JustWriting

Today we wear our destiny
on our faces
Like wooden crates
in the dockyards - warning
'Handle with care', 'Fragile'; and
Proclaiming in bold dark letters
'This way up'.

Who is it
that cleans after me?
who,
when the storm
lifts its veil,
holds on to the
slats on fire,
pats the ambers to sleep,
caresses the locks
to a tender nuzzle,
holds,
my little finger
bent,
and points the swallow
to another song?
It is I.

The likes of us do not die. A slow rise. the right frequency of achievements, punctuated by occasional lapses. Great days. Higher achievments. And then suddenly plummeting into degeneracy and subsequent oblivion. Doubts make themselves felt. But conviction remains. One day, form the ashes, rises the phoenix. One eagerly awaits that ressurection.

Words
are no longer
plants that blossom -
they have become
dead wood of the coffin.
Light
no longer
engulfs the dark -
it only breaks
the serenity of slumber.
Hearts
no longer
beat in love -
they have long been replaced
by pacemakers that keep time.

Broken panes
on the house -
Shrivelled leather
on the home
entomb
a laughter
of the springs
in winter.

Finding your own style is not easy, but once found, it brings complete hapiness. It gives you self-confidence always.

After so many years of exploring, my art still fascinates me. I know no greater exaltation. You think there is no further, that everything is forever fixed and finished - and then, suddenly depths and vistas reveal themselves, that you thought are out of reach and that your wealth of experience now fully opens to you. So many times did I believe myself impotent, broken and desperate before the black curtain of weariness - and so many times did this cusrtain then rip itself apart to allow glimpses of limitless horizons, enabling me to feel my greatest joys, and I dare to say, moments of true pride. The great art, Prince Metternich said, is to last.

-- Yves Saint Laurent

Shaggy lights of the street
hanging off lamp posts
as if throttling themselves.

Is it surprising that
you should walk with me
on my own two feet?

We are, of course,
conquerors of the world
a confused tuft of grass.

Ferosiously negating things
meandering, apparently,
towards realising the nothing.

But you should be strong
didn't I tell you that
light is just burnt lives!

You were right when you said
that days are not bright, nights are
that your nakedness is sharper than your wits.

That a dog's bark
is sweeter than your own words
and that your senses are under seige.

I too, have been flying
without rest for seeming aeons now
to escape the net I have woven.

But more than that I want
to see the light, the northern lights
and so I fly on.

You have blinded yourself
will you be able to discern the beauty,
the bounty, by the dying light?

I think continually of those who were truly great
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history
Through corridors of life were the hours are suns,
Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition
Was that their lips, still touched with fire,
Should tell the spirit, clothed from head to foot in song.
And who hoarded from the spring branches
The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms.
What is precious, is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from the ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.
Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields,
See how the names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.
Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

-- Stephen Spender