Crawl

And tomorrow is just another day away

To loose again its meagre heat upon winter

Slithering away at the approach of dusk

Across the heavy rime of unforgiving chill

The orange spider crawls off the world

For now night and the cold holds sway

Time Bloom

We are a passage of innocence in a swift perfect chaos
Until we are torn asunder in time's irreverent perception

Looking back through the mocking occlusion of memory

All I remember is how extraordinary my awakening was

Memories of flowered sunshine under long, green days

Warm, careless fumblings and a burning to wreak change

Now innocent desire is lost in the slowing, reflective, days

But flowers remain as totems of remembrance to adventure

And if days shall darken more, they will scent the journey

For in the age of dwindling reason, hope blooms all the more 

Goodwill

To fully celebrate the Christmas fable

We light the windows, trees and gable

Pile delicious food upon a groaning table

But I cannot pretend I rightly know

Just what happened 2000 years ago

In the biblical lands without any snow

And I am now a little long in the tooth

For all the misplaced optimism of youth

So forgive me if I just pour a Vermouth

In the custom of trying to find a better way

In truth's light and our chance of sorry to say

I do understand this need for one special day

But for me in my doubt, it is never, very clear

When if we profess to hold this goodwill so dear

Why is the world still full of misery and fear

So let's absolve the past in hopes of a better time

But don't quickly forget once bells cease to chime  

For lasting peace man still has a long way to climb

So in these Christmas festivities be of such good cheer

But throughout the New Year keep this thought near

For peace to be real, we have to forgive 365 days a year

Icon

The shrouded accomplice to imagination

Comes as spectre of our ghostly collaborations

The emissary of fear reverses our intelligence

And where a life imitates its art and withers

So broaches evil night upon the counterpane

A tangible icon of cultured terror to senses

A tarantula that paws the cover relentlessly

Hairy drumming made to a slow music of night

And it repeats in dreams of shadowed dismay

Or it is the rasping creak of danger upon stairs

The slow footsteps ever upon riser and tread

That falter briefly, ere they resume more softly

And then to fade like an echo of abandonment

To ask in earnest that we tell a different story

While we may still imagine a better world

Before we wake to another bloody dawn 

Obliquity

The days are ever renewed by small degrees and we shall say they are but the seasons. Short passages of changing wonder wrought by the writ of a cosmic science. And yet, this is indeed a glorious globe, a glittering orb of enchantment laid to full recline by winters crushing touch that readies to rise from her slumber. And marvel of this obliquity of a green-blue silk wrapping a starry throat. The soft rise and fall of this graceful body with her daily imperceptible changes. And is it not a wondrous thing that sated and coldly exhausted from her resting passions the softer, longer, light of a new spring, shall come.

Here's a graphic of the solstices. I made it - so a guide only.

Journey

Though this is no new day

I am made almost complete

A dawn born without night

Splendour has forsaken me

You may turn your eyes away

Focus upon the distant vistas

Pretend you do not see me

There is no clarity upon this

No empty space to ease within

Everywhere is taken and held

Save the cold, dark places

But who would venture thus

Unless the world was within them

And they were born incomplete

And so the journey begins...

New Days

The new, unwelcome days ignite

But always where there is loss

New flowers will bloom the swifter

In blossom enough to change hearts

So remember if days sadden and fail

Buds will open to incense our sorrow

And leave trails of beauty to follow 

Glass

When iced breath of night is exhaled

Clarity is spun coldly about living things

Tis a seeing glass that wraps about growth

To set its glossy crust of harm on promise

Only to depart on the first kiss of dawn

This swift yet ruinous embrace of rime

Like lover's promises before ardour withdraws

All wilts under the early morning sun

The rigid stem is broken and droops

And only blasted leaves now remain 

What fools we were to think of more

To let patience usurp a wanton desire

That makes us cultivate too quickly

When still there is ever risk of more frost

Dream

The brief tapestry of dusk

Subsumes the last threads of cobalt

And the day closes shut again

Shadows run across desire

The orange weft comes swift

Upon a day yielding climbing skies

But where sun sails to darkness.

