love

The Map

/ A. Gouedard / Leave a comment

‘Walk like a warrior’, he said

stand straight

feel from your solar plexus’

I walked like a young one back then

now I’m old I walk with a stick.

I won’t stoop

it’s a straight stick and the track is old

In asking for help now in old age
I further your blessings.

At sixteen I chanced on the Dilly to meet a boy
scribbling poems on scraps of damp paper
sitting at Anteros’ feet,
the god of selfless love.
He showed me around
dropping seeds and feeding the pigeons.

Salutations old friend. I hope you’re still free wheeling.

I took my first steps on
the way of power with Old Master Tzu
the Tao Ching in my back pocket
through fire, earth, water and air
straight on to the western shore
‘footprints runnin’ cross the sliver sand’.

and I remember my trips and my travels
LSD is the sacred chalice

I hung out in London with Alice
and went to Paris with Jenny,
Music opens doors.
I played music in Agra
and the drums in Morocco,
flew alone to Poland,
took a train from Warsaw to Krakow,
walked the Germanic woods by the Baltic sea
and sang a love song with an Irish Chieftain

but the touch that pushed me so far on my way
was Don Genaro and Castaneda,
the quest for an ally,
the remembrance of Alice Bailey
and sitting all night in a tree

aligning my chakras, with raja yoga,
the nectar I know as I swallow
tai chi, and shiatsu, reading tarot,
the gates of transcendental astrology are fully opened to me.

stillness
silently watching the way you move
listening to your body and mine

awareness of breath
silently saying the hundredth unspeakable name
with Brahman

feng shui in my house and my garden
forever following clues left by Robin
and a reiki master bringing me healing at home

i remember it all again
things practiced and studied
dancing with Pan, playing with flowers,
the daisy chains that ran through my life
all along the ley lines

a young poet gave me a map, a puzzle
played on incredible strings
when i was only sixteen

the signposts on my path
have all pointed one way
uphill or down
they all say the same
it’s synchronicity
life is for living and loving

I am passing the map and the puzzle to you
no race
use it slowly, be wise
I will give you the key, if you ask
and I’ll do better next time.

‘goodbye is too big a word
so I’ll just say fare thee well.

A poem that’s been revised ~ again ~ Purple Grapes

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There’s a deep dark hue

to the worst of dreams.

I’ve been hanging out with the dead.

Those old ghosts are controlling my head

My heart is an open wound

Sweet grapes stuck in old glue.

Close the door.

Baby, I’m crushed, battered and blue

from banging myself on these boarded-up walls

with the juice pouring out on your floor.

DAY 24 ~ The Velvet Fist

/ A. Gouedard / Leave a comment

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 8 ~ No ghazals this season

/ A. Gouedard / 1 Comment

I don’t want to write a ghazal.

You wouldn’t either with a brain as messed up as mine.

I have forgotten how I wrote them before

And now I can’t fathom instructions.

I’ll tie Celtic knots with Italian spaghetti.

with no sign of Persian delights

or patterns of beauty and promise.

Love is all a repetition of form and illusion.

We fly or we fall as we scribble old thoughts on our walls.

Belated Day 30 ~ Where Are You Now?

/ A. Gouedard / 1 Comment

Where are you now?

~

All the things that matter to me, mattered to us,

matter so little to anyone else

if they even matter at all. It’s all so intimate. Small.

No-one but you could ever remember how we sat in that bar.

Must be fifty plus years ago now.

I can try and explain, paint a picture, tell the tale of our joy and the blight on our stars,

But why should anyone care?

~

No-one but you can know or remember that one special night

when we met in a world that was flooded with lights.

We were there. We were present. We were so very there.

No-one but you can remind me of words I have forgotten beyond all trace.

I have to scrape every shadowy cave of my brain just to recall the shape of your face.

A face I so loved. A beautiful face.

~

No-one but you could make me keep looking, hoping to see you around every corner, through a window, in a crowd, alone on a bench, out with your kids (assuming you had some), walking through galleries, buying fruit at the market. Do you still play guitar and sing in the street? Do you visit our favourite tree in the park? Have we passed each other by? Maybe you can’t even walk anymore. I don’t care as long as you’re there. Somewhere, still there.

~

I’m so frustrated looking for you.

© A.Chakir 2023

Day 27 – for my brother who died ten days old

/ A. Gouedard / 2 Comments

~

The Tree of Remembrance (for my brother who died before I was born).

