Unturned
Kieran Borsden
Sonnets, Quatorzains and Madrigals for what never was but has been still…
The right to be identified as the author/creator of this work has been asserted in its entirety to Kieran Borsden. The contents in this publication are not to be used or reproduced, either in part or in full, without the author’s/creator’s consent.
©2013 Kieran Borsden ISBN: 978-1-291-58467-7
Publishing History/Acknowledged Credits -Once Upon a Glow: Frost Scribe (March 2011) -Splintered Clouds: the Sonnet Scroll (Spring 2012) -Accustomed: Every Day Poets (March 25, 2012) -More than Strangers: The Sonneteer (February 2012) -Looks Like Rain Again: The Cynic (July 2010) -Sunset: Whitehouse Literary (summer 2011) -Creeping Daylight: Every Day Poets (July 30, 2011) -Juniper Berries and Snow Flakes in the Sun: DH Pocket Poets (April 2011) -Ciphers and Calendar Marks:
Traveller’s Reads (August 27, 2012) -Today, I heard your name: You Tube, AW Spoken word competition (Summer 2012) -Phantasmagoria: Dark Poetry (2012, Autumn - Winter) -Jonathan's Tree: The Lonely Send Off (in use, royalty free) -Sorrow’s End: Cenotaph (LSO, 2011)
50% of the proceeds from this book have been donated to Gofal Gofal are a leading Welsh mental health and wellbeing charity who provide a wide range of services to people with mental health problems, supporting their independence, recovery, health and personal fulfillment. They also lobby to improve mental health policy, practice and legislation, as well as campaigning to increase public awareness and understanding.
http://www.gofal.org.uk/about-us/
Gofal is a registered charity. Registered Charity No: 1000889. Limited by Guarantee: 2546880
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Accustomed I have grown accustomed to broken dawn— long, lit pathways twisted between droplets that ink the cerebral city withdrawn behind the night—and kissed the violet curtain, thrust up in ephemeral form. I feel no pull beyond—to cross the veil of urban heights, but long instead to pass forgotten day-light shadows cast astray by neon-splashed concrete trapped within glass memories of a dusk that must persist; distant melodic feet in tune with mine and urban heights that no longer insist the moon is perched on the shoulders of time. I have grown to cherish the disturbed call from streets further pressed than paved reverie and the lies that keep the enslaved hour small; this stroll is dearest amid such heresy— I have grown accustomed to broken dawn.
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Pages to turn Little songs in eight & six, a preface...................................... 11 Once Upon a Glow ................................................................ 17 Angel in the Cornfield............................................................ 18 something to November ....................................................... 19 When evening has settled ..................................................... 20 A Dream of Mumbles ............................................................ 21 Sunset .................................................................................. 22 Splintered Clouds .................................................................. 23 Paper Swans ......................................................................... 24 all right ................................................................................. 25 Midnight Wings .................................................................... 26 When she dances .................................................................. 27 Nocturnal Meanderings......................................................... 28 Stolen Sky (Chaucerian Madrigal) .......................................... 29 Reason Enough ..................................................................... 30 Juniper Berries and Snow Flakes in the Sun............................ 31 Cymru................................................................................... 32 Time Until Now ..................................................................... 33 Q. ......................................................................................... 34 To E. (statim) ........................................................................ 35
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A Song For Baglan Moors ...................................................... 36 I’ll Bring You Flowers In the morning ..................................... 37 Rainfall ................................................................................. 38 Creeping Daylight.................................................................. 39 I will not sing......................................................................... 40 Names and Faces .................................................................. 41 Ciphers and Calendar Marks .................................................. 42 Madrigal 12 .......................................................................... 43 Today, I heard your name...................................................... 44 She Is… ................................................................................. 45 Season's Dream .................................................................... 46 Faded Tune ........................................................................... 47 For the love of words (and what they do) .............................. 48 Sorrow's End......................................................................... 49 Breaking the Edge of Dawn ................................................... 50 Against the Wind .................................................................. 51 Guidance .............................................................................. 52 Contemplation ...................................................................... 53 (you are) My Cliché ............................................................... 54 Schizo-affective Re-order ...................................................... 55 Industrial Bloom ................................................................... 56 Unworthy of an Epitaph ........................................................ 57
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Brighter in darkness .............................................................. 58 The Curse and Bliss of Ignorance ........................................... 59 The Short Death .................................................................... 60 January's Web....................................................................... 61 Port Talbot Parkway Obituary................................................ 62 Jonathan's Tree..................................................................... 63 Suo Gan ................................................................................ 64 Phantasmagoria .................................................................... 65 Collier Angels (of Ystradgynlais) ............................................. 66 This is NOT a Sonnet ............................................................. 67 More than Strangers ............................................................. 68 Looks Like Rain Again ............................................................ 69 Re-Sewn ............................................................................... 70 Machlud Haul (aka Ogmore Sunset)....................................... 71 Closing Time ......................................................................... 72 Barbecues and Coffee Spoons ............................................... 73 Sandwiches with Becki .......................................................... 74 My Beach.............................................................................. 75 Memory’s Distant Lilt ............................................................ 76 On The Porch ........................................................................ 77
