I would lie beneath the trees
And dream the hours away, in heat
And listen to the hum of bees
The apples tumble at my feet
Full of warmth and summer sun
Dripping juice so ripe and sweet
How smooth this nectar on the tongue!
I steep my sense in joy, replete
And feel that I am ever young
The sun will sink, the evening comes
As the hourglass, tireless, runs
But I will stay here, in the night,
To look up to the endless stars,
Rotating glimmers fill my sight
a child that wakes from a nightmare,
bewildered and shadowed by fears,
stumbles in hazy panic
to the warmth of his parents bed
and crawls to their welcoming arms
beneath the sheltering sheets
a child in the war torn city
alone, a stranger to hope,
wanders though shattered streets
his eyes wiped clear of all dreams,
his eyes empty of tears,
in a world too dreadful for weeping
his face is a silent grimace
he clutches dry earth in his fist
to feel that he still exists
in a world with no semblance of peace
in a world with no certain sanctuary
in a world consumed by evil
a child cowers down in a corner
to be laid on the plate for consumption
surrounded by knives, trapped on the tines,
of the meal being served at high tables,
the meal of heartless greed,
the meal where the heartless feed
the scales of justice are tilted
in favour of keeping us blind
our good words are strangled and taken
twisted in tortuous ways
in Orwellian double-speak
by leaders and politicians
aided by media giants
the beacon fires are forsaken
our noble desires serve their lies
this is no bed time nightmare
this is reality
there is no protective sheet
no arms wait to embrace them
no place for the victims to hide
the world is falling apart
bring me your huddled masses
will never be spoken again
that voice in the crack of the pavement
is silenced or never heard
refugees, with nowhere to shelter,
rot at the side of the road,
driven and slaughtered cattle
washed up on the incoming tides,
their quiet insistent whisper
swishes in blood and rain
all for the lack of honour
all for the lack of justice
all for the lack of love
why would you go to sea, she said,
when there’s food to be had in the shops ~
to feel the strength of the swelling waves
and to know the threat of the rocks
and to hear the souls in the unfathomed deep
where the creatures of legend drift and roll
and dream of us in their sleep
and to hear the bell of the solemn buoy
and the voice of the fog horn blow
when it sings to us through the seething mists
in the storm as it bellows and grows
and the wild whipping wind
and the timbers’ groan
and to follow the stars in the dark
and to enter the harbour’s sanctuary
and rejoice to be home at last
where we sit to mend our broken nets
while you sit in your safe place at home
because
in the days
under the sun
it’s another story
when he was dead
i expressed,
inside my head,
all the words I’d left unsaid
thinking it too late to say
the things I wasn’t sure he knew
but there’s a time
for listening too
he never wanted me to feel
a darkened thought
with troubled heart
how could he go?
how could he rest?
my pain could only make him sad
until with love and happy smiles,
instead of guilt and bitter tears,
i blessed him with sweet memories
I knew what he would say to me
I knew his words would set me free
the iron chain is heavy
a burden on my neck
it binds me to an ancient path
made of blood and bones
the bondage of the tribe
it binds me to my roots
when the storms arise
the chain of jade is mystery
cool green glades
where water drips
into a silent lake
in quiet meditation
alone
i sit
i wait
until the sparkling silver chain
leads me through the dark
it captures midnight stars
with flashing moonlit sparkles
that illuminate my heart
and lead my feet away
along the magic path
I have published a poetry book (over 200 poems) on Amazon ~
”Walking in Between” by A.Gouedard
Available internationally on Kindle
Also available in a paperback edition
You can find it on my Authors Page at
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=a+gouedard
bedtime stories are a door
between day and nightly dreams
a door held open by a voice
swinging in softly imagined breeze
that blows in from a magic land
scented sweet with jasmin and juniper,
and roses for summer warmth
they lull a child to gentle sleep
on banks of woodland flowers
and keep them safe to wander there
until the sun returns
when we are grown the stories fade
our troubles follow at night
in corridors we search for doors
shadows swallow the light
but now I will return again
to find the forgotten tales
that lead us to the faerie glades
where pleasant dreams are made
her voice
a scraping blackboard scratch
of lies
manipulating lives
twisting facts
with rhetoric
her purposes disguised
her bitter lips
drip insulting venom
her corkscrew mind
drills all opposition
medusa
politician
spinning subtle schemes
subverting all our dreams
what fools she thinks we are
My first true love was earth, dry earth and water mixed, piling dirt in mounds, trying to shape the mud. Digging, digging, digging, squatted on the earth, pouring water in to make a captured pool. I watched it soak away.
Broken finger nails
Scrabbling at resistant earth,
Burrowing with worms.
Alone I worked day after day, shaded by the Yews, until the puppy came, near as old as I, and just as keen to dig. We worked on side by side, driven by curiosity, searching for the truth or an ancient bone. The earth flew out behind us as we dug the hole.
When would water rise?
Could we find the fearsome fire?
Could we reach the source?
Stopped by tangled roots.
Water ran between my palms,
Mud sucked at my feet.
We ran off to play,
Covered head to toe in earth.
We’d dig another day.
On Cadair Idris, close by to the bottomless lake of Llyn Cau, I spent the night on a Rocking Stone, with a youthful desire in my heart, to be a Poet Bard. Legend has it that a night on Cadair’s cold flank gives the curse of madness, or the blessings of Seer or Bard. I knew the risk to my mind and the risks of the rocking stone, the balancing of the stone, a balance to be held on a dark night, high up and all alone. I sat and prayed in silence to the moon and stars above, looking up with eyes wide open, alert to the mountain, the rock and the wind that blew in that desolate spot.
The night was long. I came down with the dawn as nothing; an empty vessel waiting to be filled. No-one, nothing at all. Aware that I was very small.
Ten years later, or was it five, and does it matter how old I was, I spent the night on a rock atop a Tor, looking out across a wide open remote moor. I saw the creatures of the night as they scurried about and eyes shining and blinking in the dark. I heard the song of the wind through the rocks. Nothing more. It was enough.
The night was long. I came down feeling I belonged to something though I knew not what. I became a journey begun.
The night I spent on the cliff edge where the wind sings in the grass above granite rock, the waves beat on the rocks below and seven hours became one. Time slowed, or the stars and the moon sped by, who can tell which, the night I sat high on the cliff edge, the moon path spread across the sea, glimmering on water, reaching out to the a far horizon.
The stars, with the moon at the centre of all, moved in a slow ballet of curved motion across the sky, the constellations shone out from the web of night, a rotation eternal, a moving wheel. Beneath me the tide rolled in an out, fast. Time did not stop, it slowed or the world sped up while beauty shone out high above.
Seven hours became one.
If I can, by a shift of my mind, alter seven hours to one could I change one hour to seven and make life longer or can I pull seven hours into one? What is time but illusion? The days of a child are long, a summer an eternity. Seven hours could easily be as seven decades to a shorter lived creature than me. Does a butterfly live six score years and ten in so short a span as a day.
The earth is a rocking stone held in place by the moon while the sun brings it life. Time does not exist. Life and death is all we have and are but we are not bound in time.
We are all finely balanced on the stone. We either fall off or we balance.
This is all I have learned on the Rocking Stone. This is not the end of my journey, a journey I make alone.
The Dreaming Path 