It’s been a difficult few weeks.
Busy and not busy, beat and bored, striving and failing and striving again. Writing has taken a back seat to family and other matters, not least trying to regain some fitness. Words have eluded me; lines distant horizons that I keep cycling towards but never reach. At the moment it seems more important to watch and listen.
An eye for an eye
and a tooth for a tooth
he’s a wee bit fast
and loose with the truth
but the truth is there
and it’s plain to see
but it’s not for the likes
of you and me
Six months on, they came
never would it be the same
but still they came
greater and stronger than before.
They did not file like Owen’s cattle
but stampeded past them and their shit
a fertile ground for all of it.
Working like ants, downwards
and onward to their baptism.
A short-lived blessing in these pressing times.
And now the burning season through the heather
the weather holding but brooding and befitting.
In ones and twos and more the procession reaches out
and reaches, a turning point.
Pants and grunts and curses, smiles and laughter
some walk, some stop and some canter
but for all the banter (as is befitting)
one voice is heard, by a tearful ear,
“Alex brought me here.”
There was a time I was alive
to the sound of the ring tone,
a time to rejoice and to thrive.
But the sound of yon phone
fills my bones with dread
always after 10
always calls of the dead.
It’s late. And I’m tired
(what did I expect?)
I spent the week collecting
sick children.
Not one or two but
three additions to the infirmary.
It’s late. And I’m jaded
(what did I expect?)
I spent the evening brooding
about Suilven.
Not three or six but
nine months of injury.
he had always wanted a donkey
simply to call him Oaty
Shattered glass, smashed on ice, veiled splinters in the winter hinterland
The distant bark heralds the stark blue start, to another brittle day.
Forgotten roads, strewn with gritted teeth, limbs bowed with their burden
The candyfloss canopies are mirrored in the crisp, sugar-framed watery tomb.
Proud and unwilling, following the crowd, stagnant blades threaten the horizon.
The cold shoulder rises between two figures sat like crows, telegraph poles apart
Blinded by the waning furnace, deceived by the memory of warmth.
The premature darkness displays its faltering gems.
4 years. It wasn’t the first and wasn’t the last
still tears and the curse that cannot be passed.
New years bring fears of reprise, hope of reprieve
the grinding of gears and the struggle, to believe.
No silent night, no sugar coating, or gloating
of a picture postcard experience, transcending
the realities of making do and mending.
Never mind fairy tales of then and here and now,
never mind the absence of sand or snow, still the cow
and sheep and the wayward herd needs tending.
Let not the cold and damp dampen our hearts,
let not the early starts dim our view, or darken our parts
in this season. It is still Christmas. Peace.
The greatest thing I have ever done
was to shun
not the limelight, title or hand
given freely
but the sense of reverence expected
by the few
the expectation of deference due.
the jericho roads 