some words to share
LAMENT OF THE SWANS
The blue mists of life’s stage part,
As you float, silken mystery,
On both legs, shimmering not moving,
alabaster pillars of slender flesh
beneath a marble copula,
tutti spread, shining,
swirling taffeta.
One leg pauses its pirouette
To talk to the other,
Supported by wings
Slowly flapping their bone skeletons
from shoulder and scapula,
one leg pauses on pink satin points
covering blood blue bruises,
poignant human perfection
supporting the illusion
of floating feathers,
flight, fragility and fantasy,
and one leg asks the other
what it had been doing all these years
to pretend the pain away,
the lost poetry pain
beneath the folds of forgotten focus,
behind the gaze of tear filled eyes
in art galleries and books on philosophy,
eyes, half closed in the mist
of larger questions
on a dark stage, deep lakes
dense with heavy words?
Was it the fear of loosing
Or finding self in the folds of feelings,
Places of truth too deep and hidden,
Hurting and hidden
in bursting places,
Now moist, now dry,
Too much birth and love
To bear in such a delicate structure.
So the other leg admitted,
For the sake of balance
And appearance, it needed
The other leg of action,
As illusion of living
To spin its social magic
In other activity and games,
Sports and games,
Organisational cultures,
Management meetings,
Activity enough
To cross the stage,
A smiling part of the corps de ballet,
Spinning a certain
confidence and co-operation,
noticing and noticed
filling the space with
accepted forms of frenzied
movement, distractions
from the negative space
which gave everything
its secret shape,
and then, one day, on the Tele,
Sir Athony Dowell and his partner
Prince and princess from the past
Wearing black with grey hair
And shining eyes,
Moved the wisdom of age
Around the movement
of two young dancers
learning the meaning of Swan Lake
mentoring and coaching every muscle move
and tears of inspired and lost choreography
came with unexpected longing for inner shapes,
glistening dew drops of love’s birth,
dribbling down his cold cheeks.
could the arabesque form and find itself,
without bleeding points or reaching up
and landing soft in other arms
that flap still their shoulder strength?
would the swan still glide
across the surface world,
without sinking in the deeper lake;
would one leg talk to the other
still or settle for a new configuration
a new collaboration?
Robin
The leaves of god
floating slowly
on its pathway
to the earth,
burgundy
and gold,
god’s fashion
and image,
burnt
in autumn heat,
the leaf falls,
its edges
spiked and torn,
god’s frailty
and image,
pathway
down,
un-chartered
un-predictable
destined
direction.
earth,
cold or hot,
unprepared
to host
our failings
and image.
soon,
lightly,
leaf like,
you will touch
the earth,
fall,
break,
melt
and die there;
god’s love
and image,
embedded
in the mould
of our seasons,
caught in our chemistry.
soon,
slowly,
you will change us
unnoticed,
imperceptible,
destined
destination,
leaf god
earth god,
we share
your frailty,
fashion
and image
and
golden burned,
soft burgundy,
shine in the setting sun.
Robin Morrison
mulheim autumn 0ctober 2000
...................................
To Julian and our conversation about the fathers we never really knew, nor could know, completely.
August 2006 after walks and talks, food and flowers, river and sea, salt wind and sun sting.
This poem was written some time ago, but seems to fit now.
The Salt in the Treacle
I can’t remember
when I first stepped
into the pot of treacle
or, whether I ever again
stepped out,
to do
a clean,
fresh,
unthinking, thing.
My soul was heavy
and thick with it,
glue like and dripping,
dragging me down
into its depths,
depths occasionally,
golden brown
in caramelised confusion
of suffering and failure,
hurts and hidden humanity
struggling to the surface,
bubbling, boiling and baffling.
I longed to
swim through it
more freely,
reach the heavy lid,
caught tight in its own stickiness,
and lift its Olympic weight
to escape into another world.
My father stood before me in a dream
upright in a light grey suit,
white shirt and silver tie,
silver sleek hair and black eyebrows,
ruddy cheeks and glasses
too large and heavy by today’s standards.
He stood there, in my dream, or his,
conjuring thirties’ music and satin,
as I imagined them and him,
before we knew him,
debonairly young and proud
on his new motorbike
and he laughed
his usual laughter
so free of treacle,
it seemed as sharp and clear
as salt, with all its savour intact.
His tears were of laughter
or, as gift,
to the pain of others,
of anger at the stupidities
of the world,
salty and sharp.
Mine, like my mother’s,
full of melancholy,
stirring the treacle
of self concern
and vulnerability.
There, stuck in the treacle
like a man in the stocks,
I longed to learn his laughter
Or, if not, at least his tears
to rust away the manacles
or cut through the sweet treacle
with real and savoured salt.
Boxing day 2000.
Robin Morrison
The bubble
for Jane, Christian and Bubble.
Written end of October at about 30 weeks;
looking forward to watching the bubble become her or his own person.
She can no longer
hide its growth,
Nor would she
That longing for life
Inside her,
drawing her through
Her own creativity,
Like notes through a flute
Echoing in a larger space
And light through the trees
Discovering a place to settle,
Patiently extending itself,
Reaching out, reaching in,
Absorbing and expanding
multiverse of possibilities.
