Thought World

THOUGHT WORLD

So the drama reaches its climax.

So the novel ends 

And so the spinning universe we can’t comprehend

                          …

Will one day change but not disappear

The world we live in terra firma – it’s clear

Will be folded up as a garment

                          …

In light of these things non-permanent

Should we not reach for the perpetual?

Should we not investigate the eternal?

                          …

Our world of internal strife

Our world of thoughts in the night

Our world of the mental

                          …

All kinds of actions consequential

Imagine the world – was but our thoughts

Watch as it’s fever rises to chaos

                           …

No thought brought into captivity

Imaginations only evil continually

What shall we do?

                           …

Who can stop the spiral?

As clash follows clash

All crippled and masticated it be

The endless thoughts of you and me

Nothing stable just another jumbled muse

Nobody listens – no one will be taught

                           …

Imagine complete chaos – no control

Only anarchy and confusion

No creed – no rule – no seminar or school

                           …

Every man for himself

Strike-out through the maze

Trample underfoot – apprehend and bind

Leave all decency for everything unkind

All thoughts will die with the spinning heads

                          …

Unless we hear the cry

Of the One who wept over Jerusalem 

And still does – over mankind

Scratch and itch

Scratch and itch

You scratch my back and

I’ll scratch your’s

Itchy itchy…

Fundamental empathy –

a scratch for a scratch

And a smile for a smile

Morphing into laughs

We stay a while

Watch TV and can’t agree

On which programme to watch

As we sit on your settee

It’s been a hard day’s night

We should be sleeping like a log

But I can’t get the

comfortable chair-bed

You have given it to your dog

Studio corner…

My Studio Corner

LOOKING AGAIN

Brushes and paint lie dormant

Dormant man – fighting infirmities

They call it lockdown…

As it ventures to catch your brain

                  …

Shaking-off the shackles

Of indolent’s stealth

At least the eye can lift itself

To look again

                   …

At the industry hand and brain has formed

Former works – done for me

For me it oft seems a lesser reward

Determined by the fickle browse of 

Moods jury

                   …

Never a unanimous verdict

Only one short-lived before it is changed

I will give you them all

Only say the word

And my gallery is yours

                    …

But I must not let my hunger

For man’s empty praise

Cause me to sell this birthright

For a mess of pottage

Words without meaning

The following experiment is a poem that

is the antithesis of my last post (see last post)

One might say:conversely…

WORDS WITHOUT MEANING

Why configurate these words on display?

With floweriness and watered lilies

Of flourish and fancy and carefree-say

Give me substance today

…

How many pats on the back is it now?

As the uniformed gush to give you praise

Why – you haven’t said anything yet

To my dismay

…

After all don’t say – if there’s nothing to say

Where’s your meaning in life?

Gone away – ?

…

We decorate your cake and make a fuss

And get together for your display

As your words are echoed in your array

You come waltzing into the company

Of adoring and moderately adoring…

…

And all brighten up at your celebrity

Words are many and diverse and articulate

But separating them up

No statement you have made

Of import – or discovery

…

You haven’t added to my grounded and settled life

You haven’t given me one iota of new found hope

You – with your words all shaken in our face

Not a word of solid stuff –

and hardy-annual-perpetuity

…

“Agh! – huh!” – I shrug my shoulders

As I stand on the circumference

Of your massive fan-club looking-in

Where fellow lovers of lightness Ooh! and Ahh!

But still don’t know what you say

…

All pretty words are not enough

‘Give me substance’ I say

Tell me the hidden mysteries

Show me the untrodden way

Bring me to the brink

Where I will stay…

…

More than just caressing phrases

Wrapped in rhythms and rhymes

And cock-a-doodle dandy chimes

…

You are still not the bearer of good news

You are the wordsmith

With nothing to explain

Nothing I can take away

…

Nothing whereby – I gain

Flowery-bouquet all clever and arranged

In such and such an ancient – vaze vase or vauze

…

Looking hard now – examining every phrase

Bouncing in the eye from you

To your words – Im amazed

That when all is said and done

You – I repeat – you – have nothing to say

Words

WORDS

I’m writing words for the love of words

But in writing words I ‘m not saying a thing

I finish my piece and pass it to you

But you look puzzled and don’t know what to do

                          …

I’m writing words for the love of words

The love of words is what I sincerely bring

But the love of words doesn’t mean anything

                          …

I’m writing words as your attention dwindles away

I’m writing words without anything to say

                          …

Like a child I look for praise

As you start to look – but divert your gaze

Finding other things to laugh and cry about

Just before you excuse yourself and walk out

                          … 

I’m writing words now – all alone

Looking at my page as it bends to my tone

I love the words I start to compose

But they are not saying anything – I suppose

                          …

By the love of words I will stand

As one more sheet is stored up for the band

Never to see the light of day again

I sit before another white sheet semi-art and plain

                           …

Hitting the keys this time hard and fast

Hoping my love of words will last

Lasting – as – long – as it will take

Composing words – a poem doth make

                           …

What’s this business all about?

Poem after poem – for deaf ears – I spill out

This stringing of word-beads together

The love of meaning and the love of words in tether?

                           …

No – I won’t listen – it’s words today

Let the meaning drift away

                           …

The love of words – the love of words

The love of words – the love of words

                           …

That’s all I have to say

Locked down – locked in

LOCKED DOWN – LOCKED IN

“You need something – anything…”

What a strange confession to make

But you’re – locked-down – locked-in

The scale in your head recording it’s spin

Going from zero to infin.

What’s this about – this human thing?

