When Parents are Bereft of Woe, Weary Lines, Laughter Cracks and The Step

When parents are bereft of woe

(By Gub, London, the 5th of September 2006)

When parents are bereft of woe

They’re dead, or slack, to life’s beat

Children jump on an open sheet

Fly off the bed

Break their feet.

Worry the burden of age,

The strife

Of begetting things

That carry lice.

That shout, that call

Moan.

Too large, too short

Too much,

Groan.

Summon, despise, despatch

In an instant

The sermon that took years

Precious hours of research

Dismiss with a burp

Well intended

care.

Raid the fridge

Attack the dog

With the bread-knife.

Little love

Little loss

The passing of the cross

We met again

Adults all, recall with gloss…

Till they bear pups

Which berate and bark

They have no inkling

Of the cycle

The dragging

Of the smaller self

Through the cold night

The muddied grass

Of urban park.

But meet and pass

As generation must

Carve initials in the bark

Remember the tree

Embraced by all

Surround together

Both large and small

Child, adult

Life’s a game

At half-time

Switch ends

Play on

For sure

Those who bat today

Must tomorrow

Catch the ball…

Weary lines

(By Gub, 4th of March, 2007)

Weary lines

Wake the face

Crimp-eye

Light blind

Vision

Dawn intruder

Day….

Comes

To test

The Faith

Pictures

Flown from

Memory

Recoil

Against

The frame

Child with toast

End of the bed

Grins

Selfless

Butter

Drips

On the counterpane

Corner

Of a calico

Curtain

Brush

Of leaf on wood

Cow lows

Sore sound

Fields

Distant

Mushrooms

Damp

Rise

Brown

Forest

Food

Sparks fly

From farmyard

anvil

TV screen flashes

Blue, cars light up

road

Night

Winter

Snow

Life so young

Should be good.

School waits

Small learning

adulthood

Sex begins

Won’t stop

Deep

Too deep

Childhood

Sleeps

Coursens

The pulse

Veins

That swell

Water drips

Dark

Darker

Into

The

Brown

Depth

Of time’s

Well

Morning recovers

Night’s bruises

Daylight

Smothers

The pale imprint

Of fingered

Excuses

The stifle

Cry

Of woken eye

The nightmare

Came

Re-told

becomes a lie;

a dare too far

refused.

Laughter cracks

(By Gub, the 12th of March, 2007)

Laughter cracks against

Wood

Playground frame

Father’s day

Stolen hours,

Tired,

Misunderstood.

Smiles crease

Fingers freeze

March’s shuttlecock

Bats winter back and forth

Teases

Spring’s release

An unseasoned marriage

Between sun and gold

Fun and cold

Mirth, grief….

Mood stalks

Youth

Deer’s hoof

Dappled light

Darkening wood

Hunters spear.

Heart

Hurt glare

Parents in

Separate

Spheres

Conjure

Bleak

Dissolution

Of innocence

River

Winds

Stitches bind

Life, purpose,

Irrepressible

Intent

Child’s voice

Falls

Captive

To a greater will

The future

Re-invents.

The broken oaks

Crack down

Wind spent

Cling for a

Season or two

Fall

On the forest floor

Green shoots

Permeate

Debris

Small heads rise

High

Not just surviving

But the better

To see…

The Step

(By Sil, HBC, July 2009)

Un-toiled labour

Un-heard sobs

Un-seen first steps

And un-fought swords

All time that passed

All years un-lived

Film reeled in the dark

In silent shift

And now you demand, you command

You are lost and I reprimand

Un-mother and un-child

Itched by unbearable chafe that we cannot un-fight

And oh! How it does bother

The step

The UN-SUR-MOUNT-ABLE step

Step

Son

Step

Mother

Love poems written in Romania

Curvature

(By Gub, Bucharest, September 2003)

The arch of your

Back

The curl

Of your toe

Open mouths

Wet lips

Hips

Circling

Slow

Senses

Warm

Calm

Nerve

Balm

No fracture

No division

Unity

Precision

Love

Made slow

Eyes

Meet

Worlds welded

Complete

And hours later

When we part

Pubic hair

Like

Velcro

Echoes

The

Gentle

Tearing

In my

heart

Is love real

(By Gub, Bucharest, September 2003)

The love that you feel

Is it real ?

