End of year round up - a seasonal post.

It's that time again, soon this year will turn into something new and uncharted - 2014. Is it just me or did 2013 seem to pass quicker than any before it? I think personally it's because I've been too darn busy - hence the over long gap before returning to the world of blog. I'll make a commitment here and now to take more time out for personal writing projects in the new year. We all have to create a space, somehow, amid all of our busyness, and writing is my very necessary escape. All summer long I've been jotting down ideas, a line here, a thought there and now it's time to unravel them - to pick up the thread again that leads me back here, to myself.....

It Matters

It matters to me

This isn't wrong

It’s not a crime

The stunted bough

The twisted rhyme

Celestial Fall

I did wish upon a shooting star

In its celestial fall

Hoped my love would unlock you

My prayers provide the key

My heart did burn in solitude

As it arced across your sky

Although worn upon these sleeves of mine

You never batted eye

Lost moments sincerely spent

Now darkness has returned

Mute silence blankets everything

All trace of where we burned

It's been a good, if steady year on the performing front and I've enjoyed the opportunities that have come my way, courtesy in particular of Colchester Poetry.  I was fortunate enough to do three months worth of sequential performances at Open Mike nights for September, October and November, plus a couple of performances earlier in the year and an appearance at the Sunday Matinee in January. There was also the Festival at the Hythe, Colchester, in the summer, so not too bad I think. My sincere thanks to all concerned in organising these events and giving chances to folk to have their moment.

All the Things

All those words I’d written for you

One final touch, a misplaced stroke

And everything is lost

A page full of empty space remains

Lilly white, like a coward’s heart

Elusive tender moments

Brimming with all the things

I never said

So has the desire, the passion for writing diminished in these fallow months? Not at all! How can it when it is something I love doing and so value sharing? These pieces posted tonight are all new, the first harvest of summers thoughts. I hope you are enjoying them.

Galatea

I carry a personal Galatea

In my mind

Pure psychology

She oozes like beeswax

Love and erotica

Melting in my undecided flame

Raven and Dove

Spread eagled on a moment

The emboldened tongue

Exposes hidden form

Love uncoils

In strange new ways

Gifting pleasure storm

Fire meets ice

A heartbeat - missed

The raven and the dove

Falling helpless

In surrender

On the outer lips of love

Erased

Hollow heart, running loose

I’m just like a frightened deer

But if I were a preacher man

Bold - I’d entreaty God for you!

With a useless broken antler

Snapped at rutting time

On a hill, I’m straining upwards

Towards Artermis’ shrine

I never meant to hurt you

Though my aim was straight and true

The gods have made my choices

They dictate from depth of void

Colour turns to black and white

And I struggle to recall

Why on earth I wait here

Set for a bruising fall

I hope that you are happy

Beyond the touch of man

I’ll erase my thoughts, forget you

In every way I can

The Holy Grail

Of love and stone I speak

One dances like a moth drawn to a flame

The other broods, unyielding, brute

One is passionate, fleeting, delicate

Until the holy-grail is reached

And it fails, beating frail wings

The other enduring, faceless, mute

Removed from the fire dull and cooled

Merely exists in splendid isolation

One burns with all urgency

The other drains and chills

Which I ask myself were you?

As I roam desolation's hills

Kernel

Fluttering against the glass

Still he beats his wings

After long and fallow years

On the outside looking in

A lonely, frightened mocking bird

With gold dust on his tongue

Carrying the burden of

An imagined Midas touch

So much to say, so little time

He would sing for you

Bring precious stones, a holly wreath

Things borrowed, old and blue

It’s cold out on the margin

The farthest edge of time

In deepest dark the brightest stars

Gleam in solitude divine

Within this darkest hour

A kernel only night can bring

He awaits the cusp of sunrise

When he’ll catch your eye and sing

I'd like to thank everyone whom I have shared the writing journey with so far, everyone who has taken time out to read Ariadne's Thread. I wish you all a very happy and prosperous 2014!

Proximity

Sleep walking the halls of sadness

I wrote this for a heart like mine

Though none abounds

And time abhors my ethereal ways….

To what shall I compare her?

All my words are but the guttural

Aping the divine

My striving the profane to the profound

And to know her, how?

To roll back time and take her hand

In mine, would be a splendid thing

And together walk a path so intimate

Surely, to miss its proximity, a crime?

To experience every leaf and flower

Watch each heavy pollen laden bee

Upon a bloom’s explosion feed

All confirms creation's glory

I but mere and flawed can scarce conceive….

To know her, how?

Except through the Ariadne’s thread

Of words she's left behind

Leading me by the heart

Toward her light sublime

Mark Harris has asserted his right under

Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
To be identified as the author of this work.