Dydd Santes Dwynwen

News had been couriered my way by a friend that it was to be  'Dydd Santes Dwynwen' on the 25th of January; a Welsh equivalent of 'Valentine's Day', to pass the descriptive brush over it lightly. That we were to host an evening of entertainment for our friends and others curious enough to pay attention, was either an accident or else planned. To commemorate the day, I read a few verses on love...

Where there is warmth,
there is blood;
Where there is warmth,
there is love;
a love for being,
for a being cannot go on
where there is no love;
being requires time,
nurture and a gentle nature
to create a gentle disposition;
one that cares, nurtures, loves.
Without these things, we are not
the all that we could be;
we will lack warmth,
we will lack care,
we will not love:
We will be cold, callous and unkind
and only disquietude will spring
from the pools that are left
of our great steps
as we walk, raging, unruly
and ruinous
as terrible giants.


                                                                         ***

How I wish it were
that I would be like water,
come Winter nights that have
you grip your tender blanket,
source of comfort pulled on
over like a lover,
there I would be,
as alike a mist
that first chills the form
but then gently goads
one into making their self
warm. I would be contained
deep within each glimmering
snow-flake's intricate pattern
supplanted upon your window,
softly, as a kiss.
   Such kisses would I give to you,
were I water, and were you
yonder pane of transparent glass,
your temperate touch
so cool, wherewith I would smother
every inch
with my brazen lips
that ever had a dainty fancy
to feather the landscape of your body;
each hillock, peak and
valley, just as snows
are wont to paint serene
a wilderness, so I layer
my gift upon you, so many times,
your skin be made
to pale through the blushes of
my pressure, as buds full of
petalled beauty are wont to burst
so let our love rush forth
and cause a shiver
for every time my affections
shall knock against your windows
or the extensions of my body
or my soul knock against
your walls, therein,
my love, as clear as purest waters,
you shall know.

"...And night became the stars..."

To one who walks through the seven circles, there is no greater comfort for, than company and to reminisce.

To take long walks in
the warm Spring air
below the umbrella of night,
to smell the fresh, damp
earth, hear the snap of
twigs, the rustle of leaves,
to hear another pair of feet
accompanying me.
A tender grasp around my hand...
Is this too much of a dream?

An Excerpt from the Book of Pain

Something old, seen anew.
Think nothing of it; the time is past, I simply found it quaint:

It is a strange fate, to endure the sufferings of a "broken" heart: to continue to sit and eat your breakfast in the mornings, to enjoy the many amusements and company of friends, to live each day, as always, as never before anything had changed- but to do all this and feel that each pleasure rings a little more hollow; as though the blissful purity of such enjoyments, and trivial matters, had been extracted. It is as though a shadow had settled on and swallowed what makes such little things grand, and the greatest: empty. To live with a heart that beats erratically; with a ghost for an echo of your own palpitations; a fractured mirror to receive a warm embrace, and at night; to sleep most wakefully- woefully- with hot lurid tears and perspiration like the throes of passion set to ravish the occupant who finds no home.
   It is a terrible fate: a broken heart- where even the most meaningful consolations only serve to sever the chords that free the torrent that follows: to engage the self-deceiving sympathies and render one lost in oblivious contemplation, melancholy, and hurt.

Of Work and Solitude

 I know I've been vacant a while;

many things consume me;

 my organisation's gone to tatters

and I'm low on esteem and energy...

Here is a poem from a time gone by:

I wake up to a day, so weary,

a twilight day of the kind so eerie

that makes me pine for slumber, nearly

with a shining eye that glistens, teary

as I fight to rise from bed.

I rise to a day that gnaws my bones,

compelling me to leave my home

and descend into the world alone

with an unearthly aching head.

I wash my face with water, pure,

an almost immediate, if temporary, cure

that trickles, effervescent, as I reel in, allured

and further lap until I am quenched and sure

and so, my routine commenceth again.

If I find time, though I am usually late,

to be at some affair, or at some place,

I may choose to see to my hunger’s fate

though I more often than not, ignore the pain.