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Little songs in eight & six, a preface The sonnet is one of the oldest and most immediately recognisable verse forms still flourishing in the modern world. Born out of song and expressing a variety of themes and narratives, it has evolved into one of the most flexible and thematically approachable templates for composing poetry, and has spawned several genres of variations beyond the standard verse form of its origin. For me, there is an honesty to the Sonnet that goes unmatched in other poetic verse forms—more than just a template, it forces the poet to bend himself to it, or bends itself to the poet by its very nature. It’s the internal dialogue that it imposes on me as a writer and poet that drives me to write them, and the rewards I receive are clarity of thought and concept. So, what is it that constitutes a sonnet? The term 'sonnet' is taken from the French-Latin word 'sonet' (most likely rooted in the same origin as the Italian 'sonetto') and means, 'little song'. More than just this, a sonnet is a dialectical poetic construct. This means that it is a speaking poem, one which is conversive or rather discusses/debates a certain idea, thought, and doubt and so on, within itself. The idea of the sonnet is thus a poem that holds 2 parallel thoughts or processes
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in juxtaposition. The main factor that needs to be understood and actually present in the piece for it to be a sonnet—there are several ways to approach this conceptually and incorporating what is known as the volta, or turn, by an expression or further introspective by way of divergence; to approach as question and answer; observation and action; action - reaction; argument - resolution etc etc. Without this, and the narrative being clearly progressive, what you have is a quatorzain: a 14 line poem that is not per definition a sonnet. Today, ‘sonnet’ has become an umbrella term for the many child-forms that have matured over the centuries through formalisation and mould-breaking. The original form itself was the product of folk song and troubadouric verse being presented to the aristocracy by 13th century Poet (and notary to the Court of Holy Emperor Fredrick II), Giacomo Da Lentini, aka Jacopo Da Lentini. Despite the customary feudal and chivalrous thematic expected from poetry of his time, a recurring undertone of Da Lentini’s poetry was a persistent sense of discord between poet and subject. Each of his works resulted in a conflict or debate. It is idealised by scholars that Da Lentini’s academic credentials and consequential familiarity with the elegiac couplet of Hellenistic prevalence, and the rising interest for new ideas leading
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into the renaissance period collided to form the basis of the turn. However, it wasn’t until 14th century poet, Francesco Petrarca (Anglicized, Petrarch) that the sonnet became what we know it as today. Petrarch is often referred to as the grandfather of modern poetry, and also the father of humanism—formerly a priest, and a scholar, Petrarch’s views on life and humanity heavily influenced his poetry. The non-secular humanist nature of his themes delved into both sensibility and emotion. This contrast was further embellished by progressive narrative in 14 lines of 11 syllables that led into the juxtaposition of either concept through what became the modern understanding of the Volta. Petrarch’s Volta set formalisation of the sonnet in motion with his new verse form adopting a more deliberate architecture than its predecessor: 8 lines (an octave/octet rhymed abbaabba) and 6 six lines (a sestet rhymed either cdecde; cdcdcd; cddece). The Volta occurred explicitly to begin the 9th line. Although commonly presented as a single stanza the ‘eight and six’ had deeper purpose than a shifted rhyme scheme. The octet presents a supposition, a point of concern/thought in its first line, and elucidates in the following 3 progressively to formulate an argument by the 8th. The sestet initiates a counter-thought at the 9th line, signalling the Volta with the new rhyme, and progresses to a resolve by the 14th.
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Not only did Petrarch solidify the dialectical turn, but his method for structuring lines outside of ‘majestic’ custom (end-stopped; complete thought per line) opened them up to enjambment and allowed for a less contrived tone. The truth-seeking, internal musing of Petrarch’s poetry became a catalyst for many lyrical poets that followed in the renaissance and throughout the 14th and 16th centuries. However, the relative rhyme-anaemia of the English language and awkward 11 syllable line measure made writing the Petrarchan an arduous task. Poets responded by adapting and reworking the metre and rhyme to suit their language. These fledgling sonnets grew in popularity, steamrolling through literature. Even in complete ignorance of its history, the honesty in composing is shared in the reading and although still typically lyrical, the sonnet is more a little song for the mind and heart than one for the voice—in counterpoint to this, we can’t ignore its closest relative, the Madrigal. The Madrigal evolved in congruence to the sonnet but is far more liberal in exploring the same themes and ideals in extended metaphysical stretches and free expression from seemingly obtuse metrical constructs.
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With this book of pages as yet unturned by you, reader, I hope to offer that same experience of honesty and selfdialogue. I hope these little songs of moments captured in eight and six will be both memorable and enjoyable. Thank you for reading, Kieran Borsden
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Once Upon a Glow The once grand glow, now faded, lingers on as a pall of wistful fog stretched across street-lamps and paving, disintegrating only when looking away or breathing thin; in memory shaded vague designs serve to preserve at least a hazy hint as if in all antiquity attuned to relics of a former self—perhaps. A flame of thought flickers to the force of a moderate breeze in faith exhaled— astray, absently mindful of such light lost to the daunting dance in haunted pride. For a grand glow once faded remaining recalls clouds displayed in distant promise.
