Sheighle Birdthistle

Go… and find your own way
Or have adoption if you stay
The screams the hurt all stone
So away from home struggling
I left, so all alone.
My purse all empty but for
Pounds two and twenty
My suitcase with I know not now
My big sister crying do not go.
I was to marry in six weeks
But babies cause funny tweaks
And every day as I was ill
The signs were noted without skill
To understand ‘cause I was young
A new young life had already begun
So my love he came for me he
Traveled fast to take me free
Into his arms where I belong
I left in tears and cried for years
And love that child through many fears
So friends left my life family and kin
Because I broke the status quo
Of marriage first but no one knows
The stress of knowing why they tried
To stop our love and keep me tied
To family and the only way
To be docile and so correct and
Never let outside suspect
That no one could put us apart
A Romeo who loved his Juliette
With all his heart

Walk in the rain feel it cleanse
The tired mind of the past
As sunshine revives the
Truth that is another day
Another year to fulfill the
Joy of living in a happy
Jungle skipping like children
Climbing as cheeky monkeys
Rain down gifts from trees
In this New Year of 2022
Read a book learn a poem
Say hello to a friend and
Kiss goodbye to the past.

My mind is full of nothing
It hurts to think when lonely
The sand likes to take my footprints
And the sea drinks them oblivious
To my sense of being annihilated
By the beauty of rushing water.
Sea, my solace harbors dreams
Dreams of lands that it strokes like
Lovers softly touch the beloved
The waves wrap rocks and hesitate
Gushing back to gather force…
I await the dancing sea
To draw me from my loneliness.

This was even better,
a full stop privacy.

It was there. There,
in the middle of the vineyard

stark in the midday sun.
Like a hangman’s dream

it loomed into her consciousness
taking over her compliant existence.

Her adult life was a quest laid out
by a higher order, or so it seemed.

Lack of control over so many circumstances
and nothing to help.

Her well of ideas floundered every time.
That was one of her problems

lack of freedom to think and find a way
to explain one’s particular existence.

And a way to accept and choose one’s part,
a player in the amazing dramas of life.

Thoughts like these flitted through
her consciousness, escaped and returned.

Who does not search for explanations
the existentialist question about life

and reality of existence, one’s particular life
and the why and wherefore of everything?

Hers was a mind that hungered for answers.
She thought that everyone else had the answers.

She sat under the tree, shaded
by its dark gaunt branches…

she sought trees with this kind
of architectural growth…

a Beckett tree, she privately mused.

Slowly, she drank from the bottle
Clutched tightly, in her tired hand.

She looks out through the windowpane
Sea and sky have blended to one
Yachts moored with tall moaning masts
In the harbor of discontent
Reflect the feel of the nation
And the blasting inertia rains on limbs
As the wealthy prepare to sail.

The sunrise is perfect delight
Sunset is a fire raging mad
Class war is hidden in purple rage
As nations pretend to vote again.

Homeland has first appeal
Until the finite break

The unfiltered air spits
Troubled feelings on me

No weather sun or salt
Desires my reasoning

I long for warm childhood
Theirs and mine long put abed

This bothered place I love
Unfettered criticism

Only binds my music sounds
Of heart and falling tear

As I leave them for France
Always afraid to go.

I broke into your soul and wondered where I was
Dante’s inferno was a rest home in comparison
Colours of your cruelty met me, envy greens of
Jealousy and raw red of anger with the purple
Of rage and the stinging smell of badness engulfed
Me as I shivered and tried to shrive your shadow
What conception birthed a mongrel so gross so lacking?
What is a soul that has no connection to humanity?
I broke into your soul not to heal you nor to understand
The whirling dance that you have ascribed as yours
Is the melting pot dance of all the Devils of Hades
My goodness is eroded by your evil as you contaminate
I broke into your soul to find a devil equal to your hate
There is none

editors note: Do you, once in, attempt to assuage? Or, hightail it the hell out of there? – mh clay

My French friends nurture the empty spaces
Laid bare by malignant ideologies and guns
Young and old, no sorting out of creed or culture
An aged priest of religion gently praising his God
A teddy bear witnessing the child’s life ended.

Music as painkiller, music as memory, scents
And coffee, and croissant crumbling like death
Hot sun blazing on cold bodies breathless
And still we need to make eye contact continuing
The conversation with those with whom our difference
Need never be a death sentence.

Night stalks like common man
with a fisherman’s hat pulled tight
no one talks, as bats scream awake,
They know the consequences of
finding solace in an end game of reaction
of believing in the social media life of others.
Night stalks in all its guises steaming
in sweat filled fields of wild poppies
exciting senses dead to reality
oblivion the only thank you.
The circles closed as carefully cloven
dreams clung to crass Orpheus
and night begins its stalking again.
And again. The ball bounces over
and over as well dressed officials
rule in well lit cabinets. No night
stalks rulers elected or not
Life is a halo ringed existence.
They know nothing about the life
of the fisherman with his hat pulled tight
They know nothing about you and me.
We know that night that stalks.

1.
Such joy being the Spirit of Light!
a new incarnation of the self
sprightly, joyously residing
in a presence full of light and air
and the breath of forgiveness
and everlasting love.
The Spirit of Light dawned on the world
with a wispy gauze of breath
waking Sun who rose above the mountains
and smiled warmly on the Earth.
2.
Trees felt the rising sap and trembled
in anticipation. Butterflies accepted
their existence as birds opened beaks
to receive their daily feed. Flowers
opened their cups and danced their petals
to the humming bee as clouds raced
across blue blue skies never stopping
to dull the golden vista. Amen. Amen.
A paradise waiting to be observed
by the clear eye of the beholder.
3.
And all the earth breathe deeply into the core
of being and awoke singing a hallelujah song
of joy. Deep in earth’s heart, a boy raised his
head and whispered lowly to a girl, his shadow
of delight. They held hands and to the moving
sweep of the wind they swayed sensuously
to the click of the cricket’s music. The Tango
of Life had begun.
Sun shone full on the turquoise ocean
warming its waves that lapped their bodies
as they were cleansed by the healing
waters of calm and serenity.
4.
Gambolling in different levels of ocean
heads submerged or feet barely insisting
their way into the playful shallow trickle of
an ocean that communicated with them
and all other beings nearby and distant.
The ocean spoke to them of longing
of fluidity of mind and cleansed souls
in a world of divinity available to all.
The mighty wind strengthened the quiet
ocean as they wondered at its changing
and they learned that the ocean’s might
was great indeed when joined to the strong wind.
5.
The Spirit of Light smiled on the boy and girl
and curled the sand in the desert far from the ocean.
The sand rose like a whirling dervish and danced
to the exhalation of life and clarity of thought.
About rocks it crackled as cold descended
and split pieces in multiplication. Spirit of Light
moved on letting Shadow enhance the desert
with its stillness. Sound awoke as rocks screamed
out their existence.
6.
Small animals filtered through
the oasis drinking from little pools of water
sparkling in the light of the full moon.
The desert was a lively concert of living things moving to
the music of the cracking rock. Shadow spread
its cloak further and further until it met the
Spirit of the Dark and they embraced.
As Shadow and the Spirit of the Dark touched
silently and gracefully the Spirit of Light took
ease and rest and slipped gently into a sleep
low beneath the horizon. Shadow shook its
edges and left the gentle Spirit of the Dark.

And gently now as sound was still
The Moon Spirit began its slow ascent
into the sombre sky speckled with the
spell of sparkling stars. Reflection gazed
from the setting sun as Moon Spirit became
full of joy and burst forth its light in exaltation
All was at peace in the hands of the gods
The boy and the girl embraced sweetly.