It seems, in life, one must not allay

from reaching out, beyond the haze

of our most immediate, uncertain, days

and take hold of that, which the spirit craves.

Immured in my vision, I carry on-

though I lose days and clarity to drink

and into many drunken nights, I sink;

both far away, yet on the brink-

and many my dreams are lost and gone.

Birthday

Today, alas, it is that day.
Here is something written in retrospect...

As the 22nd hour is eclipsed since my last meal, I sit down to a late afternoon breakfast, enjoying a meagre portion and near immediately afterwards, feelings of sadness and rancour almost pushes me to expel the contents of my stomach from out my mouth. I feel about on the verge of a tremendous break. I see the date and check the time; nearly time to leave. Upon my return, it will be past midnight again, and with that, the eve of my birthday. This day which has come once every year for me, now, for almost 25 years- as it has for many others born on that Tuesday, so long ago. Many have now died, undoubtedly, and many others have gone on to greater things than I, who remains somewhere, obscurely, in the middle, and with every passing second, minute and hour, grow only more anxious, as has happened now for many years past. Always the slowly growing sensation of unsettlement, and always, after, the ever greater disappointment of my feelings being equated with nought; for nothing has changed. Dizzying, I recount the years I have spent this time pining to be alone, trying to bury my self in suffering on this day, and I recall how- aside from the alleviation of my stresses- how few are the things I feel I want. I wonder that maybe I want you; to ignore that day entirely, swept up in sleep, and have you held in my arms, subdued by the wealth of affections. I think of the smell of your skin and kissing the back of your neck; of feeling the slow rise and fall that's built around that beautiful, beating heart. I want, as ever, what is beyond my reach, an d knowing I have nothing, I tremble at the thought of leaving my house, of entering the day and of hastening towards my regretful birthday of disappointment and misery, dumbfounding.
   I put off going to work as long as possible, and upon my arrival, I am immediately fed instructions, each entirely in contrariness with the previous demand, and full of diffidence, I attempt to obey each as they are received, resulting in my overall failure on all fronts and an irritation at my inability on behalf of those around me. My head pounds and spins- my nervous system is shot, so that I begin to slowly perspire, and, in trying to open a bottle of wine; I slice my thumb open, again, and try not to smear blood on the glass as I hand it over. I ache; my head, my chest, my right knee, and all the joints of my arms. My thumb stings from lime zest as I cut quarters in preparation. I have a lunch formed purely of liquids; sugary juices and coffee, which finds a way to keep me going as I walk back and forth, pushing my muscles to carry heavy bags and heavier crates, loaded with bottles, to invigorate me and break the monotony of my hunger.

                                                                                    *

God is angry;
I hear the wind roar
a tremulant sound
like the hollow
of a diving bell.

Notes from the Weekend

I redraft this quickly and roughly on my short break from work. Nothing more than further notes on the daze of an 'artist'.

Today I woke, not hungover, but lightly drunk still; an evening of plenty of walking, jogging and drinking, preluding, leaving me tensely sculpted, lightly glowing, profusely sweaty, sticky- slightly- and riddled with ailments. Hungry, as always, ravenous as the figurative and literary wolf. My situation is a poor one- but I am not dejected. A beautiful, bright dawning day greets me through the open window, (I recall the late evening's spectacle as a patchwork of azure and amber, crisscrossed by my white window pane and am instantly glad of the fact that I so rarely sleep easily!) I am roused by a lighthearted and jovial phonecall from my father; I breakfast on a pot of strong, freshly grounded coffee and the recreational smoke. The day ahead of me is completely open and free; there are no expectations, and so, I gladly set to work:

Notes on the Author

Within these walls exists no God; but only man, woman, or child- who has made God "in his own image", and thus reflects the need to attain the 'Godhead', which sees and knows all. The Karmic shift places this with 'goodness'; for they that are good will reap the rewards: the good and the meek. But we, who are learning, are not so meek and so conflict arises. This conflict has existed for aeons; it was once sought as a form of worship, and the artist became an interlocutor between animal and 'God'.
   All journey's become essential to your arrival; there is no worth to mind until it is all, but lost.