When you touch

My skin

Pull me in,

Absolve my sin

Is this a fantasy

Of fact ?

Or phantom

Fancy ?

Truth aches

Uncertain

Which way

To go

The will

To embrace

The fabric

Of love

To pull on the

Mantle of an

Others beauty

The elegant

Textiles

Of desires

Construction

To wear

Our souls

With deep

Comfort

And eae

Or is loive

Just a vain

Attempt to

Please

Our empty

Egos ?

I see your eye

Reflect the light

The contraction

Of my love

To a tiny bsize

So fragile

So small

All expansive

All sense

Compressed

Into a

Miniature ball.

You hold

Me

Now

A particle

Of sand -

A fragment

Of history

In your hand

Will you

Clasp me

Close

Guard me

Still ?:

Or dust me

Off

Into the

Desert

Of free will ?

The circle

(By Gub, September 2003, Bucharest)

I have no hope

To heal

History

No spark

Or flame

To light the fire

By which to steer

My tired ship

The sea moves

Silent

Beneath this

Static hull

A surf-less

Surface

Lit

With grey

Sky

Numb dull

Clouds

Slip

Listlessly

By

Sails limp

With damp

Air

This is no new

Horizon

No promised

Land

The world is flat

Contrite

With feeling

Polished mantle

Of azure ocean

Stretches

Endless

A blue

Desert

With no

Sand

Above the sea

The sky is stiller

Still

A forest

Canopy

Of concrete

Clouds

Sit solid

Unbroken shadows

Refuse to crack

Refuse to rustle

Lifeless

In the breeze

This space

A spaceless

Heaven

No stars

Shine

In this moonless

Cavern

What hope

Stirs

Is soon

Crazed

With unhinged

Purpose

A groan

Rumbles

In the lowest

Depth

A volcano

Erupts

With frozen

Magma

Speak less

Of life

And more of living

Life is a word devoid

Of

Meaning

But act;

Protract

Or contract

Some shape

Some feeling

Grab the handrail

Of the sinking vessel

The breached bow

Of fallow years

Gulp the air

Though still and stale

The smallest particle

Confesses fear

There is no deception

Age marks

Lines

On the youngest face

Embrace that breeze

That fills the sails

It is born

In a different place

Travel is the measure

Of our journey

- move

As we must

From place to place

Life is the

Motion

That begins

And ends the

Human race.

Describe a circle

Touch lightly

The contours

Of your hand

Hold the air for

A fleeting

Second

Still

Now

The quiet

Of living

The shifting

Of time

Each day the sea

Moves

It’s own

Weight

In sand.

When you touched

(By Gub, Romania, 2003)

When you touched

This skin

And closed me tight

And whole

Within your body

You spared the world

Some bitter

Pain

When you tucked

Me tight

Under your wing

And sucked me dry

And drew me in

You closed

A door

On darkness

Switching

On a light

You withdrew

The bite

That threatened

Sight

And

Ribbons caught

Beneath the buckle

The waistcoat

Muffled

Tight

Love is a passing

A human gasping

A roll of dice

A cancered lottery

Of untold flight

One soars

One boars

What charges

Upward into night.