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Angel in the Cornfield It's not that your presence cultivates silently in ever-expanding fields, nor that shadows are no longer cast by memories passing before the sun. It's how your smile hides inside the breeze that carries your breath against the grain of light caught in each ear; perpetuates the you that dwells in the infinite crop. Yet, elegiac seeds sown by a sexton had their waking thirst first quenched by tears— and 'though I know you are now forever, the yield is most precious when left untouched. I cherish this Elysian harvest, for you are my angel amid the rows.
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something to November There's something to November's jagged edge as it serrates the seasonal sky and forces forward the wind, the rain— remnant summer hues now faded grey. It cuts keenest in retrospect, without drawing blood, or separating flesh from dream, from fancy, and follows inward through cold, through wet and static tincture— there's something to be said for raised skin that holds back weather born from autumn's bloom in decline; something of a paradox to wind and rain when wet and cold, yet warmed by Winter's hard hilt: a blustered lullaby. There's something to November, something soft.
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When evening has settled When evening has settled itself, I hear the floor boards creak and shift moderately to my breath—near whispers that filter and sift across the shell of this home-bound abyss. With weighted feet, I follow the still that turns the haunt that taunts the light and understand such milled disquiet forgotten in the morning mist. Yet, in this vaporous night I recall childhood phantoms behind the fade where decaying dreams cross themselves: that empty space where steps should fall— and I wonder, "in whose daps have I tread?"
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A Dream of Mumbles With our heels pointed toward the distance, we watched the moon shatter across the pier and promised we'd find each fallen fragment no matter where the night would seek us. Through December's familiar retention, each turn saw shards lost beneath faded touch and silence now steals us from the teenage cwtch when the sky was ours for the keeping. Yet, always recalled to the promenade where age has altered memory's storefront— we will never cash in our cosmic pieces nor sandy heels for their distance covered. We linger, embraced beyond sound's reach in a dream of Mumbles on the horizon.
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Sunset I could whisper to the wind and watch where far-off daylight washes across my wish: season's sun ending on a breeze, or bush, enrooted with wisps of myself settled there. If, in twilight, such leaves stay green, then if becomes the 'ever' of a lasting dream carved in mind from the stem, not yet to drift as shadow on suffused and earth-drawn streams. Yet, were I to whisper despite my wish, it would be cut from silhouette instead— the wash and distant sky behind to blush away, or mask the wind with words unsaid, as if it were unworthy of my tongue to justify that sunset sleeps alone.
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Splintered Clouds Should the sunshine offer a small relief in splintering the clouds that block our way, then perhaps your promise of brighter days can forego any prior disbelief. If we could venture forth without our coats, no rain to strain in streams against your face, then perhaps our grief can be displaced from the very bones it has always soaked. But showered light cannot undo the loss for more than a moment before the rain returns as vapour in the sun's own rays; echoes the moment lost between each drop– and no sunshine splinters the clouds that pave the streets on the promise of better days.
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Paper Swans After the winter warms and season greens, the scent of longed for summer settles upon a spring-borne promise—milder in thought than ever sought by hand or word. Weary as the woe is calmed and winds no longer rush the rain against your eyes, truth is lost to the hues that grow in mind, and if love is young, this weather is old; older than a dozen autumns returned. Yet, even in that phantom perfume, each winter holds them hostage among the folded years—paper swans cast out to sail upon an arid basin, once a lake fatefully filled with our tears.
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all right I remember the day when all felt right and seemed undeserving of endeavour— mid-afternoon complacency, no sense to tingle, no thought to progress... and yes, I remember that day when all felt right in hindsight pointed toward a morning buried in rightness' catacombs, beneath the eve's foundation. But in this recall, the grave is robbed of its quiet, and draws only noise from what I disturb—the wrong remembered from days when none were right, before the clock ticked away the hour that later bore when all came to seem... and no, I can't forget the morning's corpse.
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Midnight Wings The sleepless tire instils through silent birdsong, the nail of this midnight hour— bores deep into conscious lacklustre, smokeless flames and summer tones. My breath, worn out of white intoxicated haze, shatters against the sky where wings should hold the Christian moment still to bleed across, or beyond the mountain's frame. Yet, the twisted glass and cast steel veneers veer further from warrens cut from concrete, and lead only to the hillside's foot; lead only to pirouetting silhouettes known by the restless few as angels that blossom and fade in distance closed.
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When she dances I often pretend to see her dancing at twilight, between stars where light refuses to lift—she twirls against the ether while the cool evening patina resolves to degage in blotted words on a page. I misprint moments pooled in spilt ink, and allow for ripples to plie— the ephemeral ballet then seeps soft behind the nocturnal eye as movements that never were and never will be again; tenderly, the veiled tendu turns the final step, and the phrase is clear. I often pretend to see her dancing at twilight, pas de deux with sunken verse.
