From dawn to dusk,
the pewter silver-grey
of clouds that haven’t
aspired to the sky.
We walk inside them,
drawing onto our faces
the unrained drops.
We’re comfortably dislocated
from horizons; paths ahead
are vanishing points lost
in feathers; red kites
whistle the fields’ edges.
I walk, you run the curvature
of this known, unknown world.’
more like treading water here in the slack pool of night or a long walk to nowhere movement happening but no behind or before like didi and gogo my trudge is all on the one black spot there's a sadness humming in the skylight corners a wind song looking for a tune it's all melisma my blues for busted sleep and burgled dreams
Dog Latitudes §22
Some see God
in the suddenness
of the sun
out of a cloud.
Surprised by
an event so much
bigger than
the monotony of
thought (the telling
of the same
old story of
doubt and fear),
they glory in
this brief gift
of external light.
For me
when caught
unawares
I understand
in the moment
that the light
that matters
is always
bright within
and the shadows
are of your choosing.
Our band MoorbyJones just laid down the basic tracks for a song called Light is a Story. It’s to be the next single so a good deal of construction needs to be done over the next few weeks before a fully embellished and mixed version is ready. The lyric is mine, written in free verse format, and the tune (to be added when the full version is mixed) is by my songwriting partner Steve Moorby.
LIGHT IS A STORY
I dreamed I was a bird
amongst a multitude of birds
and like bread rising
the sun rose over the fields
I dreamed I was a fish
amongst a tenement of reeds.
Green was my truth
and I glided past the fisherman’s fly.
I dreamed I was a tree at night
under a sickle moon,
drawing down the silver
into my place of deep gold.
CHORUS
Light is a story
taken from the fire.
Remember if you can
the chapter of the single flame.
MY DANCE PARTNER
My shadow could be any age,
sharpened to a T by
a stare-me-down sun.
My sideways self gliding
across the straw and chaff
tells me as we walk of
how things were, or how
things might have been.
Like skidding down a slope
on scree, laughing, breathless,
like a fool, or floating,
masked face down, watching
tiny silver fish amongst
the casual treasures of Salamis.
Or watching your back
from a high window,
your right hand lifting
a lock of hair as you climb
into the cab, the last cab.
Shadow blessing, shadow curse,
shadow, my dance partner
until the sun’s at rest
and they turn out the light.
When I climb the slope
of Bottom Field, I run
my open palm through
the stalks of barley.
The little cobs are green
and the stems are
a ghostly blue and
those grouped antennae
are just junior whiskers.
This multitude, though young,
has buried the hill
and is its own horizon.
I shall come down the slope
of Bottom Field some day
in the coming months,
heading for home. And
I shall run my brown hand
through the barley stalks,
now a dusty gold, each
ear a dream of bread, each
stalk a dream of chaff and
we shall know each other.
What’s the risk
we take, we
the music makers,
compared to
the dancer’s shifting,
slipping grip;
the penalty taker’s
injudicious shot that
hits the bar;
the climber and
her crew lost
on the implacable
rock for a
final hand hold?
For us maybe
a clinker dropped
across a piece of
pristine harmony
before a crowd
we’re trying
to impress. And
even then
at half time
it’s a shrug
and, “I didn’t
even notice, mate,
and I don’t reckon
they did either”.
Or maybe it’s
stomach cramping
laughter, the three
of us hunched over,
all in tears at
the absurdity:
the sacred
made profane.
Death or glory
under the lights,
the sun, the stars,
we the mutualists,
the diggers and
the levellers
are bound in
a cargo net
of love that fills
the heart and stops
the breath. There’s
a joy you simply
cannot buy
in the moment
pledged towards
the shared self.
Clinker = bum note.
Dog Latitudes §16
as if the houses
were to be drawn across
the loose earth on which
they stand and go down
as if the trees that shield us
were to shake once
and follow the houses
roots up and branches down
each the mirror of the other
as if the sky already broken open
were to fold and fold
and swallow itself like water does
as if we were to stand on nothing
watching the symphony up
to its last echoes and wonder
what now
what to do
whether to step back
or step forward
or like the houses trees
and sky itself just fold
and fold and swallow ourself
like water does
trespass
two paces off
the path and
inside the cloistered
trees /
the brindled hare
steps his paddles
from the free
earth’s edge and
into the governed
bracken /
you belong to
my two barrels
says the keeper
their two round
eyes will watch
you through nettles
and brakes and
bushy hollows right
up to my
privileged moment and
your reckoning /
and here we are
we two
you crazy free
me creeping across
the fallen leaves
a poacher sans
traps lifting only
the mushrooms picking
only the berries
breathing just the
loaded air and
its traffic of
loam and pine
pitch and the
musk of deer /
for my time
along the aisles
and trancepts of
these oaks and
beeches i shall
pay nothing owe
nothing care nothing
for your deeds
and contracts because
just as i
own my bones
my salts my
neural tracks so
these trees and
their partner shrubs
and brambles and
the passengers who
tread and slip
and scramble own
themselves as is
told in the
encyclopaedia of all
time from alpha
to this green
glyph right here
and now /
and i am
happiest right here
and now and
I will prevail
amongst the trees
in my time
how you are
lonely in a crowd
like the moth
inside the cage
of hands
and each wingbeat
sheds more
of your powder
and you can hear
the calm voices
and the shared
laughter and
they think that
you’re with them
out in the light
but where you are
is entirely dark
sisyphus 