Some of me poems

Journey Poems

Ocean's eleven -or Rhyme of the ancient mariner Revisited

I set off for eleven oceans

After I'd sailed seven seas

Four more I could not fail

I thought it would be a breeze

I was a lonesome vagabond

in search of riches, tourism and drink

But on that eleventh ocean

was where my ship did sink

A-drowning I was ship-wrecked

my raft it was marooned

upon the shore of a far off Isle

by a whale I had Harpooned

For where is this poor countree

that ye have towed me to?

He said well lonesome vagabond

I've towed ye to Peru

Peru I said and startled up

Where canst a man walk home?

Neigh dear lonesome Mariner

For too far have ye now roamed

But Lo what Majestic sky turned out

When I did turn me Head

For Heaven displayed a plethora of stars

One if followed must home me led

To orient I fixed the whale

Again out on the ocean

And told him hence to beat his tail

And thus from this dark Isle we shall give motion

And so on the crew of one did wend

It's starlit toiling passion

For the sea was as green as a wild monster

Calling my heart's courage to ration

Never a boat had thus put sail

Upon these treacherous seas

Nor chart or map to orient

Our pathless way to ease

We journeyed on without rainfall,

Our mouths were parched as sands

And the rats which fled from my raft

The searing heat they could not stand

Then to me appeared a visage of a friend

One I had known but now long lost

A man I had betrayed in love

And now before me visited his ghost

Accusing eyes they pierced me

And cut me to the quick

That I should live, while he had died

No candle burns a faster wick

Then flames in cohorts filled the scene

And seemed to set a light the timber

And in each flame a visage appeared

Of a man who was my crew member

They called to me and cried still worse

Why have you forsaken your brothers?

Because your life and his were tied together

Now his death will be your curse

So, on I fled, crying “take me away from this guilt”