Emotions are low – gaslight dim

Despair is stalking your room

Routine has run out of steam

Mentally inclined to decline

You still try to unwind

But boredom and anxiety

Of what might be

Leaves you cold-stone paralysed

With covid fear

But stop and listen

Try to learn – that the One

Behind the universe

In unapproachable light

Still offers the means of escape

In this life – for the next

The problem might not be solved

But it can be fixed

Fixed with a residing perspective

Gained from above

As you pursue and find

The God of Love

Unifying Person

UNIFYING PERSON

Suppose I chose a different road than you

Could we part amicably?

Suppose you chose another bunch of friends

Would this mean our friendship ends?

                           …

Supposing I met you on the Main Street

Would you prefer we didn’t meet?

Our polite overcoat of warm greetings

Would it belie our undercover bleatings

                            …

Like sheep with wooly soft insulation

We caress each other with insinuation

Not calling a spade a spade

Afraid – an embarrassing word might be said

                            …

Suppose we agree to disagree

And the drinks are on me

Is there ever harmony?

In an agitated nature –

not the way it’s meant to be –

We need another advocate to step in

And be us together

Some unifying person

Like a Saviour

Life in Pictures

LIFE IN PICTURES

My life flashes past me in photographs

Why do we keep these things?

My life is vaporising day by day

It appears for a moment

And vanishes away

                    …

It appears for a moment again

In these photographs – physically –

laid out on the floor

                    …

Now here it comes up

The emotional perceiving of friends gone

My life stops in front of me on paper

That person – loved and esteemed

In my life no more

                     …

And now it comes up – the lump in my throat

As the vapour stands still

In colour and black and white

All flat on glossy surface

As the light hits it – but absent friends – no more

                      …

Now they come up – the flooding memories

I perceive and lay aside

Never seeing much point in upsetting myself

All emotional within

Kiss them and put them away

                       …

My name will echo in days to come

Echo around the room of relatives still here

As the old photo album is reached for

And dad/uncle/friend/grandad is pointed out

In photos on the floor

                        …

And bang them though you will

And poke the video even more

Yet you will never materialise what has gone before

                         …

I’m gone – only flat-me remains

I smile out at you

You smile back at me – but you – I cannot see

Photos – photos – what use are you?

You can’t bring them back to my warm embrace

                         …

Photos – photos – I can see

Photos staring back at me

All flat and glossy though you be

Your premier production is a two

On a scale of ten-to-three

                         …               

Nothing substitutes for time gone by

Nothing takes the place of the real you and I

Hug me quick – hug me long

Keep these moments – my life prolong

Thankfulness for time well spent

Loving all – thicker than water

                         …

You – are – right – now

I am right now

Dispense with the photos and jump together

Holding our embrace

Jump into inner space

Or hold forever all our love within

The end will come – but let us begin

                         …

Keep our love fresh – let me see your face

The smile and look – I know so well

I tick the box on the form

With indelible ink – I fix you before my eyes

I melt into you – and will never leave

As eternity is promised to those who believe

All ending

ALL ENDING

All of a sudden it’s all ending

The ice cream cone disappears into your mouth

You rinse the tooth brush all traces gone

You burn the paper – sweet taken

You swallow the last shredded-wheat morsel

                       …

All of a sudden it’s all ending

The titles arise on the screen

You’ve grown tired of that same holiday

They are leaving and there’s nothing you can do

Retirement at last – now eight years ago

                       …

All of a sudden it’s all ending

You were forty – now the forties are gone

Demolition of bricks and mortar

Demolition of emotional memories

Fading to silence – the song is sung

                        …

All of a sudden it’s all ending

Tension ceases – problem solved

You near the departure lounge

Up up and away in your aeroplane

Your school taken away – redeveloped

Remember this day – for tomorrow takes it away

Outside of it

OUTSIDE OF IT

And if I was in the way of all fleshly culture

Accolades would come and offer themselves

I see through the mist of words coming my way

And look to the heart of the wordsmith supply

The mouth and the pen speaking the abundance of the heart

                             …

And they have their own secular priests in poetry’s halls of fame

And they applaud and visit the award ceremonies

And give them their time of day

And exult in their devises and words – great and swelling

And hanging on every word – they like their controversy

                            …

All give appearances of humility and ‘I don’t know’

But all think they do – in some held mystery

Best piano performers – as they press the keys of words

Their daily practice others perceive is a place too high

For mere mortal men – they miss how the ‘magicians’ do it

                             …

On the pedestal of applause they must get their fix

Who is in it for the money and the fame?

                             …

Yet words – as far as words go –

Oft find some harmony and balance

As the poets scratch their lines in the sands of time

I wonder at – all this jiving around – 

                              …

For selling the soul – all is offered

In prison [through time and shackles worn]

Adulation or the promise of exclusivity and

Man’s empty praise

                             …

But I can only be an observer

When I take the time to look

A sideways glance at the vying for position

I am not a friend of this world

And need not their kingly throne

                            …

So says the man who wants to write a poem

So says the man

who hasn’t completely thought this through

I love…

I LOVE…

I love the son born to us

I love the sons born to my son

I love my daughters born to us

I love my daughter-in-law

I love my sons-in-law

I love their sons and daughters

I love my father and mother

I love the son-brother born to them

I love that things start all over again

Dozed off

DOZED OFF

All displayed out in the sunshine

Sprawled out like towel-less shower victims

Others about the place

No one around with intelligent suggestions

A long moment of pause in time

As though time could really stop

Blue sky – now

Some dog barks in the distance

Getting louder but not approaching

A ball tossed into the swimming pool

Too light to create any waves

Another five minutes pass

with increasing silence

Muffled snores – all have dozed-off

Cut the atmosphere with a butter knife

Pallid congregation of five

Sharing the common ground

And sun-opportunity

Provided by this foreign hotel