It Must Have Been Ritual

That’s what the future archaeologists will say about my fireplace. 

Once, fire was the centre of the house and the centre of our lives. We tamed it, trained it and built chimneys take the smoke away. We celebrated our achievements and decorated the place of the fire, or fireplace, with a mantelpiece. Now the fire has gone and the mantelpiece becomes the place of the TV, rather like Roman temples replaced Neolithic sacred places and were later replaced themselves by Christian churches. TV is the centre of the household now. Praise be to TV.

And now, after the TV has gone, there just remains a bracket bolted to the wall. It is the clue but not the reason, the tantalising glimpse into what was. The archaeologists will say it was ‘ritual’, why else would we have suspended something above our very special fireplaces?

She Would

“She would die or him, despite the fact he would arrive late at her funeral, if at all” – Nick Lovell

She would try for him, despite the fact he clearly wasn’t interested, or even very tall,

She would lie for him, despite the fact he would be the first to shout ‘Perjury!’ at her trial, if called,

She would buy for him, despite the fact he would ignore her beautifully wrapped gift of John Lewis smalls,

She would sigh for him, despite the fact he couldn’t hear her slow exhalations of air through the bathroom stall,

She would cry for him, despite the fact he would ignore her gin-soaked prone form propped against ns the kitchen wall.

 

The inspiration for this – whatever it is – came from the one line quoted at the top from Swindon based poet Nick Lovell.

Nick Lovell is a part time van driver, full time romantic, half arsed anarchist, eternal optimist and sometime poet.  He currently holds 4 poetry slam titles from Nantwich to Hereford and enjoys writing for both page and performance!

https://www.facebook.com/nickpoetry.lovell.1

 

 

Summer Dreaming

Doombar, get in the van, drive to Rock, see what’s there. The sea crashing waves over there. The field, green grass. Tent, van, boiling potatoes. Chick peas soaking, hummus for supper. Where next? Drive down the road. New site, new sounds new places, new faces. The summer invites me and together we roll by.

Restaurant

Hands like spiders he preys on his plate

Sitting in silence she waits on her fate

Forking through the pasta

Won’t make time go faster

Sometimes you’ve just got to wait

Interview With The Gloucester Poetry Society

Interview With The Gloucester Poetry Society

https://www.facebook.com/groups/110539132750931/permalink/233784997093010/

What is your name?

James Laurie aka Shadow The Poet

Can you give a unique fact about yourself?

I swam in the River Sow on Christmas Day and the Usk on New Years Day.

When did you start writing poetry?

Around 2012.

What kind of poetry do you like to write?

I just like to write about life, either in a free verse or prose style stream of consciousness type of thing. I also like to dabble in Haikus and other syllable counting styles.

What are your inspirations?

Anything at all, although looking at the stuff Ive written it majors on personal themes, divorce, death, depression that sort of thing.

Who are your favourite poets / artists?

I love music and could tell you hundreds of bands I enjoy, some of the most influential in my work include the driving rhythms of Johnny Cash and the storytelling of Martha Tilston. Closer to home I enjoy Dave Dunwell’s poems and wish I could write like him, Hannah Teasdale, Tim Vosper, Tim King, Robert Garnham and Luke Wright are definitely worth seeing if you can.

What makes you smile?

Seeing the Malverns, the Welsh Mountains, walking into the woods and jumping in rivers.

Patience

I touched on an idea there for a moment
Of possession and repossession
Of dispossession and time
I reached out into the world
To lay the claim
And smooth my way through the pain
And yet still they lie
Coiled across the path
Taking away my life
And turning it into a tale
Of two halves.
Patience, my friend
Patience.

Drip Drops Into Yoghurt Pot

Sometimes Saturdays are for doing, and somedays Saturdays are for watching and waiting, ooh, and anticipating…..

Say Goodbye To Me Gently

C                                                                G

Take me down, take me down to the water
Take me down, take me down to the edge
Take me down, take me down to the water
Lay me down, lay me down at the edge

Say goodbye, say goodbye to me gently
Say goodbye, say goodbye to me at the edge
Say goodbye, say goodbye to me at the water
Let me slip, let me slip gently out to the West

Take me up, take me up to the mountain
Say goodbye, say goodbye to me at the edge
Take me up, take me up to the mountain
Let me slip, slip gently off of the edge
Take me up, take me up there to the mountain
Lay me down, just lay me down on the ledge

Say goodbye, say goodbye to me gently
Take me down, take me down, take me down to the water’s edge
Say goodbye, say goodbye to me gently
Say goodbye as we slip down from the edge.

Take me down, take me down to the water
Take me down, take me down to the edge
Say goodbye, say goodbye to me gently
Say goodbye, say goodbye to me at the edge

 

Whole Milk Haiku

Whole Milk UHT
Ten millilitres inside
To open lift tab.

Best before see base
First May Twenty Seventeen.
Warning contains Milk

Salmon

“An old man sees better behind himself than a young man sees in front of himself.” – Czech Proverb

The salmon is destined for one purpose and one purpose only and that is to return to its birthplace and spawn a new generation. One purpose from its birth, to reproduce. And what if it fails in that purpose? Is that a life wasted? Do we go to a symphony recital to wait for and listen to the last note, or do we enjoy the whole with the ending as important as the start or the middle. Each note is its own, its own existence, its own life, its own measure of importance.

This salmon lived its life to its full extent, it spawned, it travelled the treacherous trail to the sea and lived and grew and made its return journey upstream. It negotiated the Bristol Channel and ploughed upstream into the Wye and one hundred miles of downward flow and weirs and waterfalls until one day it stopped and just died. Here on my doorstep, on my beach. Exhausted in the struggle against the relentless flow of the Wye, it just died and now it lays in the water, a shallow grave.

What is a life if it is lived unfulfilled? Who gets to judge fulfilment or unfulfilment?

How will you live this one precious life?