And soon from the air came a wandering dove

The evil which gave voice to these spirits

Had been dissolved by a face of love

The mermaid (dove?) joined my vessel and led the

Whale towards dark cliffs,

“It is land “I cried

And so grateful was I

That no line written could tell of my bliss

Thank you said I, but then down had he died

Exhausted upon the deck

My future still lay in the balance, so for luck

I wore the bird around my neck

The Island was old and grey from a distance

But with speed became more familiar

It was the very spot I had sailed from

In June fifteen long years past clear

The wedding guests had arrived and there

I went with upmost haste

Now to you I regale my tale

Of eleven ocean's to which I lay waste

The Brown Water Brook – Of a December train journey from Bristol to Aberystwyth

Brown water in the brown brook

Flowing fast like a runaway crook

Swallowing hollows

Peaking on the tree lines

Of Alder, Ash and Willows

Grasses systemic in fields

Like primitive rice

Turning to boggy marsh land

And edges of birch bark

Damp and dark

With wet cloud covering everything

Up to the hill tops

Hedges black and dark,

Boarder fields there,

Crows in a pair

Tip toe and muzzle the earth with their beaks

Nowhere near the brown brook with the white crest peaks

Then the brook washes down again

And is seen from the train

Like a mane

Of a wild horse

Flowing down the mountain

Where Christmas tree shaped skeletons of birch fill a valley

Like forgotten Christmases past and lost to memory

Only sighted from a journey, East to West

To the Saturday noon, the moon past it’s best

And Ivied trees slender,

Others covered in moss

The dead brown of leaves

Lends a feeling strong with loss

And shadow to a crumpled land

By the wind and weather

Yet I am a changed man

Like the wind carrying a feather

It is a hope for the land

As back to view comes the brook singing

As it tributaries a larger river

As I see sheep on the hill side running

Scared from the train

The brown river running fast

With the falling rains

It is yellowy cream of churned butter,

The surface scum

That tumbles and turns

In troughs and gushes then

Like spreading fingers departs

And then it leaves the train’s route in yarn spools

To only standing water in pools

And Black slate walls

Damp

Then reeds and long grasses,

In the marshes by Macunthlyth

And Dovey Junction, fen land high

Firs in mist and fog and the sense of height

Mountain tops beyond sight

Hidden behind a curtain, a veil of white cloud

Then flat ground, flat as a fen

As the lay of an ocean bed

The wide flat river passes

Like a Mississippi over the plain

A solitary chapel on a promontory

Of a little headland into the flood bed

That is green with grass but not lush

Brown as well

And sculpted up into gentler hills

The brows of tarmac roads

And grey/white stone built houses

Start to populate and change the landscape

Into modern houses

Community greens and football grounds

Then the brown babbling brook appears again

And look as it follows the train

Down to the sea

Criss-crossing under bridges from

The crow’s path

Turning the Ystwyth

Into Aberystwyth

Why is your country so Isolated

As a Pariah State

Come bathe in waters of Forgiveness

My lady of the lake

The salt heads are melting

In the towns strong heat

I come back to you

With my heart on fire

From the Raging in the street

The hills are so old

Their eyes are so weary

From the Loves gone cold

Spear heads and Strong guards

hold talismen for mistakes

Come defend your island of the past

Let the tallow candles flake

You are so North sea trawler

With your ice diamond slippers

And your sequin shawl on your shoulders

You like to race your fish of diffidence

in an ocean school

Well you treated them so bad

The best they ever had

You know you were a fool

There are no more tears

to drop or fall

The skies are dried up squalls

As are the mouths of the sea gulls

when they sit upon your harbour walls

The hour Your Hands in Mine

Ten o'clock forget me nots

Draw shadows on the wall

Well I'm a wall flower

To the hour

That your hands in mine

The birds that twirl

Inside the clock

Do sing cuckoo to the chime

Well I'm that song bird on the hour

That your hands in mine

The sun that climbs

upon the dial

Can cast a shadow of time

well I'll be fine on the line

The hour yours hands in mine

Why should you be so atlantic?

When the cold pacific is past

The sea is a whale of a joke

a pale past of some

cigarette smoke

Well when will you

try to be my pacific ghost?

The turbines turn on heavens shore

Rivers of mercury

flood in last

Diablo riches, oceans witches

Joker kitches down rollo's coast

Freeze as the arctic

Why must you be so atlantic

And believe my Frantic Host

Oh Blue caesar

Come down off your throne

You've been to honolooloo

And it hit you like a stone

Sent ripples of your innocense

through the ocean alone

Yet you are so atlantic

But Pacific future unknown

The doors are empty,

Now so is the throne

You're like a sea that flows so frantic

And the ship in the glass

Thats a captive romantic

Well don't it sting

When the sands run fast

I have you here

In my inner ear

You nautiless shell

in the cross winds cast

You fear to tell

What the background static

Will sound to one

who hears you last

Those nubs of pens

that do prick the surface

then spoil the ink

with oil slick

the rub fire mountain

yields its magic

from the point of moses staff

Yet why must you be so atlantic

And draw the oceans apart

And here am I so salty wounded

Mindful of the hateful starts

Lets bring it again

to the nailed Judas

Who first kissed your

sea-scaped mouth

Slowly standing in shadows

singing sullenly to you

Where rushes hush

the harps and harmonies

and wood wind reeds

hum the tune to the tumbling dark

As day brings its mantel down

And the ground swallows the light

I cannot hold its brightness

And must give out to night

As in the blowing wind

The dog loses its bark

And the colours of the clown

have turned from blue to white.

I heard you cry

In the court of clowns

Why were you in contempt

You know well it is a crime

To let me down

When I stand in the dock

While you slept through the hours of the clock

But believe not my lips

For as the past they may lie

My heart is sunk upon

Your bleeding ocean

Our future the judge's sentence remain

And I carry the ball and chain

Like a convict to your love

My heart gives motion

In that freedom's cry

The road map stole

the way to her lips

Her breasts the mountain pass

Her throat the land ladies tenement

I have no rent to pay the toll fast

There were no potholes

That left black mouths

Her skin was my motor oil

As I drove on through her laugh

I lost my map at her heart

But could not turn back there

So I kept on going to the velvet underground

and her beautiful

mole black hair

There may be no heaven

and may be no hell

But baby when I'm near you

Then why can't you tell

I'm in love

I am in love with you

The stars in a sunder

Go wheeling under

That bright blessed moon

Now I've never seen a were wolf

but I believe I'm not all man myself

because under your spell I swoon

Oh baby I'm in love

I am in love with you

The lecturers in Parliament

do pass laws that govern us

Dictate our lives and our moves

Well I'm no chess player

but I've seen Kasparov

and with your stealth

You could show him a thing or two

Because like him I see in black and white

There is only wrong and right

And thats why I'm checkmate of

The love you give to me

The sun shines out strongly

With the Pitch fork Bishop Berkely

tells us we all belong in existence bubbles

But round a cauldron witches talk

of loves labours and loves troubles

And no man is an island

is uttered more than twice

Yet William Blake was not among the coven,

though the cockrel crew thrice

As Judas betrayed his brother in the garden

And quite a mock went all of Eden

Decorum out the window

Love was not troubled to be made

Love was the great parade

and then was left in shadow

The men who with their sharp words crossed

The stolen covenant of rich night

To the stair case of moses

in a mountain high

Did force retribution from

a punishing God

The torment who long ago

held Aphrodite as cousin to Zeus' Rainbow

And laid down alms in the hands

of the poor

Before killing their own mothers

And marrying their fathers whore

To beg at beliefs southern face

While others ascend her summit

Is to believe that she has a limit

While others have no wish to scale it

And yet with all your wisdom

Your faith cannot move it

For only love is out there

waiting in the dark

Love is wanting you to prove it

And silence is jeopardy

As beauty is a knife edge

Both cut your talk eventually

If the line you sleep walk inside your dream

is not true to Loves country

She will set you on an island

And leave you there drowning

In the stream