poetry of the soul
It’s hard
In all truth
To meditate
on the breath
As it reminds me
Of how you had no breath
Towards the end of life
How focusing on the breath then
Can bring me enlightenment
When it brings me pain
I do not know.
I will try again.
All emotions that lead to you
All deep thought
Returns my thoughts to you
My guilt
Is in my breath
My sadness,
my tears
All this,
stems from my breathing
Grows,
into life
after death
after life.
Breaking,
breaking,
breaking my heart.
Cicada song under a harvest moon
sing
You are leaving soon.
Just as you fell four square into my heart
they tear us apart.
Too late,
too late,
too late to change
Too late,
too late,
to rearrange
My sweet sacrifice
my darling sweet amigo
It seems it is your destiny
You must go.
Sweeping the dust from under the eaves
the 4am Autumn cold bequeaths the old,
to the outside wind that passes,
not without mirth does it move the uncomfortable leaves.
The comfort of dogs we have,
their life, alive to the wagging air.
How unlike one another we are.
Falling sometimes, like water, in different colours,
holy autumnal shower across a shared palette of splashing and spitting,
or an avalanche of stones;
driving us home to where we live now,
among the brushes and the paint and the paper of dust on our feet.
Our tread
the infinite patience of years,
chiaroscuro,
air of our future.
You will assemble and reassemble never tiring of a new idea,
always looking for ways,
through the mystic maze,
dog days.
Long ago,
a committal
our selves
one to the other;
One inside eachother.
Onside.
Inside.
Outside.
All sides we were.
Confronted and confounded,
always by love did we love;
spurred by age or timelove.
Love
that seemed to make it right
we thought might put on its eyes
learn to despise
as all lovers are apt to do
The intensity of you
brings even the best to its knees.
Since we grew up,
we learned to skirt the differences,
to wonder
when moon eclipses light
what light in the night it is
that early leaves the sky so soon.
Gives way,
to fight or flight.
As much as the years undo they are undone.
Gaze, with tender yearning,
towards the light of the sun.
Where,
across the shadows of one another’s eyes
the moon glitters and gazes back
lifts her skirt to the sun as we cross the darkening skies.
I broke your heart and then you left.
And so you broke my heart too.
We are evens yes?
Evensong
at the altar of green.
Breeze plucked air
of sympathy.
Light, she is kind.
She is a good teacher.
I am a good learner for her.
To otherwise die in ignorance of what the pain was for.
Oh my dear beloved man.
What a vision you gave me, what a dream.
Singular.
Habituated toward empathy and bestowed
with Grace bestowing.
It was thee who set me free.
This separation is how we are and how we always will be.
I sing songs for you.
And drifting along the air you come,
an hour before the sun sets as we meet on this, our day.
For these notes of mercy I am grateful.
And for hope.
Let us not forget hope.
For always,
there is always hope.
Inside my beautiful cage
With you.
The coloured bars criss cross the view
to the beautiful sun where love is found
and energy to move
Drawing us together always.
We are one inside the beautiful sun
there are light sheens of hunger
firing from my one finger
tapping,
a memory,
of me.
I used to use them all
swift across the keys
Words turned to phrases
A chorus of what I truly feel
Without even utterance we can be together.
Any distance soul dance
And soul does dance in any cage we choose.
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
– William Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
I began to see the shape of things.
When I stopped being angry.
Fell from my hands, happenings
and deep remembering.
I am aware.
The kingfisher and his boy.
I touch the blue pulse of his oh so solid wings.
They hover, lonely, until you come back.
I followed you there,
There, where he is coursing down
smooth as an arc of shimmering light
Cobalt blue then green then dark.
Dark as an olive
Into infinite shades of river blue.
into the mirror dew of you
Feathers dusting his thin skin
where someone sprayed bright colour into him.
A glimmer of his small black eye
catchesthe rich fabric of his bright summer sky
a movement
or was it a reflection of the sea.
Because it is here
From the shiny yellow surface of shallow self-esteem
That I run,
Relentless,
into your glass streaming of your su
your energy reaming like fish
and you dish me up like lust
A piece of latent stardust.
When the gold rush is over.
We need to recover.
Me from the feeble actions of silver twist,
And you from the dark fold of your gently clenching fist.
This
Held against the gaping light of sun
where we die
and birds cease to fly.
open air bears,
for cages must
relinquish their dust.
Freedom spike the air.
You are my nemesis and I am your death.
The tiny bird is swallowed.
It’s small black eye,
its dart and fly,
its secret strength
melting into dark night.
So presumptious we are against starlight.
Artonnic was formed to undertake three hospitals in Cornwall. The relationship with the health trusts broke down after an initial sucess with Bodmin Hospital. Artonic as an organisation no longer exists although powerful lessons should be learnt here.
The ability to deliver art within this environment was dependent upon keeping the arts projects outside the linear hierarchy of trust management. In the beginning this was so, the chief executive who originated the project left as did the arts consultant. The new chief executive although a remarkable man had more important issues to resolve, the trusts were deep in debt, The projects then floundeed within the ill-informed, at least in the matters of art, and often squabbling line managers, modern matrons, Friend’s groups etc. It became clear that arts projects if they are to be honest to themselves should be responsible to the ideals they observe and not the hierarchy of the institution. It is advisable to keep the debate to these ideals and not continue until a consensus is signed up to. The often very bad quality of these projects is evidence of this with an increasing dependence on the personal qualities of the arts consultants, for example Leslie Green shines out whilst Willis Newson are simply bad.
The result is art chosen within the personal quirks of individuals who think they are shopping and so ignore a couple of thousand years of critical theory with the sweeping and false ‘All art is subjective’ concept or worse a form of propaganda to cover deficiencies or promote the self advertised virtues of a political attidude.
I come from a time when politics and art were a much discussed issue the dangers to both artists and societies of the artists being in the pockets of the politicians were apparent from the turmoils of war.
It was shockng for me to realize how much these warnings were ignored in the context of State sponsorship of art.
Ed’s visit to Exeter was inspirational. A good man with honest answers and no flack, let us hope that the British public can get past the bad press and media-related image concerns (certainly not all bad though and some glowing reports from The Guardian) and get Britain ‘back on track’ through the local elections this May.
JuliaMichell