A BATTLE RAGES

Within walls of my mind

as words bounce, flounce

and dance wildly.

To create a verse, perhaps terse

It is my choice to voice

Whether prettily nice or not

For sharp shards of thunder rain

to fall, sting nastily on hatless head

or

Soft, sweet droplets of a summer shower

to freshen and soften sun baked clay

and so soothe my tempest strewn brain.

© MRL 21/03/23

 

 A VISITOR

Came silently in the night

To slide between me and my wife

Speaking in a continuous rhythm

Like rattling leaves in a breeze

A language unknown.

Like an attractive foreign song

Will penetrate ones’ heart-brain

As sweet scents of leaves

dissipate in a summers breeze

To a mystic realm of everness !

© MRL  February 2023

  I am changing my diet.

From meat to grain

both fed by sunshine

Similar yet different

a connotation under stood.

Swift silent stiletto 

sheared a friendship.

When first line misunderstood

The portcullis is fixed down

and I am without… alas, alas.

Gone now into emptiness

words and phrases shared.

For what was their worth

those well meaning words.

Now that all is destroyed.

I am changing my diet…

Yet again !

©MRL Feb2023

THE AWAKENING

In early morn at 3 a.m. before a day is born

Clear thoughts transmit clarity - minds mystical magic

As deep understanding rides tranquil waves alive.

Pure Love exists entire empathy, compassion, selfless - ness

Dead: controlling ego, gone singular anger, anxiety, greed.

Birthed: universal love lives

Floating free are we who have lost the inhibited me.

© MRL August 2021 

In the Forest

In the forest;

squirrels scamper 

arboreal acrobats aloft,

above drifting docile deer.

A foresters’ handsaw 

recreates 

Jay birds’ call.

Homeward bound 

boots

 break bronze 

brittle 

beech leaf,

next years mulch.

© MRL

09-01-21

I stared enthralled

Recently while I was drinking coffee outside of the Russell Gallery at New Quay, Co. Clare I had a lucid experience of a strange happening on the far shore of Aughinish, between sea caves in the cliff and the ruins of a derelict farm house close to the pebbled beach.

Being so moved I decided to write a poem about my experiences.

I Stared enthralled

I stared enthralled

as miller’s grit- shards

shimmered streamed

clothed a rivers air

My mind ran free seeing

Figures of every age converse

convivially move as before.

Silent souls, opaque beings

on death’s opposite shore.

©MRL August 2020 

PURPLE

Above long purple velvet boots

Stride shapely legs determined

To walk a unique path

From shoulder swings a purple bag

Contents can be guessed or not

Somethings are better left alone.

On her head perhaps a purple hat

Her gloved hand may one day hold

A walking aid to strike railings loud

Time will tell if all this comes true

I make bold to predict

A fun future of eccentric liberty

For She who wears well Purple !

© MRL  Sept 23rd 2018

TASTY SUMMER

I grappled with dappled plum pie

consumed fruity dished depths

Slurping sweet sickly treat 

that clung to chin quickly

a greedily gobbled dessert

And now my belly hurts.

© MRL August 2018

Conformity never a fault of mine

It was all so long ago those other lives of mine

I was a son to parents that I did not understand

A pupil for teachers to lead me by the nose

To policeman who stopped to interrogate my moves

They’re now all gone, the authoritarians to their graves

While I in my preciousness am still alive, always a rebel !

Independent thought is my means to find another way

Look at old problems turn them on their head

Every scene looks better when turned up side down

Life is a spiral they say, except that I jumped its lines

My indomitable spirit threw away their rule book

For conformity has never been a fault of mine.

I am and shall remain on the outer edges of the lines

Escaping by forms that go beyond expectations

Living the life of freedom, committed to eccentricity

Challenging political nonsense, lifting lids peering

Beyond the stale and stalled to seek an alternative

Prance ostentatious ? Yes that it may be but mine!

I seek not followers, for lead I shall not

Other than to encourage you to find freedom

To think and inwardly deliberate on how to abscond

Those chains of command, rules and obdurate laws.

For I drank before my birth from a cup that screamed

Loudly of Liberty!

   © MRL 22/02/2018

COLD TURKEY

COLD TURKEY

Grey clouds flow from Northern sky

with double-edged Puritan intent

Flexing sharp scythes to sweep

southern slopes on Shannon drowned pastures

A dismal day’s dark display of religion

The twenty-fifth of the twelfth month

Gone now and far away.

As dead as slaughtered birds

beneath a butchers knife,

A cold turkey.