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Nocturnal Meanderings Rest will not come to my meandering grasp at driftwood dreams upon the tide of might-have-been and shifting currents bent inward to return— turned outward to escape the undulating phases when sunk into that stream of life without living: death engaged in reliving beneath the ebb and flood of breathless hush untouched by thoughts afloat in weightless wait. But sleep can only thrash on the surface at the farthest reach of far-flung starlight, and spends childhood musings on angels until their currency expires—the remainder drowned in remnant day-time shadow, awake.
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Stolen Sky (Chaucerian Madrigal) The day you chose to leave me for the night, you stole the sky without a thought for me; became a memory too dark to see. Each image I lose to that dimming light conceals the truth, and I refused to be the day. You chose to leave me for the night you stole—the sky, without a thought for me. I would have preferred to have lost my sight than to live as the moon's own amputee, but I thank you still for my shattered dreams the day you chose to leave me. For the night you stole the sky without a thought—for me— became a memory too dark to see.
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Reason Enough Is there reason enough to deny the sinfully seminal sifts in seasons that ebb, drifting by noxious elements than the boundless Spring's former static state and the flightless flumes of sinking Winter's resonant refuge (the revenant year)? Perhaps the pendulum at play, the slowcounting momentum in minor moments could answer all, but never does—or did, and won't until it rages its ransom between the phage in phasing weather or releases to elemental shift. For the season time and faith deny us, is the time when faith defies all reason.
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Juniper Berries and Snow Flakes in the Sun Not often do I see the purity, the untouched virgin state in the climate as it dances on waltzing wisps before it settles in by a whisper between parted lips—and yet the silence that surrounds me (the condensed desuetude of feudal weather and memory's fog) buries the erratic breath of the world under its hush; it is not cold enough that clouds are painted behind frosted glass, but in the softness arced from the diffused sky, I remember—know such rarity as the colour crumpled beneath its weight. I remember how often I forget.
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Cymru The valley speaks to me in a language beyond my senses; it calls me by silence and familiar touch—the hues that hold it beneath the sun and under the shadow cast by the hole left after words fall short. The mountain soil that runs in the creek is the iron that colours my blood— purified with each stone it strikes. The valley wilts against the skyline in anthracitic silhouette, the last black bloom folded deep inside the earth— not faded with the scent of air, but risen in divinity's dough and made bread by the Land of my Fathers.
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Time Until Now I forget the time until now spent— forget when 'where' was not yet gone; when 'where' before then had a face recalled with crooked lips churned inward on themselves, devoured. Yes, I would feast on them too—sigh that emptiness were filled, save for 'that', the death of a misplaced smile, and leave my sense behind to capture the goodness lost in a picture previously shamed by perfection, simple complexity, and wrongful complexions that delight another time before the eye; for the ceaseless beat that drones above is known only when overlooked by the authority of clammy sleep.
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Q. There comes a time when the successive beat that leads to an answer gives no reason to set the punctuated point and curl; when rhetoric fails, and purpose depletes. Such is the sequence coiled round the season I hold affirmed at my fingertips—whorls only as deep as dead skin in retreat by the consequence of that cohesion. Yet, before the whorl punctuates the curl that time would rather replace with a beat, the cohesive sequence becomes reason enough to offer, answer, or unfurl; rhetoric succeeds, disbarred in the coiled delusion where skin and season embroil.
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To E. (statim) Each second weighs the hours against the clock, lending engagement from lengthy emptiness in moments counted, extended from no greater distance than across the room— horizon embedded with promise, carried on the time spent waiting for their return. Reluctant, and yet expectant, silence might marry our eyes but for a fleeting smile, and should it last—it may endure all words, no more eloquent than what is unsaid. Still, with each weighted tick and tolling tock, the unravelling minutes grace you‌ and you unravel me with a passing glance that fills the hours with waiting once more.
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A Song For Baglan Moors What do I see, layered in blackberry scent as it occupies the vacant space between the tangible surface and intimate depth hidden beneath an industrial scene? Sainted landscapes kissed by the antique soles of a Breton Lord, or the greater courts and motte walls of 'Plas Bolen'—a parish under a robe, behind a Latin cross? Fields, buried by the years and fables spread amid Mynydd-y-Gaer toward the North and Eastern Mynydd Dinas, their shadow birthed in the now lost space that escapes its depth at the mountain's ancient feet... or the peak, where a blackberry bush looks down?
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I’ll Bring You Flowers In the morning One more argument is crushed under foot and any remnant sour grape rendered as pulp that drowns in its juice surrendered to acerbic taste—simply misunderstood as an intoxicated assumption; I know the aroma of her surmise by the judgement that dwells in rolling eyes while my mind revolves through paced rumination. Yet no blander flavour to our existence can be poured from our infancy and passed into a more oblivious subsistence than over the edge of a common glass— for a good year fermented in eternity will yield a bouquet of full bodied memory.