Just for a moment I see another place

Sitting below the rim of the world

It lies unfettered beyond reach

And nothing of this absurdity

That passes for advancement

Can touch its sweet existence

And if such illusion passes swift

As night's spider weaves dark webs

It is ever a good dream for sunset

Story

And so the story goes

But not for the want of telling

And the ice still grows

Upon the dead of night

Waiting for the sun

To break its covetous fingers

And where is the unicorn now

When our time is all but spent

When sighs break like farts

Upon the new morning airs

And if there is no more hope

There is always tea and sympathy

And it is just enough now

To guide a star fallen to earth

Back up into the heavens 

Heretics

Radical heads cleaved and conspirator hung

From out of dark, tortured confession sung

And never imagine our malice cannot return

That on high pyres, witches again may burn

After all, only eight christening gowns ago

Heretics were destroyed upon a fiery inferno

Now scarce we can believe that we did such ill

But remember in other lands, it happens still

Here they wait for the dark days to reappear

To hunt down the weak, the free and the queer

Liberty is a currency each generation must earn

Only vigilance can stop the archaic night's return 

Invisible

I need no longer hide in the world trembling

Lest I am discovered and asked to participate

Time has wrought this splendid thing upon me

I, decaying spectre of aged imperceptibility

A latent force; no longer any catalyst of chance

Walk slower now there is no fear of attention

I have time to watch rain fall in gentle elegance

For I am at last become invisible to all others

I move naked and unafraid through the world

An autumn wanderer among thickening mists

Where care and worry dissipate on resignation

I become a resting dove that shelters from cold

Stilled into such appreciative wonder and calm

Though it took a lifetime, I am in the end saved

With time enough for one last incorporeal flicker 

Well

And what is made well; endures

For we are not well provisioned

And now merry is as merry will

When our empty fields need no till

For now the winter finally holds sway

It is indoors we come to make play

Monica Waddington (1931-2016)

A shadow has fallen upon us

Naught can be made whole again

Though I am forever undone

No shadow will be upon you today

And though tis a sweet deception

All things grievous will seem repaired

And time will attest my resolve

When wood and fields yield;

Deep skies less blue than my mood

But now is not the time to feel sad

For all shall be ended well

I will wrap my goodbyes in gold

And lay red roses upon your carriage

For you have been remade

To be reunited with your love

And though this loss is bitter to me

I say goodbye knowing you are in joy

War

I think, therefore I am

But if I would use flesh to live

I become a thinking fiend

And thinking makes untruths

And I have thought up such lies 

With my dimming finite sentience 

Infinitesimal and vulnerable

Ere compassion could coalesce clarity

And we could never live long enough

Not even if we had a thousand years

To see what monsters we are become

And this is the tragedy of man

In his war against the animals 

Surely it is time to make a peace

Halloween

Hollywood enters  Halloween

Theatre meets its theurgy

And tis a horror best left unseen

For who can make such a fun

Of these frightening things

When by terror are we all undone

Yet I cannot suppose we care

If evil should indeed be seen

Already in our world it is there

So if you will enjoy the evil day

Make sure you have a mind

Your pretend dread will go away

Wither

Time now becomes witness

To a splendorous withering

The flowers are all fading

Desiccating as autumn leaves

Naught can restore their colour

For their vibrant instance is over

So let the wind blow and rage

Cast sepals and petals to earth

For what remains is ever, intact

The seeds endure and can wait

For new days that come again

And spring occasion births them

Flicker

The honey has dripped away

Bitter is this winter to come

The sharp days dull like pain

Blur around a growing dark

Beauty withdraws its grace

We are become winter bees

Inside fragile hives of dreams

With only flickering firelight

To draw memories of better days

To Rest

Rest now upon the ages

Night has come

For a child of the sun

She withdraws her light

That shone upon us all

And our days shall become darker

But in this unwelcome gloom

This unlooked for quiet

She may find sleep now

Become a ship becalmed

Slumbering through ages

On an ocean of flowers

She may take her rest

On her long missed lovers arm

And wait for sweet reunions

That one by one

Will come to her

When our winters' fall

Fury

These days come upon us wet

A feral water crashing in fury

Upon the tall, wooden cliffs

Shore and tree line lock to furious battle

As the wild seas break like awakening

Winter comes home from the west

Skyward look as leaves fall like comets

Shadowy snowflakes slide down glass

Liquid stone rupturing upon heat

New days are made to slumber in

As wasps crackle and wither in starry airs