Travels in my Atlas

‘ATLAS’ . . . Pen & Pencil: WHB – 2021

I travel the world from my Atlas,
As the breadth of my shoulders attests;
I live in its enthralling pages,
My adventures are found in its quests.

As I try to envisage each country –
Its shape, its contiguous states,
I take in its valleys and mountains,
Whatever its landform dictates.

I travel its rail and its highways,
I swim in its rivers and lakes.
I take in its size and its people,
Its history of floods and earthquakes.

I note Its capital city,
Attempt to remember its name,
Its flag, its size and its neighbours,
And whence its languages came.

And when I have finished my travels
I put down my Atlas and sleep.
And consider the pleasures of travel,
A delight and incredibly cheap.

Cometh The Lockdown

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Stop the world I want to get off;
Let’s have a global fire break.
Give me time to recuperate,
To stop this corvid headache.

We’re hoping for some respite now,
A pause in life’s short passage;;
A little rest may well be best,
A chance to send a message,

Let’s tell the world we’ve not gone mad,
Defy cynics and mockers;
Impress upon the populace
We’ve not gone off our rockers.

For every person, young or old,
Still living on this planet,
Has cause to love a life that’s free,
To live a life – not ban it.

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Who Shall I Pray To?

WHO SHALL I PRAY TO?

 

It may be 
that only the Little People have my measure,
know the chances I take, 
jockeying for position on the human stage,
risking all.
It is they who understand. 
they have been here before me
and sympathise. 

Now, safe in their elven homes,
reflecting,
they take the long view,
the wise one, 
nodding,
in turn, sympathetic, then disdainful,
smugly disengaged.

For that is their destiny as gods,
to judge, 
to pronounce on the frail and the headstrong;
to be prayed to by feeble humankind, 
free to accept our pitiful offerings. 
free also
to ignore our pleas for redemption. 

Who else do I pray to
when history’s gods fail me? 
Only Solas listens, 
hears,
but his replies I fail to understand, 
and, rudderless, 
am, as ever, left
to choose my own path
in this unstable world.

While The Whole World Was Sleeping

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WHILE  THE  WORLD  WAS SLEEPING

 

Once while the whole world was sleeping,
It lost sight of the goal it was seeking.
Came a dystopian event
It could not prevent,
Now all of its people are weeping.

 

Our hope for the future it lies,,
Not with prayers or good wishes or sighs,
But on finding a cure,
Or a vaccine that’s sure,
The whole world to revitalise.

 

Friday – ‘Cometh The Hour’

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An aphorism for each day, keeps the doctor away. Each day this week I am offering a common aphorism, just slightly embellished – for good or ill.

 

 

Cometh the hour, cometh the man;

I hope he’s waiting in the wings.

Our world most surely needs him now,

Someone who love and wellness brings.

 

The Pandemic

 

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THE  PANDEMIC

 

Once while the whole world was sleeping,
It lost sight of the goal it was seeking.
Came a dystopian event
It could not prevent,
Now all of its people are weeping.

 

Our hope for the future it lies
Not with prayers or good wishes or sighs,
But on finding a cure,
Or a vaccine that’s sure,
The whole world to revitalise.

 

A Haiku For Christmas Day

 

Eskdale in Winter:  WHB … Pen and wash – 2017

ON CHRISTMAS DAY

 

The Christmas message

Its meaning of Salvation

Brings hope to the world

 

 

 

DREAMLAND

WHB . . . Pen & Wash 1957

DREAMLAND

 

I am led to consider
where it is
that my dreams take me 

 

for when I dream
my world I find
has changed
become condensed
circumscribed by boundaries
which pulse with uncertainty
suppressing perspective
and thereby
concentrating my actions
in broken sequence
now vague somehow
contrary to what is natural
purposeful
yet without intent
and I remain
closeted in an oppressive world
one of vague
and indeterminate outcomes
part hopeful
part fearful
never resolved
always shattered by that rude awakening
which abruptly
without asking
returns my life to a real world
wherein
ill-defined ghosts
stumble into meaning

Till The World Ends

Detail of a Dante Gabriel Rossetti painting, modelled by his wife, Elizabeth Siddal

PROMISE TO A LOST LOVE

As the pull of the moon
And the push of the wind
Cause the waves to break on the shore,

So the lure of your face
And the pulse of your heart
Will ever my lifeblood restore.

Till the tides end their flow
And the breeze ceases motion
I vow it’s just you I’ll adore

For when the end comes
And I’m covered in earth
I’ll be with you for time evermore.

 

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