We may have felt

The ruffled quiver

The besmirched

Mirror

The hour-glass

Reception

Of time

Wither

But standing

Out,

Proud alone,

The embarrassed

Groan

The collective tither

Love wrestles this

And that

A Laundromat

Of unwashed

Feeling

We seek for gain

We contort

Our hearts

And smile with pain

We grow smaller

Darker by the hour

When sunblest

We stand

Before the light

The penetrating apostle

Of lovers sight

To stand and proclaim

That pain is shame

That bottling up our ardour

Is tantamount

To a cold shower

Easily done in moments

Of mirth

We measure the earth’s crust

Turn

It’s rusty girth

But human touch

Human hope

We pray

That is real…

The moonlight shines

On the valley below

The rattle the garble

Of the cows lowing

The life that cups

The cradle

The candle that glows

The hand that rocks

The infant

Fearless

Of woe

I wish I could paint that face

That distant parent, the shadow of grace

Who stands like a tombstone

Over the womb,

Who overs succour

In the shadow

The gloom

And there amidst the agony

Of night

That gentle smile

That love labours

As the mother reaches

The father teaches

Stands

Forlorn

In the

Spring felt

Dawn,

The passage of

Time measured

Between death

And being

And being unborn

The wind rushes

A brush

Amongst trees

easing its passing

With the abandonment of leaves

And the tucker that falls on the forrest

Floor

Is an adornment of riches

A pasture of acorns,

From which

The bugs

The molluscs

Primeval

And unsown

Will tunnel

With wisdom

Will outlive

Man’s

Homegrown.

I smelt the dark rot

Of the wood’s acid core,

I watched the louse

Crawl, symmetrical

And small,

Barked back

Battalions

Of scouring might

Creatures

Of thoroughness

Blind, insight.

The hovering motion,

The circles

Engrained

Regimented

Circumnavigation

No cortex, no brain,

But in travelling half-distance

In pacing the same

No parliament,

No secretions

Of greed, or ill gain

Nature most

Bold

Most simple

Bereft of recall

The burying of arrows

Of bow-strings unstrung

Of hymnals unhitched

From the saddle

Of belief

From the harnass

From the gun

What insight we seize

From vision, what illusion

We are spared

When we consider

The wood-louse

The heir-loom

Of life

Human destiny

Spared…

I only wish

(By Gub, Jan 6th 2004)

I only wish I was pressing snow beneath my feet,

On a cold winter climb,

Up a cobbled Sibiu Street.

I only wish I could hold your face,

Cup your smile,

Squeeze your red raspberry lips

Between my chattering teeth.

Snow storms in the

Flickering light,

Flakes float

FleetingInto night.

Heating body, blood and soul,

Your love's hot cocoa to my heart

Your very being;

Spiritual coal...

Whistful

(By Gub, London, the 24th of June 2004)

Whistful, wanton

Wish

The blessing of a kiss.

If you would only

Open

Those eyes

Flash lashes

At the sky

See opulent

Colours

Spring to life

Press

Fresh

Reddening

Lips

Against

Alabaster skin

And sigh.

The deep

Breathless

Heat

Of summer’s

Past

The burning

Glory of sleep-filled

Dreams

The life we live

Before we die.

The body that you bare

The round full

Curves

Of tender

Flesh

The sudden rush

blood,

Swollen nerves

Flexing tendons

Sweat

Wept

Dry.

The image

Of that half drunk

Form

Draped

Seaweed

Across

Rounded

Stone.

vision

Born

By birth

The thirsting

Thrust

Of a waving form

Crashes

When you speak

(By Gub, London, the 28th of July, 2004)

When you speak

You pass

Green daises

That turn to grass

You usher sunshine

Into dark places

Your smile

Resonates

Echos

Joy

In the deepest recesses.

But when your voice

Is silent

When your

Tongue is closed

Tight around

Your gum

The day returns

To night

The world

Is glum

Speak now

whatever

Is in your mind

Your heart cannot betray

Thoughts that pass

Unuttered

Stark

And grey.

The bolder of

That stillness

Is only the nightmare

Of what you will not say.

The shadows

That we box

The half-lit

Candle

Pulls

Menace from the corner

My Souls courage

Stalls.

What are

The thoughts

That shudder

That curdle

From the grave ?

The sallow

Tainted face

This mystery

Is my knave

Wish that I could fight him

Wrestle him to the ground

That bloody unspoken

Feeling

That life

Will not confound.

When love is calling

Blindly

When hope is on its way

The universe

Shines so brightly

We are lifted from the fray.

But when the love

We’re close to

Slackens

And fear comes in its wake

All our senses wither

A heart upon a stake.

The blood that feeling

Calls for

The sacrifice

Of lies

From which love promised a gracious

goodbye

Becomes the thing despised.

How can such greatness

Falter ?

How can love become

undone ?

It is this silence

Which steals

Our former

greatness

Words collapse

Unspoken

False

Calm

Before the storm

And speaking

Nought of nothing

Isolation is reborn….

