should be so.

Time’s Detritus

Posted on July 16, 2021 by Roland's Ragbag

*Photo: WHB … In a Devon Farmyard – 2004*

Once upon a time
In a pool and mired in grime,
I found a body, floating high.
A desolate place to die.

A basin for a tomb;
Blue plastic for a shroud.
A watery necropolis
For beauty now anonymous.

Abandoned, left to rot,
That was to be her lot.
Discarded and bereft,
Beauty the sands of time had left.

She’s found a resting place
Without sacrament or grace.
Long ago loved but now
The victim of a broken vow.

This unseemly end
My heart did rend.
‘The detritus of time’
Will end my rhyme.

Poem: WHB

Hope – a Sequence from 2020

Posted on April 26, 2021 by Roland's Ragbag

Walk, Eat, Sleep, Wake,
Little to do
To myself I talk
Thus the story
of twenty-twenty
Gone the years
of more and plenty
Cover my face
as in disgrace
Cross my heart
and keep apart
Cuddles banned
Hugs verboten
Kiss me quick
all that forgotten
When will it end
and will it ever
A Life to live
A love to sever
Lock me up
they might as well
For where I am
there I dwell
Nothing but time
to fill each day
And time never ends
so here I stay
Locked in this cell
not feeling well
Till hope returns
and once again
within me burns

Remembering

Posted on April 16, 2021 by Roland's Ragbag

Tell me stories,
Sing me hymns.
As I remember
Let me weep.

Time is passing,
Friends are leaving,
Do I want
More hours to keep.

Midst purple heather,
Bracken brown,
Grass close cut
By hillside sheep.

Blue bells ring,
Rose berries ripen,
Let me lie
Both warm and deep.

Green hills surround
Where I was born;
Let me again
Amongst them sleep.

Hope For Glory Yet

Posted on March 5, 2021 by Roland's Ragbag

*‘An English Dawn’ … WHB – Pen&Wash- 2013*

Once upon a sublime time
when daylight lingered long into night’s advance
shadows crept from silent space
wrapping themselves around the foothills of my youth
their clutch clinging to my burgeoning hopes
with silky snake embrace
promising to smother all ills
to suck the poison from my advance
and still the waves that beat upon my summer shore

But now with time progressed and prospects passed
with what avails me slipped away
that promised land
the unproven myth
shown for what it is
have I learnt nothing from my dreams
has expectation become ash
youth’s promise proven pallid
yet stubbornly remaining
to bolster what is left to me of life
and give me strength to persist
and hope for glory yet

On Life’s Anchor

Posted on February 17, 2021 by Roland's Ragbag

‘Every man is searching for the place he belongs.’ James Joyce

Where do I belong
Is it my birthplace
Or some other place where I have laid my head?

I no longer search
For I am secure in knowing with increasing certainty
My heart still lives in the hills of my childhood home
It awakes each morning with the scent of bracken and heather
And the soft green turf of the rolling moor
Even at such long removed time and space
These tastes, these smells, these images
In the quiet moments of my active day
Have an unnerving reality
Sustain my being and nourish the silence of my soul
Rarely do the comforting memories engendered
Leave me dispirited and downcast
Seldom do the doubts of my waking troubles
Not gain encouragement from the solidity
The comforting certainties of my history
And I have never lost their throbbing power
To anchor the passage of fleeting time
In the calm and stillness of my reflection

AMEN

Posted on January 29, 2021 by Roland's Ragbag

where does it end
when does it end
know that it never does
never will
there’s always more
more of the same
more that differs
more that extends into yet more
it is the very nature of existence
and reality remains without end
for dead or alive
we she he it
there is only Infinity
and infinite tomorrows
forever everlasting eternity
bending into time without end
AMEN – So Be It

Three Haiku for a Closing Year

Posted on November 13, 2020 by Roland's Ragbag

November’s shadow
Casts a long and murky pall
Over a dark year.

December grows near,
Promising a silent end
To a stolen year.

Only spring brings hope,
And within its welcome arms,
The warmth of rebirth.