She used to reach out and up for them,
The bubbles pierced by speckled sunlight,
Blown through a plastic tube in winter parks
Curling round their own planets
as leaves like meteors fell
in the gravitational spell beneath her
Reaching up and out to defy
this and other spells,
she, like the bubbles,
bounced their and her own
invisible wonder
of delight and destiny,
not knowing the moment of bursting
until it came and was over
like the blinking of a bubble’s eye.
Blinding itself with its supernova
into pure light
and its invisible bouncing waves
entropically loosing their energy
as they fell like the leaves to the ground
of bubble being, patient and solid
beneath the surface of things.
Waiting to be recreated,
to bloom and burst
again and again,
each step a learning,
each learning a turning.
Deep down in the depths of their source
The bubble waits but moves to create
its own waves of mystery in the darkness,
waiting for light to burst its blindness,
waiting for another world’s window to open
waiting to see what cannot be seen
from within the warm prison walls
of its gentle, nourishing captivity,
waiting to know what growth was for,
what worlds could possible exist
beyond this soft sufficiency,
waiting to know what personality
might feel like in the real and fresh air
of movement, reaching up and out,
out and up towards a sky
that you couldn’t touch
a source of light you shouldn’t touch,
where the cell like speckles of reflected rays
floated like bubbles in the winter park
just there within reach of grasping fingers
longing to hold passing flesh.
So the leaves fell slowly in the silent sun
As weeks turned their time to welcome
The lunar reflections of turning time
And the bubble grow and moved
To eclipse its former self
and all the shadows of self
visible from outside,
moved to reach a world
it could not see
within a life assumed
to contain the whole universe,
for perspective is always limited.
Something in the small head
Had triggered the beating of the smaller heart
And the rhythyms that had not begun before,
Ever, across the millennia of this
or any other universe.
Beatings that would last until they slowed
and stopped, forgetting how
and where they started
as they drifted leaf long down
to the silent earth.
But why, would soon be the question,
once the bubble had burst its bounds;
why, why should this reaching out ever end?
Why should the distant music
and stroking ever end?
Why should it get bigger
and more complicated
only to get smaller again
and simple in the end?
Why travel through so many hard journeys,
isn’t one enough to learn all
there is to be known?
Why turn so many times
and still find one’s self
Floating in bubbles of insubstantial air,
uncertain and ungrounded,
Tossed like autumn leaves
in the speckled sun spots of a winter day?
Why reach out at such cost
against the cushioning of this beautiful body?
Why reach, why move,
why turn, why not give in
And just wait, wait for something to happen,
Something beyond the evidence of the past,
Beyond the place and time of turning,
Beyond the scope of movements
not dreamt of down here
in the bubble space of home?
Home – how often would that
bubble grow and burst
In the years to come; how often would this bubble create and move home and with whom?
And after the moving and travelling
Would he make or she allow another bubble
To grow, somewhere deep inside
and would he or she tell the story
of bubbles past and home’s pictures
in some hologramme image
of us who think now of what
she or he might be like
as they learn to walk and talk
their way across this golden earth?
Robin
The after birth
Part One
There was no midwife to ease
the movement from there to here,
No expert to ease the pain
or mop the blood of birth,
No needles for epidurals,
only the sharp straw,
No sterile packs,
only the sharp straw,
No water bed or pillows,
only the sharp straw
And the smell of the stable.
No consultants to measure
dilation or heart beat,
Only the unmonitoring
wisdom of the ox and ass.
No gentle mozart music
to relax each contraction,
only the natural noise of the animals
and the silence of the stars
music of the celestial spheres
unheard and too far away –
the trumpets of the angels,
silently golden only on Christmas cards.
No perfumes from the east or givenci,
only the smell of the stable,
No midwife to manage the transition,
to turn your head in the right direction
to unblock the incarnation
through the birth canal of history
in the pelvis of creation,
No midwife to reassure your mother,
to stich her up and stop the blood.
No one to teach how to latch on correctly
as she waited for the milk to flow.
Part two
There was no midwife to ease
the movement from here to there,
No expert to ease the pain
or mop the blood of dying,
No needles for anaesthesia,
only the sharp nails,
No drips to hydrate,
only the splinters of wood,
No kingly adornment,
only the crown of thorns,
No soothing sip,
only the gall to drink.
No comforters or counsellors,
priests or nurses to provide palliative care,
only the soldiers who mocked
and the crowd who wanted a show.
No gentle music to ease your passing,
only the rupturing cracks of the earthquake
and the bellowing, biting wind.
No perfumed gifts from the east,
only the smell of death to breathe.
No one to manage the transition,
to turn you in the right direction
with words of hope and promise,
only your head turned in the direction
of the thief with a promise of
whispered paradise.
No one to reassure your mother,
to stop the bleeding of her heart,
only those who watched
the tears flow and then unlatched
you down from the cross
to wrap you in your last swadling clothes
and lay you in the cold manger of the cave,
There to break the membrane of death,
To burst the waters of fear,
To move down deeper,
down into the darkest cul de sac
and there, here, eveywhere,
float free in the grip of hell,
the after birth of living,
the birth after death
for Adam and for Eve
and all their sons and daughters.
Robin Morrison December 19th 2007.
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