Christmas Song and Shimmer

Christmas song

(By Sil,  the22nd of December, 2009, HBC)

If I could portion happiness in perfect shapes of ginger dough

And offer wishes wrapped in crispy paper

If I could line my soul in tinsel forever gold

And hear angels sing - would I still feel a leper?

I yearn to celebrate in faith the birthday his Son

But with this hapless friend it’s long since I have spoken

Have you forgotten – would you even sign a card

Or are you tired of my hectoring, my Lord?

Shiny flecks shimmered of fairies against dirt

Amongst moon-flowers and garlic beds – beauty or gaudy disco-light?

I believed in crumbs of divine scattered shards

Cell-mate and soul-mate, we cannot share in tiny delight

We’re left to search a way through the holy jumble

Fractured by the weight of wonders we cannot see

Are you and I overlooking the fact that

The world is a puzzle that also assembles in 4D?

I would gather the sparkle of a thousand Christmas trees

To shine enough brilliance deep into your weary heart

Stocked up on your beam s and roasted in glow of love

I would be at your side till winter’s end, my most affiliated bard.

Shimmer

(By Gub , 26th of December, 2009, HBC)

Millennia presses coal

In hidden seams

Diamonds’

Eventual

Gleam

We strive to meet our goal.

Dig deep beneath the fallen snow

Powder light

Glistens

And crystals

Glow

Seasons

Come

Shorter sense in meaning

Celebrations hard won.

Transform ice to water

Adorn the rafters with

Festive lace

Spin webs

With flowers

Pinecones

Ribbons red

The house glitters

Inside the sun

Such godly

Imitations

Flatter nature into reason

Close the gap

Between belief

In Love

And all that’s left unsaid

And all that’s left undone.

To Find Love and My Moon

To Find Love

By Sil, June 2009

And I come to you, a desert.

Expansiveness scattered thin.

I pour my thoughts like sand in your vessel

To fill it up to the brim.

And if my scorched soul shall sip water

And my weary mind shall settle within,

We can follow the road

Until darkness unfolds

To find love

A shore unbound

Fishes of purple in spin.

My Moon

By Gub, June, 2009

I promise you memories not yet spun

Future joys, heartaches, pleasures;

far flung.

I promise you laughter, shadows

Traces of light,

Cats’ paws on doorsteps

Children sleep-overs

Spring walks

Summer, autumn

Winters’ Bite

Love’s flowering

Blossoms bloom

I promise you my days

I promise you my moon

Dance with me

Walz together

Through life’s precious breath

Catch this phrase

Bend it to cadence

Push back death

The equinox of marriage

Ballances the real

With a wish

Gentle bindings

Not taught

Blessed with a kiss

Hearts that thump as one

YES,

For what?

My passion will run

and run

Decaded

Decaded

(By Gub, Jan 2010)

I span this seventh decade

With fifty-one years

To my name.

I feel I cheated at sports

Covering so much distance

With so little gain.

If the plaudits of critics

Alone

Count for value or fame.

I’ve married twice

Sired four children

In rude health

Dissolved a couple of fortunes

And had more than one moment of shame.

I sit between the houses

Of history, and chance

Fate is a fickle character

And God?

As mysterious as road signs in France.

Yet life’s abundance

of motions, so many to map

so little time to play every game.

With luck curiosity won’t drive us insane.

Maybe stillness grows

With movement

Rapidity slows

In our veins

Age is a kind

Of declension

Of meaning

That keeps trading

Names.

Blood will flow less freely

As each quest is better framed

The blessed remain fresh in their candour

The more fortunate wild and untamed

Learning is not the length of live, lived,

But the art of running the distance

With the prayer of forgetting

The price of joy is pain.

Dis-Appointed

Herrick

(By Gub, summer 2004, Wales)

I do recall in better times,

Facing forwards,

Not back,

Behind…

And here and there the damp

Dewed grass

Slipped sideways beneath

Our feet..

You took a stone,

Made a wish

Tucked a dream

Inside a kiss

Time moves on,

life contracts

Bone shrinks,

Minds

Impact .…

And what goes is loves

And what stays is hate

And please

Please,

don’t forget……

To shut the gate.

