My hills, my sea

It feels very good to be back on home turf, up here in Scotland. I was born a few miles North of here and the place speaks to me; it blows sweet nothings in my ear, dazzles me with gentle spectacle and beauty, and possesses an understated grandeur that stops me thinking - it lets me just feel......

The mountains behind me, like the land beneath my feet, are deep in snow. The light is fierce but makes the every nook and cranny stark in contrast. An almost monochrome scene - the only contamination of colour, my car on top this hill ...... except that deep azure sky.



The sea, normally so full of terrible brooding power at this time of year, is nearly flat and the water's reflection is so bright it hurts.

This is my place, my homeland, the land of my fathers for many generations and, although I must now leave it, I feel the connection deeply; so deeply that I know it wont vanish as I travel.

I love you my hills, my sea.

You bring me peace

A Funny Old Life

Time

If you live for the future
You fail to live
Until the futures run

If you live in the past
You will stay there
Until life's passed you by

A Funny Old Life

TRuth

I hear a skein of geese
A plaintive, longing, honking
As they seek their unseen destination
And I wonder if you hear them too

I see the sun set slowly
Low in the winters sky, day ending
In its weird, pink, splendour
I think you might see the same

I see you, when I am out
Time and again my heart leaps
Only to find it's someone
A little similar in height, or type of hair

I hear your voice as I wake
And startled, leave my sleep in joy
Then it fades to silence
No matter how hard I listen

I miss those lips, that noisy hair
I miss those eyes
But most of all I miss
The soul behind them

A Funny Old Life

And so the itinerancy starts .........

Into the wild blue yonder to the worlds of low bandwidth connections, strange accents, scents, flavours, sights and sounds.

Be seeing you out there............

A funny old life

An Itinerant DJs Kitchen

A Haiku, a British Rail virgin and a hat tip to a friend

A friend, I discover, also writes and, as it happens, rather well indeed. A hat tip to you Amaia.

Pestilent City!

Pestilent city!
Grey towers grow about us -
Flowers of winter.

Anais Nietzsche


British Rail Virgin

An amateur philosopher,
I think about hell and train stations.

Five letters –
Down,

Something you do
when you want to be heard...

Shout?

No, I can’t,

Even though the fat man
on the opposite seat is staring at me -

A sticker on the glass
Bans mobile phones and talking too loudly.

Anais Nietzsche


A Funny Old Life

The Stolen Branch - a memory and a hat tip

In the night we shall go in
to steal
a flowering branch.

We shall climb over the wall
in the darkness of the alien garden,
two shadows in the shadow.

Winter is not yet gone,
and the apple tree appears
suddenly changed
into a cascade of fragrant stars.

In the night we shall go in
up to its trembling firmament,
and your little hands and mine
will steal the stars.

And silently,
to our house,
in the night and the shadow,
with your steps will enter
perfume's silent step
and with starry feet
the clear body of spring.

-- Pablo Neruda

The realisation of an ending

Completely alone
In a house full of people
With the realisation that
I will now ever be a man alone

The loss of my sex-drive
Reflects in my behaviour
Women are more friendly, understanding
And totally unattracted

My interactions with women have changed
They want to be my friend, not my lover
And whilst the friendships wonderful
The loss of love bit down hard tonight

I watched the mating game
With all its hesitation, tease and promise
And I realised that I would never
Play that game again

A Funny Old Life

For anyone wondering why I am so happy .....

There is a reason for me putting forward that particular work, TEOTA, for consideration by the judges. More than one, in fact....

I think its probably the best thing I have ever written but it was also necessary for me to enter it since, if I won a place then I knew that the work would be printed. It was important for me to express my love in black ink ......

For those of you not so obsessed with the work of The Bard, and its easy to understand why people get turned off him not so much by how its taught as by the works used, there are works you never seem to get exposed to at school who's abject beauty is apparent to anyone with 30 seconds to spare to read one. I speak, of course, of the Sonnets.

In particular I was referring to my personal favourite .....

It is my belief that beauty of this sort must be shared or the world becomes a poorer place. Please, therefore, even if you hated Shakespeare with a passion: I beg you, please, read what he wrote when impassioned by love.

SONNET 65
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.



A Funny Old Life

A perspective gained

I will touch you again, in this life
When, someday, a sea breeze plucks that pair of stray ringlets off your brow and brushes them behind your ear with a gentle caress, look for me there

I will move you again, in this life
When you, like I do, recall the others face next to ours
In repose, in gentle sleep, smiling

We were drawn together, I still don’t really know how
We clung together when we could but it couldn’t last
There are things we both must do, which cannot wait
We both must do what we need to, to be true to ourselves
And that takes us far apart

Time and circumstance know little mercy

A Funny Old Life