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Rainfall If I resign my lot to the sodden path behind my birth, then the earth is death that fell between the droplets when it rained, and the still that came after ushered in my feet. My qualms and alms are carried on the stones I sweep along and allow to tumble— their descent into rubble, the nature of my tongue wrapped in their burial psalm. Still, as only faith can clarify, perhaps the weight of damp and clinging moss is less a route untrodden, more that devil known, or led astray—toward a crumbled oath that severed before the first fallen rain and maybe God is risen with each droplet yet.
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Creeping Daylight Morning creeps softly through the crack of the curtains, treading a light step to stir the dreamer with the touch of scattered strokes from warm fingers (eyes encrusted with the trusted sand of Somnus’ sprinkling hand, roll a faint twitch of waking). The slight click of the radio before discourse and mild, cock-crow music as the hymn sung by morning on tiptoes across the distance of the room; the melodic twist of chirping birds drifts with a rousing recall of a fledgling day in the second of a heart beat – low rhythmic pulsing tranquillity; the harmonic rising star of another fresh, new dawn as morning creeps softly through the crack of the curtains.
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I will not sing I won't sing His praise that divinity extends in symphonic prayer the form of her face— and in the breaths between the words, I'll sigh, 'suo gân', a lullaby in their absence to settle across my child's rested eyes. This paternal whisper is mine until in the hymns rejoiced by heaven's estate choir, I can judge the true conductor's skill that dissociates both the church and hearse from the sweetest vocal instrument, and drones instead as bitter notes in my verse. Yet, when peace is set against its pace through ceremony and melancholy melody, then I'll sing—then my hushed breath will fall silent.
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Names and Faces It would appear I know your name, although I don't recall it—perhaps we met once, or twice, before it could be recorded. Your voice is softer than the lines which draw and cut your shape in mind, yet never stop to colour or refine despite the fit best suited to a dim lit candle. However, not the flame, but its shadow will suffice until its grey refines the cut against your silhouette. You take shape, and then stop to draw your voice from subtle, softer lines, twice before our future is discarded. Perhaps I don't recall once having met— although it would appear I know your name.
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Ciphers and Calendar Marks As time coils through us in forward sequence from the nativity of life's tick-tock, minutes perish under the pretence of an ellipsis twisted against the clock. While it feeds off the losses of our youth, time drags us into the maturity seen in ciphers and calendar marked truths – each day a new pace with less dignity. But in her kiss I steal the ticking hand, and recycle the life that once was mine; our love no longer than our life can stand, and we begin again as love through time... for the hour glass' sifted sand in my mind is the happiest loss my age could find.
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Madrigal 12 (doodled on the train somewhere between Pyle and Bridgend 05:57 03/08/12) There are moments that live best behind me, but when did I live if a life were led before her—before she led me forward to remind me what would be left behind? She lives in moments that have been, but not as they were before I knew them— and I am more alive for her to be where moments are not forgotten, but born in memory of 'when' that never lived; Should I breathe a lifetime in to taste each first encounter—timeless and alive as if relived, or as if yet to happen? I know where 'now' has led to, and should 'yet' never factor, then she will live it for me.
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Today, I heard your name Today, I heard your name as I inhaled. Resonant from the sepia sky, the scent as summer declined invoked the presence of your hand in mine; so small—so fragile and then you spoke it in a voice that I will never know, but recognize is absent save for the host that dawning shades pretend in memory's misted pane. Carried on evening's fold, the light bled away as it withdrew along with any remnant sense of you—and I remain once more in tomorrow retained by this yesterday until I hold your hand again. But for tonight I wait before I exhale.
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She Is… Her spectral imprint shifts as it folds in ghostly mist, words become white noise wrapped in translucent shrouds. Fingers stretch to touch but miss her subtle tenderness; formless as a whisper in exhaled motions; profound as dreams in sifted light broken by tears, she drifts— desire beneath, and behind the veil of the unbound. In spectral imprints of shifting folds and ghostly mist, the midnight hours breathe phantom memories of us, lucid truths twisted against the mental edifice; lips press against my flesh, if only as subconscious arms embraced by shades of nightly hues; reminisced, blended within the dark, concealed—condensed in a hush. She is as elegant in her faithful spectral shifts as her non-existent imprint folds in ghostly mist.
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Season's Dream Summer melts; drips from the trees—the leaf green evaporates to heaven; higher still beyond the realms of thought and all between, and there's a dream that remains unfulfilled. Tarnished shades, tickled pink against the sky, forget that they were born encased in glass as angels sculpted from clouds—while in flight, the dream scents the wind, just above the grass. Aglow, the city lights, sired by wired streams, dress the streets early for the autumn song buried behind crumpled lips, and the dream fades into the mid-day augmentation. Yet there are secrets within the melt, and all is well, should the dream never tell.