Rain

(By Sil, 2nd of November, 2009)

Above the entrance it is writ

For all that ever dream to visit:

Do not come too near

My dear…

Beware

This beast is hungry and scared

And will devour lover along with love

Maddened by unbearable need and despair.

Yet you have trespassed with love

Surpassed the border-line

By which un-loved is defined.

Sweet sabotage -

A threat nevertheless.

Your relentless pursuit

Drowned sorrow in

Poetry and order

Now wriggle and heave

Under love’s coat of thorns

Sticky toffee apple dipped in bitter weed.

Mouth burning?

There’s not a drop to drink

Arrogant rainmaker

Don’t you know ?

In here it won’t rain

It mustn’t rain

It never rains!

Drop. Drip.

Bloomed

By Gub, 21st of Febr 2006

You sit

You cough

And you spit

Bile back

Into the bone

Furies cannot be exiled

By proxy

Anger is dealt with

Alone

The slip of the globe

From hand to robe

Is the world passing love

Hand to the glove

Tossed from the page

History is changed

What smelt new

Once fresh

Lies discarded

On the floor

Like a teenager’s

Dress

And the forment

The fume

The tantrum

In the empty room

Becomes

The sanitary reality

Of love’s blossom

Bloomed.

I got out of my cradle 

By Gub, 2006

I got out of my cradle

Today

And cried

I crawled

Pup-like

Across the floor

Sucking

Blindly

At the

Oak staved door

I mewed

I crowed

I bleeted

I fell…

Grace

Tumbled

Face

Falling

Into

The dark

Deep

Shaft

Of

The wishing well.

You woke

Stark

And stable

erect

And fine

You crept

Cat-like

Into the morning

Shrine

You washed

You watered

You drank deep

Drafts

Of the natural

Odour

Sheep in the grass.

What thoughts

Graze

What synapses

Rasp

In projection

Brushed

Dentures

In the bathroom

Glass.

You chew

You chomp

Through

English oats

Your porridge

Still congealed

On the back of your throat.

You clasp your time

You break through reason

Your back supine

On the city’s

Frisson

The clunk the clatter

Of the early train

You chuck

Emotion

Hunger

Sex

Aside

For

Vocational gain.

The cut

The scissor

Of the job’s

Sharp

Call

You’ve gone

You’ve left

Your breakfast

Dishes

A mess.

Mashed

By Gub, 17th of October, 2008

Locked in a sacred garden

We shed shoots of green and grey

Summer morning and autumn evening

Brick walls keep winter at bay

Yet ice is in natures passing

Chunks of debris crushed by the fall

Laughter stops, frozen by the rasping of

Anger caught in the craw

Alpha will find an ending

Trust will loose the day

Entropy unleashed from the fray

No, nothing lasts forever

The wind

Each second

Unstrung

Heart song

Heard

Forwards

In history

Sounds more

And more like

Something unsung

Uoy evol I

Means as much as words

Unsaid

Except as a brain tease

Without feeling

Or the heartbeat

Collapsed by dread

If the wall that we leant on

Were righteous

If the stones we laid down

Were true

If the start of the journey together

Were built with love that was new

Then the ghost that trespasses in the present

-The fox that steals in the night-

Wouldn’t kill our fledgling dream

Love spared the pain of

Solo flight.

Be careful what you fish for...

(By Gub, 9th of April 2008)

Strongly suggest you upgrade to a better model

A younger chap might be less inclined to wobble.

Better on ancillary features like teeth and hair,

Less inclined to despond, to look backwards, and to fear.

The joys of maturity are much over-rated

Youth’s camp is rightfully gated.

There are hormones and prospects in equal flow

No syringing of history, basking pathetic in the afterglow.

So set out your store, give pride and fresh skin its due

There’s halibut to catch, young trout, well just a few.

Tender salmon may lure you, may smack with surprise

That ruddy pink brightness, the light in their eyes.

The old carp, are bony, are sore with the years

Of biting and fighting of holding back tears.

A young fish will charm you will flit through the rocks

Jump Falls a plenty, bite off the end of fishing rods.