~

I forgot.

The tree did not.

~

The tree grew tall above the plot

where I, alone,

ten days old,

and not yet bones

rotted with the leaf mold.

~

With each year I climbed above

through roots and buds and branches.

In leaves I wear a crown of love,

the breeze my soul entrances

~

and now I know

that all we have are chances.

© A.Chakir 2023

Day 25 ~ I won’t send you flowers

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I won’t send you flowers.

~

Love poems abound with flowers

denoting lovesick nights

bouquets of restless hours,

or scented petals of delight.

Roses, roses, roses

red, pink and white.

Don’t you have enough by now

Strewn beneath your feet?

As you walk you crush them.

~

I’m tired of your demands.

It’s not what loves about.

There are droughts and floods,

withered buds and broken bowers,

weeds running wild,

(weeds that later rot).

Why should I pick flowers

when I know you’ll watch them wilt?

~

I won’t refresh your vases.

Go and see the garden.

I grow delinquent dandelions

and neroli for neglect

(bitter orange for your lips).

© A.Chakir 2023

Day 11~ (base a poem on overheard conversation) ~ Finale.

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Finale

‘I can’t sing’ he said, quietly humming.
‘Don’t worry’ she sang.
‘Neither can I.’

They arrived at some kind of harmony as soon they tried.

They were enchanted, ensung,

enthralled to the music soaring, undone.


Lovers singing the song of each other

make patterns, staves, notes in the dark.

It can’t be wiped out once it’s written.


© A.Chakir 2023

NaPoWriMo Day 8 ~ Luke

/ A. Gouedard / 1 Comment

Luke

Life is a road with many whips, silent crossroads and knots.
I’d fly off with the birds, if my wings weren’t hidden.
I’d feel the wind on the water and see the birds songs.
I’d hear the strong blast of yellow that comes with the sun.
But none of that ever happened.
Once upon a time it seemed possible.
Everything seemed possible then,
in London with Luke I might have stayed happy
if the roads never twisted and bent

We walked through the City Squares
amid the Mimosa, Jasmine and traffic fumes.
His skin had the scent of dried cedar.
Pimlico, Stepney, Westminster and down to the docks,
we ducked and dived into museums to feel the heat
then down through Covent Garden.
Five miles a day is nothing,
when you’re looking for something to eat.

‘Buy a rose for the lady, mate!’
We had no money, no dosh, no doe.
You can pick roses for free in the parks.
Money is meaningless in paradise garden,
brimming with beauty and rain soaked grass.
The bridges criss-cross the river
following constellations,
and the stars that shine out in the dark.

He calls her ‘Angel’
But I think he is hers.
That won’t stop me predicting an end.
He holds her hand inside his coat pocket
To stop their world falling apart.
Eles não terão sorte.
They don’t stand a chance.

The trees in the park bend down
to listen to their words.
Lovers prattle and tease with affection,
whispering on the air.
It’s all scattered amongst the leaves.
Their words may still be there,
treasured in tree bark or written in fallen twigs.
Time is moving on.
O tempo é um traidor

The sparrows come home in the evening,
the pigeons are losing their feathers,
the fountains are freezing over.
A clock chimes in Whitehall.
Eros shifts on his plinth, covered in dust and decay.

© A.Chakir 2023

Day 6 ~ Poems from the French and Portuguese

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Todays prompt was to read a poem in a language you are not too familiar with (so that basically you don’t understand it) and then, just from the sound of it write a poem of your own – I did two from French and Portuguese

Alone in the Dark

I contemplate my foolishness baffled by
the contrast of smoke and pure air
the leaves rustle outside my window
a piano is playing next door

I hear a tender tune of meetings in this moment
a song of the night, the earth
the dance of eternal stars,
inexorably close to my heart

The night again! after days of comedy
with no laughter, the sadness, my sickness
can’t be cured by the beautiful flowers.

The universe responds, but I cannot subsist
the days repeat and repeat, shouting encore.
My life is only sadness as I sit here alone in the dark.

Love is urgent

The urgencies of love
made me embark
on rough seas

the urgencies of desperate love
solid, square and cruel
bring my lament to the waves,
crashing around my feet

it’s urgent, it’s all going by too fast
so many kisses I sought in the cornfields
looking for roses and rivers
and open clear days

is my heart so impure
that I can’t find the light?
This love is urgent.
I came to the estuary
and now I am lost in the sea

© A.Chakir 2023