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Faded Tune I have quarrelled with a bird without name. Hidden between cracks, where there is no dust, I watched each night in silence as it came to feast on the refuse left by spoiled trust, the same madness each broken midnight run. Mute, it would turn its head as if to speak the true meaning of the nightingale song— poison lyrics with which to tip its beak. Now, I wander – smoking – in emptiness en route to sleep beneath a throbbing moon through contempt for the sardonic hour's face, until my eyes meet fuller views in tune with forests faded jade and marker stones in the soil perished flowers once called home.
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For the love of words (and what they do) If I were to capture the perfect words, could they grow to respect my poetry— or love me for writing them into birds caged between the shelves in a library? Would those words thank me from their dusty tomb for my effort to bind them to veneers that restrict any further chance to bloom? I see no valid reason to turn here, nor to believe that this thought could turn back: not to restrain them from running astray, or taking me over and down new tracks into the expanse they choose to portray. Words know to alter me through what they do to show through poetry what they hold true.
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Sorrow's End Will losses be restored and sorrows end to weep afresh a long since cancelled woe? I fear I may forget dear fallen friends in the misted depths of drowned eyes—the flow a currency paid as never before to the sadness of tales exchanged with odes and heavy breaths; told and retold, once more with each name recalled under crumbled skies that grieve their loss; once more into the fore for fallen friends curtained by endless night until soon even the moon will depend on such expense as time-forgotten sights replaced by mere thoughts of a dear lost friend, and losses are restored at sorrow's end.
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Breaking the Edge of Dawn I have never found peace in the morning as it breaks, dawning with recurring sounds of chirping; never been struck dumb – profound in my silence bound under the awning of the fresh forming sky, nor seen the day through naive eyes, glazed over with mystique; never viewed with awe distant mountain peaks as if blindly seeking wisdom to trade for thought or dream. Yet before the yawning mind utters mourning songs, my declined praise for such dreams betrayed becomes an antique need for mountain peaks and their peace defined through age old days tied to my reforming memories born in spite of the young sky.
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Against the Wind Pressed against pure divinity, I lean into the force that holds the world as one— for a moment, freed as if all was none within the whispered weightlessness of dream. Escape now contains me, no longer sealed inside gravity's falsehood, but undone by the presence of newborn wisdoms spun into the skyline, and that woven seam is sprung. The rhythm on the air is calm as a chill lays its claim on the moment and I am bound again—my flesh embalmed; my feet set into reality's cement (then released to endure the weaker psalm of voices risen against monuments built in mind) and I light my cigarette.
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Guidance I have become shunned by my guiding stars without clear cause, though I freely admit a 'perhaps' for why the light became barred— such as friendships laid bare for benefits and public debauchery; un-curtailed liberty and no parent to commit me when questions on sanity were raised. So now my own questions drown in vermouth, because such tough lessons become derailed should I chastise acts of uncontained youth. I can own my misdeeds for what they are: myself reflected in an unfolding truth— cast out, and triumphant, forever barred from the guidance of those ignorant stars.
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Contemplation It seems to me the righteous path is steep, 'though level enough to climb beyond tiled embroidery views and urbanite skies beneath the reddened screen 'round day's retreat; no stranger to self-exclusion, I trace the distance through the straits in city streets and follow, steadied on unbalanced feet as sunset casts shadows against my face. Still I look for shortcuts before the night takes residence, and I'd prefer to stray into fervid depths contrasted on high through the virtue of life travelled by day— to where footsteps sound the last mile in sight of each yard further away from such height.
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(you are) My Cliché There is no greater written platitude than a poet’s heart that aches for you, but when your gait befalls my gaze— my chest grows sore as if suddenly aged beyond my years, and throbs discordant patter and enjambed consonants without vowels to fuse or form them and no punctuation—or semblance of sense and coherence. Yet when metre finally fails too, I know my composure is lost to the rhythms of your feet in motion, and nothing drums more clear than a poet whose verse skips beats and echoes the ache of such a cliché.
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Schizo-affective Re-order I don't believe I see as others see— no shame for what small hours may have spoken against clandestine shades; against me when others see what I believe I see. I don't grieve for the loss of any dream, or worry that my sleep may be broken for what others see (but I don't believe), ashamed of what small hours may have spoken. I stride instead, free to wander elsewhere— asleep, with my vacant eyes wide open, and the others are neither here nor there to forge their clandestine shades against me when the small hours have not yet spoken or seen what others see in my belief.
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Industrial Bloom A lone white flower twined itself in threads across a chain-link fence and factory gate. Overnight—out of sight , a blossom spread through morning sap against the grain of fate so as to bud, despite the cold cement, and take mortal shape, draped as an ornate harbinger for nature's lost, nameless scent. An envious breeze paused to force it loose. The flower sprung against the fence and bent its cable (wet under the stained glass dew) to hold on tight and surge into its tread, until the torrent spitefully withdrew into the furthest distances, ahead of stone epitaphs blossomed in its stead.
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Unworthy of an Epitaph For all that I love, will I love alone— buried in the recess of what I write? Will erudite words be etched in my bones no longer torn from the flesh, but entwined? As all who have loved will know, love alone is lost to the mind's greatest mystery as a number that counts below its sum, just as I am bound to my history— and all that I love remains loved alone on a page, as rhythms misplaced in life; in frigid melodies as empty tones; unmoved by the mentally plundered sky above seamless views of gravestones, for all that I loved remains 'love' alone.
