Day 28 ~ Festival

Music brought us all together

Sun or rain didn’t matter

We went dancing in the mud.

Student, hippy, drop-out, traveller, punk,

There was no real space between us.

Hendrix, Dylan, Floyd, The Clash, Sabbath and Santana

Floated us above the void.

Keith Richards punching rhythm bound us to the bouncing beat

and brought us prancing us to our feet

We had a vision; a world with no divisions,

Positive the world could change.

We were busy looking inward

So it’s not so strange

We didnt see ourselves surrounded

By the swiftly gathering chains.

Day 27 ~ Acolyte

He always knew I watched him.

I made no secret of it.

A child obsessed with ancient gods I chose him.

Did he choose me or I choose him?

I neither know nor care.

A bargain had been struck,

Just as his foot struck the earth

before he took to flight

and where he went, I followed

inspired by happiness or sorrow.

I don’t know why I write this now

It isn’t me who holds the pen.

Now my youth is gone

He compels me in the task

Of speaking truth to men.

Day 26 ~ No Sonnet

I know how to write a sonnet.

I’ve written many before

But I’m not going write one now.

That’s not against the law.

I’d much rather write a ballad

Or a poem that’s free of all form.

I was writing pictorial poems

Even before I was born.

I hummed before I heard words.

I needed no metre or rhyme.

I was given a gift that’s divine.

DAY 24 ~ The Velvet Fist

If music is the food of love

Turn it down, don’t sing along.

All those words of sweet romance

Lull us in a lovestruck trance.

Loves and doves and stars above

Disguise the fist in velvet glove.

The honeymoons that don’t last long

Soon grow cold, as does the song.

Day 23 ~ Lost Songs

The birds have slowly disappeared.

I never hear an owl in town and seldom see a hawk.

The blackbird and the thrush still do their best to sing the dawn

But now confused by lights from streets the birds no longer sleep.

The starlings are not heard above the London rush hour traffic.

It was a classic sound before.

The evening throng of choral song

Like the butterflies are gone.

I am glad that I recall the fields of sixty years ago

Before we lost the riches of the earth we knew before.

When we ceased to see the stars,

Obliterated by the lights of towns,

We ceased to see ourselves.

Day 22 ~ Murmerations of Birds

I’m grateful for all the small glances

and glimpses of futures to come,

Portents and patterns I see in the sky,

The formations of birds I see as they fly

Foretelling fortunes, they never deceive.

Rely on the written word of the birds.

They never lie.

They tell every morning their message of truth

By the colour of eggs, the shapes of their legs

And direction of flight.

My grandmother gave me the gift of these things.

I understand all that the dawn chorus brings.

Day 21 ~ In Padstow on May Day

The persistent pounding of the drum

Repeats and repeats it’s pattern on

The sound draws closer from the distance.

The drum beats on in my head.

Half in hope, half in dread

I await the dancing throng to come

And the man in old disguise

Wears the ancient painted mask.

He grabs me, spins me

Underneath his black hooped skirts.

In the dark he whirls me around

Through the streets of the town

To the beat of the drum, drum, drum.

He spins me round and round around,

Hurling me finally outward,

Out and out through the crowd.

Now I’m standing here alone, far outside

The drum beats, on and on

Until it’s faded, far, and gone.