dreams

It’s a Circus

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When Toulouse Lautrec tried to paint them he woke each morning to find his canvas was blank. Hardly surprising, given the nature of the Circus of Dreams. They are restless and always move on.

You may ask why there is a door that seems to lead nowhere.

Even the Master of Ceremonies wonders about that from time to time and the fact that he can’t discover the answer is beginning to irritate him, just a little, after 150 years.

The dancers don’t let it bother them much, though it sometimes confuses their entrances and exits to and from the stage.

But the show must go on! – or at least they all presume that it must – so they perform every night whether there is an audience or not. If the whole thing ends in chaos who cares.

They dance! And that’s what REALLY matters.

 

Circus of D2_001cropped

Telling Fairy Tales

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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

A Poets Gift (written when I was told to advertise)

/ A. Gouedard / 2 Comments

I offer air and dust
a gift not lightly given
sealed tight inside a beating heart
and gathered by my eyes
dust is dust of mother earth
the ground you stand upon
with the very air you breathe
that bears an angels wings
disguised against the sky

this gift I bring
has never cost me anything
but a wandering mind
that haunts my nightly dreams
to find sweet beauty in the dark
and plays at hide and seek
through real, unreal and in-between
to find a spark divine

the words are never mine
they’ve all been used before
that’s how a poet lives
our store is hand to mouth
like beggars on the street
whose worth comes with no price
we search to find our sight
the work is not complete

A Bards Lament

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did we survive so long in hardship
with arrow, quiver, toil and song
to reach a place, where all’s forgotten,
no honour held in memory,
of how they worked to make us strong?
I remember some of them

my family fought for generations
for a cause we know is just
we rose, we fell, we rose again
our banners both of air and dust

the tales i know will pass away
unwritten in the ancient books

were our dreams so misbegotten
that we face a future here
where nature’s treasures are befouled
and horrors rob this lovely place?

virtue’s lost and hides its face
in sorrow for a world held dear

dust is dust
air is air
dust floats on the air

Return

/ A. Gouedard / 1 Comment

tell me your dreams and tell me them true

tell me of days when you were a child

i need to better remember you

when it all comes round again in a while

 

tell me your hopes, tell me your fears

tell me the paths of your ancestral home

tell me your journey through the long years

let our lives link wher’ver we may roam

 

meet me again on the other side

reborn again, a boy and a girl

stars will cross and circles collide

when we awaken anew to this world

 

we will be young, but we can be wise

let me see love again shine in your eyes

 

 

Old House

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The trees outside stand sentinel
above the rain-shine rooves.
This house is old and stands alone
High up on a hill.
The rooms are full of photographs,
books lined upon the shelves,
twice read or waiting still,
some with shattered spines.
The carpets, worn,
by thirty years of passing feet
are faded by the sun.
Notebooks filled with dead ideas
and some of them begun.
Dark wood and walls washed white
contain this quiet place.
A painting of a tired knight
dominates the space.
Dreams are always real.

Mad Hatters Lune

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what’s the fuss about?
we’re crazy!
you want to be sane?

i’m not changing hats
or my heart
so come on Alice

let’s make a party
come and dance
while the night is here

don’t wake the sleepers
don’t trust them
they might wreck our dreams

Beyond the Mists

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When Arthur’s Golden Age had ended
and the country fell to mourn,
its true, some beauty fair had ended
like the sparkling morning dew.
The earth took on a darker hue.

But I was one who bore him safely,
far away to other shores,
where the mists hung thick and shrouded,
and all good hearts can be renewed.
We sailed close and he was lifted
in our gentle loving arms.
We sang for him to soothe his sleep.

Our sails of gold and white were lovely.
On tender winds we sailed away
to the land where all know kindness
and the fair can ne’er grow old.
We of the Fae have understanding
of the tales to still unfold.

In the fabled land of apples
Arthur sleeps the sleep of dreams.
We laid him in his Tomb to rest.
There, he awaits the day of waking,
in the land that’s ever blessed.

Whisperings

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There’s a song that wafts so gently
in music faintly heard,
a song with words so fleeting
I cannot hold them still.

Where many paths are meeting
in the tangle of the shadows,
just beyond your glance,
in the patterns of the dance,
from a farewell to a greeting
they will spin you into trance.

In a fluttering of wings, do you hear them speaking?
”No time today for sorrow, no time for needless weeping.
Mortal though you are, follow your own star”

I sense them in a twinkle,
in a gleam, a flash of star-fire
the silver light behind a cloud,
across the moonlight sweeping
in the rhythm of my breathing
and a heart that’s wildly leaping,
to the strings of their desire

”It’s a dream within a dream within a dream”
i hear them whisper
as i rest,
almost sleeping,
almost waking,
only seeming to be here.

Portrait of my Mother

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here she is, playing tennis
powerful serves slice the air
the leap across the court to save
the forceful twack of backhand grace
her skin aglow with summers sun
dancing on the well kept lawns
her dark eyes, dark hair, her pixie face
lit with pleasure in the moment,
of care or trouble, not a trace,
her family are around her, close,

the world’s too fast
now her face is lined with care
her family history written there
years have passed, flesh has failed
long lost father, mother, aunts and uncles
her lover was the last to go
they surround her now in dreams
they gather to her in the night
her only pleasure is a book
with writing big enough to read
back lit by the Kindle light