Shut up and listen

I couldn’t have managed all these weeks without the unfailing ego’s of the ever-wise.

Where might I have found myself without the endless invites to self indulgent zoom circle jerks?

I might have simply gone for a walk shut my own self pity down for a while, read something a proper writer wrote.

Just for once shut the fuck up and listened to another voice not quite so in love with itself.

I wish more of us had done that, too late now you all look like the egotistical twats you truly are, damage done.

And the tears that fell were as leaves falling out of season,

in no Earthly Cycle,

for no Human Reason

Yet still they fell and were trampled into time

dull footprints mulching

your memories with mine,

then when Spring time pushes its head above the soil

when new buds bloom that all may be forgot,

We’ll wish away the seasons but know that we cannot.

Is it a bad thing all this death? Making room for something else, shuffle along and don’t block up the hallway please. I’m having a substantial meal later today, my Yorkshire Puddings will be floating on pints of Guinness. I’m socially distancing myself from sanity, it’s comforting to surrender responsibility and to do as I’m told. Holding my partners hand has become an intimate act for which I’m grateful, we could have sex in a public place provided no more than six people are present (does that constitute dogging) can I mitigate it as a necessary act to maintain good mental health? A return to innocent pleasure has heightened my appreciation of intimacy. The sale of “Viagra Connect” has notably dropped in my postcode. Spotify reminded me today of my favourite tunes of 2020, they are a requiem for a lost year, a reflection of woodland walks, of marital breakdown and a flood of tidal booze rising and falling to the sound of the Netflix home page opening. “Rightmove” is now at the top of my Bookmark tabs and I have come to despise estate agents even more than I used to. I haven’t hugged my mum and dad for over a year but to be honest that isn’t such an unusual occurrence, although the imposed restriction has made me realise I should have done it more. Even Bob Dylan got his mojo back and wrote a song like a Psalm…I guess “The times aren’t a-changing” See you on the flip side folks…I’m off for a substantial feed.

A sodden wreath wheels across our gentle path

while scudding clouds like aftermath

chase crows across greyscale skies

that in their bleakness ask us why

both young and old succumb to war

to lay beneath this forest floor

where reverently we softly tread

and whisper praise upon the dead

Then with your hand so firm in mine

among the ruins of our time

I kiss your warm and loving face

with thanks that I can leave this place 

Two chestnut horses beneath a Blackthorn tree

their perfect forms against the sky,

we stopped and watched incuriously

as they no doubt did you and I,

their breathing heavy, their eyes afire,

alert with every sinew flexed,

did spark in us our bright desire

to follow that which we know best.

There is nothing new in any day

that wasn’t there before,

though once a while along the way

there opens up a door,

which through a beam of light might shed

some loving warmth unknown

to take a soul thought long since dead

toward a place called home

In the eaves of this ancient place
nestled in what once grew free

a feathered ball of gods good grace
its eyes plucked out no longer see

and further up toward the nave
sweet Jesus bleeds for you and me

a crown of thorns which Jokers gave
though fashioned from some crueller tree

and here below we raise our eyes
still sighted clear though not as wise

as those now passed and gone before
who closed them dead beyond this door

so what is clearer to be seen
What is to come or what has been?

© Wolfgar 2020

A flower now so open toward The Sun,
unshielded from harm in fleeting perfection

knows not the seed from which it was begun
nor fears the darkening skies that prophesy rejection.

We see that undue power in the faces of the young
who with momentary glory believe it is forever won,

then with that memory captured we hold it close a while
and like a bloom toward the Sun we raise our heads to smile.

© Wolfgar 2020

Beneath horse hair flax a wretched creature stirs,
off the well marched blood stained tracks
beyond the bawdy ale soaked house,
The Scarer wakes with field mouse.

The dust of bones that fell in France
was scattered here to bring advance
to farmers field and heavy plough,
The Dead are churned to feed us now.

A soldiers bastard boy who no Mother ever mourns
another blasted Cannon, another Empire Dawn,
his clapper claps to scare the birds
Each clattered beat drowns out his words.

Across these patchwork Jaded Hills
an echo gently whispers still,
of all the voices never heard
Drowned out by time to scare a bird.

© Wolfgar 2020

Molly’s in the basement
underneath the cement,
I’m on the pavement
thinking about enslavement,
the man with a rope
hammer out, furloughed
says he wants his job back
coughing through a dry hack,
watch out kid
it’s not something you did,
but they’ll be laying you the blame
when they’re doing it again,
you better duck behind the firewall
get yourself a clean name
trade in all your currency
Beat the enemy with a new game.

Get tested, get free
Car Parks now the Surgery,
wait weeks, wait years
Government still grinding gears,
well read, well schooled,
educated, well fooled,
watch out kids don’t fall for it again
they’ll clap you through the Streets
while they obliterate your names
cross here, cross there,
putting crosses everywhere,
no peace, no truth,
all their lies are people-proof,
pick up cleaver, pick up gun,
tear down the rising of their Sun,
wear shades, wear masks,
No answers for that politely asked.

© Wolfgar 2020

A pigeons wing is a useless thing
when all it is is a pigeons wing

The parts that make it swoop and flit
are all the parts that come with it

© Wolfgar 2020

Everything in its precise place

this house feels like a guilty plea
just waiting for a hammer to fall

we shall be taken from here to a place of isolation
suspended in time by a perfectly woven noose of self destruction

All our misdemeanours shall bear witness
in a parade of failure and pitiful bitterness

An internet search will throw up the number
116 123,

“The Book of Job”
too late now the bended Knee

Farewell then it must be, it must be,
death the pendulum that turns the cogs

though even our passing
Won’t stop the clocks.

© Wolfgar 2020

A stone in my Palm,
grass as soft as tail feathers,
trees that paint the sky
where sunbeams cup the bloom of flowers.

In these dreams your face smiles,
in folds of sleep I rest our memories
here the pain retreats to silence,
where tides defy the bone white Moon.

Though I know you are gone to nowhere,
unconscious selfish wanderings will not lasso you back.
Gravity awakens me to birdsong,
I curse the sweetest sounds of day.

© Wolfgar 2020

Not for a wilderness of monkeys
would I trade the shade of this green lung

that from once congealed and filthy foul
have all good creatures come

the canopy cut reveals the scar
the knotted roots of what we are

so better in the shadowed land
are we that in our knowing stand

beneath the blessings gone before
that we might count if nothing more

© Wolfgar 2020

Phones squat like idle frogs on lily pad desks
screensavers roll impatient eyes so unimpressed
the cleaners missed the paper cups
where penicillin grows un-supped
the water coolers sulk forlorn
no whispered love no spat out scorn

When static has no hair to raise
it saves itself for future days
unseen in its electric shroud it wanders
lonely for the crowd
no hills or vales to float on by
pressed up beneath a white tiled sky

And those who parted from this place
the Exodus’d the chosen race
who once beyond the crippling cage
re-found themselves and turned a page
might they retain their hearts that sing
when once again the squat frogs ring

© Wolfgar 2020