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Brighter in darkness I roam through the night unable to see the day awake in hours once respected or the morning shrouded with dying dreams brighter in darkest darkness reflected; the evening lifetime in imperfect shade seems hidden by my sight as blinded light shadows the shadow that afternoon made, and the clearest midday haze is too bright. Still asleep, I wake in days reflected on the dim night's smudge without clearer light; brightest in darkness, dark is respected by shadowed shadows that were made by bright morning—and night becomes day lived in dreams contrasting perfect shades that I can see.
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The Curse and Bliss of Ignorance I should not have known any term or word to carry the weight born in ignorance that lends itself for either prose or verse in spite of, and blinding, intelligence; that breathed its poison forth into the world on loose pages, or scrawled in affluence across the ages before I could learn or benefit from life's experience. But my children still suffer for its curse and the stain of its foul inheritance shapes the world with enforced importance regardless of any child's future birth— for there is no more cause for relevance in such caustic avowal than offence.
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The Short Death Once more the end draws closer through the cold to replace the lost sweetness sung by birds, and across white fingers, memories hold the last grasped remnants of when they were heard. As the western distance swallows the day, a short death settles itself in our rest; the steadfast winter steals the light away— reveals the night to be the greater test. Yet there is nothing in such ends to fear, for I am slave to fate and those small deaths. I shed the bird-song remnants in my tears and dwell in the poison of misted breaths. I find peace repeated in lifeless nights, for life is fullest in the sleeping light.
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January's Web I wonder if the season's gift was sent from far beyond the coldest cosmic light; if it holds within it a warmth content to comfort the harsh January night; if it hangs on a promise from the sky— a future caught by interstellar twine that entangles the fates ever so slight in an instant's embrace, woven in time; or if such threaded thoughts become unlaced beneath expanded cloudscapes; if dawning in their knotted omens, stars are replaced by lies cast up to obscure the awning— and if, through that formless abyss, I tread in search of starlit gifts, strung overhead.
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Port Talbot Parkway Obituary Sometimes a memory can be etched deep into the psyche as old railroad tracks that time would rather have covered with weeds than allow to lead to the clock turned back to when trains ride once more, and tears will run in parallel lines across nature's face. The flowers laid flat have never belonged, save for a moment's grace in such a place as by his recalled name窶馬ot just in thought, or rain-soaked newspaper reborn in green mould on the black-and-white memorial grain. For there is a twisted truth to be taught in death: he will never turn seventeen, nor will I ever be his age again.
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Jonathan's Tree The landscape holds a final framed moment— his figure, imposed against the sunset and strung across branches in silhouette; a scene refracted by passing comment. Whether refused life, or in death—defeat buried him where a life can still be grown despite flowers greyed from the decay sown into their soil as mournful, folded pleats. Yet unfolded in Springtime eulogy, the daffodils sprung from his unmarked grave recover his missing face, and rename him, forever en-rooted with his tree; roped deep into the earth to bud—exhumed by dawn to survive each fresh scented bloom.
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Suo Gﾃ｢ n Nos da, cariad, on the rhythms of a beating heart; the night has folded its arms around you instead of a mother's warm embrace, yet the night will never see you harmed. Don't fear the descended dreamless sleep, forever protected in your rest; Nos da, cariad, until we meet窶年os da. Sleep softest, babi, nos da. Lovely baby, gently sleep; Nos da, my child, and wake in my dreams, dw i'n dy garu di. Nos da窶ｦ
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Phantasmagoria You are wrapped in torchlight as you play against the wall; formless, but seen through any other shadow cast astray, elongated—stretched into my view. I wonder what you see reflected in the substance of my light's cascade— as shrouded as much as directed by its absence, in only one shade. Why does my light not chase you away, but instead draw you nearer to me? Perhaps you remain during the day waiting in each blink until I see a thousand shadows cast on my wall, only one shade to outshine them all.
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Collier Angels (of Ystradgynlais) Dwindled daylight pales in my breath, exhaled through the hour as they emerge from fictile depths, anonymous forms wrapped in silhouette and grafted against the fade; guardian lights bent by rising fog—coronas aglow to contrast the dying sky. They are immortal in this fleeting moment's eye, outlasting the harvest vein, the rock sculpted by their hand— dwarfing the landscape, triumphant and homeward bound.
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This is NOT a Sonnet Would you like me to write you a sonnet, another extended metaphor for love (like 'a soul perched on the wings of a dove') over-developed and threaded in it? Or what about the clichéd window-gaze of a mind transcending the physical made verse in words too immaterial for me to disown my flowery phrase? Perhaps you'd prefer some free verse; an even less intuitively structured piece— just radical—not as forced out as I could offer with my formal turds... but you’d still want a poem (something honest?), and this one is by no means a sonnet.