Whilst the ancient sole slips sadly, from seaweed to seabed,

A lifetime of solitary spawning and eyes in the back of his head.

Yes, be careful what you fish for…

Or all will come true – the sea, the ocean – the entire planet’s marine stew….

Valentine

Anti-Valentine

(16th of February)

The page never fills

In vain I swim

I’m not made for love,

Or for taking the pill.

I can’t brush my teeth

Of the venom secretion

I bath in your tears

Purifying ablution

I lost my voice

I grew many arms

Grabbed charmed possessions

Protection from harm.

All I am is the tear

Wound that never seals

I bleed and I bleed

You mop up the spills.

Pro-Valentine

(by Gub, 16th of February, Wales)

So

We bleed.

If we feed another’s need

Are we freed

Slightly?

To gaze into the night sky

And watch the comets blaze

To sign each-other's thoughts

With our names

To cross the path of guilt

With pleasure

To share the other's

Verse

Compare rhythm and fucking

We’re on together

As often as we’re off

Our love’s environmentally sound

As frequent lost as it is found

But the battle’s share of

Victories and defeats is ours and ours

Alone.

The love we live

Nothing compares

To what we too achieve

When passion competes.....

Ceramics of love

The ceramics of love

(By Gub 20th of Sept, 2009, Canada)

...through your absence,

I know your substance,

The void displaced

When you are near...

In my weakness

You are the

Expansion

Of air

That shields my heart

From flying glass

Your hands

The petals

That fold

Tight

Around the cracks 0f my

Fragile vase....

Luminous

Blue veins

Criss-cross fractured

Porcelain lines.

A vessel

Shaken

Only by your laughter

Or stirredby your tears....

Proof

(20th of Sept, 2009, London)

Flaky walls

Cracks

Crumbs
Scattered on the floor

Hungry paws

Crass

Wood-marks in red

Footprints of
Wine-glasses that carelessly bled

Greasy fingers on glass

Scratches
Scouring
Resurfaced mass

Life marks its territory

With great pizzazz

Mess delineates
Being from bust

Entropy blends our presence

Into a cocktail of
Meaning
And menace

Every touch
Another dent

Our very living

Silent assault
Against the integrity
Of matter

Around us bent

Skin

Skinless

(London, 5th of Jan, 2010)

I admire
This minuscule dragon

Fearless flight

Shielded by electric cape

All blue vibration
And crunch

Such perfect mixture of you and I

Unburdened
By promises of fulfilment

He doesn’t trace
His footsteps in the snow

Your broken wings
Sag

Cracked skin 

Scraping at doors
Knuckles ragged
Sore

But pain will subside
And blindness will clear

Life is not the layers
But the shedding

Let it snow, let it snow

Flurry mantle
Will swaddle your soul

Let it snow

Love soothes all…

Small

(By Gub, London, 5th of Jan, 2010)

Where you go

What you see

Who you are..

The detail is not

The might of destiny

The grandeur of heroic calls

But the smallness of a gentle

Purring

A dog’s yawn

At a back-scratching

A child humming

Quietly across the garden

Of falling years

Touch is the provenance

Of love

The gait of holiness

As we walk, together

Through the shifting light

Of the forest.

Finders Keepers and Sold

Finders Keepers

I am still alive

Yearning

Injection of thick honey

Trickling through my veins

If only I could 
Dip 
My heart in its amber

Sketch the contour 
Of your features

With the abandon

Of a child playing at faces

But I don’t hold the cast

Of this imprint

So every day

I trace my lines anew

Every day

Anew

Tender labour

In love

Finders keepers

Sold

(By Gub, the 2nd of December, 2009)

I sold my heart

for a pound

of honey

I saw you fold

the note

in two

creased

in half

inside your purse

Yellow

magma

flowed

over

my porridge

my toast

and my mug

tea sweet tea

in six days

the nectar

was gone

the jar empty

so

empty

The note

you stowed

husbanded

resourceful

expanded

leavened

bread

and I

now hungary

beg

to be fed

and eye your fortune.

you smile

and with hands

outstretch

pass back my

heart

from

your chest

keeper

of love's

honey

under lock

or key

I am

for you

captive

trade

yes

never

to be

free.