©MRL 2017

SAMHAIN'S BIRTH

Thrown back in time

No fault of my own.

As watery light falls

Greenly through glass

While fumes flow lazily

Up black chimney stack

Smiling smoke turf flavoured

An ambrosian dessert for all

On this ancient day

Ruled by sullen sky

 SAMHAIN has birthed

A new season

and

Winter is her name

born on

 7th November 2017

Heralded by a shaft of Light

in Tara’s Mound of the Hostages.

© MRL 7/11/17

LOVE SHAPES

As lips 

partially apart

open forms 

free fall

gentle notes

musical airs

auricular shapes

whispered whims

borne 

phrase fruited 

vale

misted

love.

©MRL JUNE 23 2017

GRENFILL TOWER

Grenfill Tower

Conservative corporate criminals 

Patently corrupt all human law

avoided fire recommendations

Cared nothing for Safety

other than a rich salary

or a knighthood, perhaps ?

It was avoidable you know 

those tides of hot dense smoke

flamed a flow of terrible anguish

ceasing as cindered corpses

or as unrecognisable dust.

All of those deaths unnecessary. 

Survivors at your feet mrs may

only wanted words of remorse

care, respect and tenderness.

Your burden. Tory truth prevented

Killed immediate contact silenced

your poisonous tongue. dead.

We know now what was hidden…

Decision to avoid action. 

Take a risk, Save a few pound.

2009 to 2017 was it worthwhile mrs may ?

Not your life gone up in smoke

and none of them your relations.

Callous Conservatives caused

Grenfill Tower deaths.

©MRL 2017

BLACK CROW

I saw a Black Crow with wings outstretched fall

from a corner of my eye.

Swoop darkly down disappear 

Gone from sight

I wonder was it really there ?

Perhaps an ill fated Welsh omen yet to arrive

my ancestors blue black

Blew this apparition across fields of time

Their conjurer Llew ap Llwyd ap Adda

who caressed Eve’s loins knew how to do

An apparition.

©MRL Feb 2017

Poetry Indeed !

I have long been tormented by poetry, 

tortured by lines calling me from their depths, 

in early hours before dawn. 

When even my house was asleep. 

To rise and sit at a wooden desk with pen in front of paper 

and write all alliteration that comes to mind.

Fec ! 

It is enough to drive drinkers mad, 

such prattle, poetry indeed.

©MRL Dec 2016

LEONARD COHEN - Forgive me ?

I stand swaying in dead air

crying a bucketful of dry tears

as deep as the Ocean

Hearing music so soft, so silent.

For a man  who reached his end.

Did his soul touch yours ?

Were you there at his concerts

or like me stone deaf busy ?

I stand in silence now

Begging forgiveness with dry tears

for staying away so long.

Hearing only Hallelujah 

recognising a single rhythm

That filled a hundred songs

Leonard Cohen 

please forgive me ?

© MRL Nov 2016

MISTRESS WIND

Mistress wind kisses

sweet deciduous trees

her lips sap savouring

sucks caresses

every leaf dry

To paint

Samhain colours

Pale yellow

Red Gold - Bronze

and lays a lovers blanket

to dissolve

Upon the ground.

© MRL Oct 2016

CLOSURE

management said The Yard is closing with effect - immediately

I saw in a dark corner a senior foreman weep

heard another knee deep amid wood shavings cry

It went against the grain this……for my father said

“Big men don’t cry”

I shouted at his grave the Sea and said

“They do, they do !”

Watching waves of tears flow once - unknown

Fears of a future wrecked, washed up - beached.

scattered stocks held craft part built

never to float or taste the salt

Idle debris of design and trade

For a century of industry has ceased.

While grown men weep.

© MRL 2016

ONE BEING

Between blue and green 

I sleep dream

glide givingly

float freely 

voluntarily

to slide silkily supple

as a breath of air

to She a gilded golden

sunset singing softly

her hymn - my twin.

We one being.

© MRL 2016

BOUNDARIES

A blossom of old faces stare silently on old walls

none drawn by a human hand just nature in relief.

Some on raw ancient weather washed stone,

others rendered on a lime sand mortar mixed.

Women wearing hats not now seen and hairstyles unique

while men bucolic bellicose frown and stare down.

Others too stay hidden unbidden creatures

seemingly fossilised in servitude to ancient gods.

They are infused amid green leaves to shrunken brown

in hedgerows around wild wooded forests lurking

Barely discernible, threatening my eyes to espy 

their existence these the old dead and yet alive!

© MRL October 2016