Just a thought

The traffic lights near home were not working today. It's a busy & awkward junction. People were carefully crossing, waiting, waving each other on & moving gingerly. The traffic was still moving steadily from all 4 roads, just slotting in, no aggressive pushing. The queues were less that 5 cars long in any direction.
So it made me think, "If there were a few less rules, if we were ordered about a little less in our daily lives, would we become a little more gentle with each other and help each other solve our joint problems with a little more care? Would life flow a little more slowly and a little more smoothly?"
Of course there are always selfish people, but if the rest of us are careful, does it matter? Just let them go on their selfish way. If there were any selfish people on the road today I didn't see them, and I crossed the junction twice at busy times.

Moon 1

Am I alone?

Staring down,
Seeing my every move,
Watching with a large white eye.

Seeing you,
Wherever you are,
Sleeping, dreaming, staring back?

Are you aware of it?
Does it catch your eye?
Does it haunt you and follow you?

Am I alone,
Or do you share?
Am I the only one in this gaze?

Does it touch you?
Do you feel its white scrutiny?
Does it carry you beyond reality?

Are you like me,
Defeated by the strength,
In the control of the white watcher?

Or am I alone?

Moon 2

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Set Free

Thoughts fly like the clouds
Driven by that unrelenting glare
Flying free beyond the reach of normal
Lost in the open desert of the sky
Where dreams and daily life merge in fantasy.

to Mannix Point

Now is not the time
Nor this the place for sadness,
But a stay and respite
From the torment of our routine madness.


This was in the back of a sketchbook with 2 pages of watercolour sketches.

The finished piece is framed on the wall in Mortimer's campsite. There's another one for the same place if I can find the right sketchbook!

Summer 1987

Water Thoughts 5

Lonely Beach

Left behind by tide
Overlooked by time,
Natures dustbin.
Endless sand,
Littered bits of shells and
Yellowing weed.

Broken wood from worn out ships,
Each piece telling its lonely tale,
After Autumn's final fling,
Clawed by early storms,
Home to hungry gulls
.............................................and me.

Started Jan 1984, continued Dec 1984, finished Oct 1986

Yes I would alter a few words for style, but I still like this one as it is! It brings back surfing memories!

Water Thoughts 4

Water

Washing up the pebbled beach,
Against the rocky cliff,
Through dark and hidden caves,
Each swirl in tree hung pool,
Rushing streams and rivers flow.

1986

The worst of the bunch really. Beth is correct when she says my style has changed. Then I was satisfied with pretty pictures, raw emotions just poured out and satisfying phrases; now I want meaning to accompany them. Reasons, conclusions, purpose, analysis, insight ... But I'm not going to alter them.

Water Thoughts 3

Rivers

Rushes bend and sway,
Icy fingers creep,
Valleys snowbound lie,
Entwined in winters sleep,
Ragged sheets of jagged ice,
Show rivers too caught in the vice of cold.

1986

A bit bland, but I would not alter it even now!

Water Thoughts 2

Ocean

Over rocks, weed and sand,
Crashing breakers fall
Energy spent it slides away
Again to form, again to break
Never ending, unrelenting.

1986. (Not a bit like anything I would write these days.)

Water thoughts

What do you do when you go surfing and there is no surf? Well in my case I carved bits of wood and made notes to write into poems. There are 5 from 1984 to 86. I taught children to write a variety of forms for poetry. These days I would quickly scan something someone else has written. In those days, pre National Curriculum, I shared the process of converting my notes into poems. This is why these poems ended up as acrostics and a "shape" poem. Let's start with that one.

I can't remember if the spelling mistake was accidental or included to make the shape work, or whether I wanted a bit of hiss in the crash!

Acrostics for Peace

In October 1986 there was an "event" to raise awareness of the need for both personal & world peace. I think it was called A Million Minutes for Peace. Everything I wrote about world peace seemed so inadequate that I focused on personal peace and chose to write acrostics. They took me exactly 35 minutes. Here they are, unaltered - Peaceful Moments & Peace.

Peacerful Moments

People walk quite close, but do not speak,
Each one trapped by the spell of early morning,
Awake, but
Caught in a web of thought that
Even noisy trains cannot break,
Following the daily path to work,
Underground,
Leaving me to dream my silent daydreams.

Morning, sitting underneath the trees,
On back to back seats in a haze of rain,
Motionless, silent,
Entering the world of "maybe, if, perhaps."
Nearness and sharing,
Treasured frienship
Speech unnecessary.

Peaceful came from when I was 19 and lived at Grandma's in Gant's Hill for a bit. I travelled by tube across London to Stanmore. The Moments was a very specific occasion sitting in the new abboretum at Rufford Park.
Finally Peace - written about the moments after a climb called Toreador in North Wales.

Peace

Perhaps the struggle of the climb,
Energy draining, full of danger,
Afraid of falls, of death,
Causes me to pause and refelect on
Everything I value.