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More than Strangers Late night fog never fails to remind me— black and white images fall in the rain and paint the street a film set, silver-grey behind the lens that forgets what I see cast in my shadows with arms around you, and the close-up of the moment we kissed survives unscripted dramas and edits to prove that we were always actors too. Despite our scene engrained in memory (or trivial laughter that played its part before suspense folded into our hearts); beyond the Hitchcockian irony in sudden recalled romance and danger, we are nothing more than passing strangers.
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Looks Like Rain Again Maybe you are closer with each droplet, each earthbound, crystal rhizome that lands on blossoms in my paternal embrace, steps drawn nearer by the pitter-pat drum. Perhaps the soil is where your voice is heard as if for the first time through every blade of stoic grass. Listened to, and mimicked across the wind while flowers bud and sing their colours, not loud enough to deafen but only to echo as a chorus. Perhaps clouds no longer burst for sadness, and joy is what earth praises most when wet; perhaps the storm is silence, or maybe rainfall is the closest we will ever be.
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Re-Sewn If I tore the shawl from the newborn dawn's silent recall, could it unfold when again sewn as once—re-sewn in morning's slow, advancing crawl? Once again sewn or when re-sewn, the clouds behold a fledgling sky against squinting eyes. Could I still deny silent recall—could it unfold? Against squinting eyes, I would still deny their wake and try for darker shades that clouds withhold in fledgling skies, and morning's slow advancement crawls to wake and try for darker shades— for I tore the shawl from the newborn dawn.
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Machlud Haul (aka Ogmore Sunset) I look out to where the world appends distinctions of earth and heaven—the shore, nothing more than a pebbled pretence that hides titans' footprints—before waves break against rock with a flurried youth to resurge the ancients beyond Ogmore. Tides feed the impure nature with proof that buries its parallel in beauty's eye and scorns against the deciduous tooth: the altercation that maturity finds when nothing stands true save the shoreline's end. I discern the moment, and hold in mind a minute on earth or heaven—append and hope to see past what pebbles pretend.
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Closing Time Was it yesterday that I first saw you, locking up the corner shop—Aberavon, behind the street lamp, curtained away and out of focus? Closing time again. Or can tonight be the moment, the first remembered and bound by youthful eyes, laced with flickering luminescent green, not tainted by pink recall or reference? Tomorrow seems to be forgotten where skies darken—and bulbs are replaced by fragile remnants of a primordial sunset, and passing adolescent cloudscapes. Closing time again, but would you see me if I were the one locking up tonight?
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Barbecues and Coffee Spoons Strange, how sentiment is orphaned by grace so that only an echo lingers behind words that refuse to be spoken. Stranger still, how it bolsters in summer siestas before aching afternoons and barbecues spoilt by droplets of rain, or carves just as suddenly with coffeespoons an epitaph between muted sips. But strangest of all, how common I feel to resist the resolute silence; how casual that I can instead attempt to pull in a touch of sky by my breath— and strange, how I am compelled to adopt this child with a want for what I forget.
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Sandwiches with Becki She lies, rested in the taint, grafted against a sepia stain of perpetual sunsets—embalmed by the faded bloom, elongated light, and stretched shadows. I recall her hushed voice, our whispered looks and promises made while we drank wine from Styrofoam cups. I remember her stippled dress, a pointillist outline baked in dirt—but I forget the day. We have lost the time when time was new; butterfly wings, silent in the dust— red petals, browned without wilting... her lips as she lies, rested in the taint, chequered blanket and picnic basket out of sight.
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My Beach As a fading sun implodes, so is the night recoiled from its exalted place above, perhaps to be lost— rediscovered in the palm as a grain of sand. Powdered, contused shore soaked with petroleum— set alight by the longing caught within desire for a hand’s ignited embrace (but only as a thought), a metaphor of passing moments placed; simple cares stepped lovingly soft to retrace a star, never found— produced in semblance as dead embers. Held close—set against the coast, waves crash, replace each decayed stone with infertile silt, patch a broken, instant shine reflected in times spent doused with hapless hope— through tears infused instead with dead embers.
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Memory’s Distant Lilt There are moments when I think of you, still asleep, our limbs entwined—always to be rhythms in this soft, cherished melody caught in my memory’s distant lilt. There are moments when I think of you—still within the warmth while the minutes compose the hour to hang on strings and woodwinds blow, our eyes and thoughts embraced beneath the quilt. But when that tune becomes a eulogy, its movement mocks the shape of you and I with covetous romance for days and nights that ransoms each recital with our release. Caught in my memory’s distant lilt, there are moments when I think of you still.
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On The Porch Daylight fades beyond the veranda, and distance grows between the folding leaves as clouds gather across the season’s face. Twilight settles itself in the wrinkles on my hands, and I grasp for auburn tones saved only in lost photographs. The years themselves have sat on this porch, watched how I sat, then how I crawled before I took my first step further from their reach. Now I see the years, seated with my own children, watching as daylight fades beyond the veranda, the season my youth. Sit down in your naked innocence, sit down next to me—and watch the folding leaves.
Kieran Borsden