Wandering

 

I took a train to see the world.

Each station brought me something new:

An angle never seen before,

A chance of colour, shape and sound.

 

I don’t suppose you saw me go:

Just couldn’t see the world like that,

Just couldn’t see the grey old dust

As tracks which led to somewhere grand.

 

I took the train and saw the sky.

You’d never know the blue I saw.

A destination never holds

The freedom of a wandering heart.

 

I don’t suppose you missed me much:

For after all, to you I’m dust.

 

 

This poem was written as a response to the photograph by artist Cheryl Garner. It is part of an on-going journey.

The photographs, with poems, can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.co.uk/category/vicarious-journeys/

the work of Cheryl Garner can be found at:

http://cherylgarner.squarespace.com/

 

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Passengers

 

So who is there to hear our sighs?

Our tears will go unnoticed here,

And we will pass, as angels pass:

Unseen and in the end, unloved.

 

And who will take this track with us?

Another lonely soul who sits

And traces light on passing clouds,

With nothing left to lose or win.

 

And we will fill out hollow eyes

With all the dust which fell from stars.

And we will cling on to the hope

That someone here will share our weight.

 

So who is there to dream of us,

To hold our hand, to make this stop?

 

 

This poem was written as a response to the photograph by artist Cheryl Garner. It is part of an on-going journey.

The photographs, with poems, can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.co.uk/category/vicarious-journeys/

the work of Cheryl Garner can be found at:

http://cherylgarner.squarespace.com/

 

Reflection

 

In you he finds the space to be,

So obvious for all to see.

You sit together on the seats:

You’re sharing thoughts, not needing words.

 

I watch you, wonder if you know,

And wonder if you’re growing cold.

He’s gazing down upon your hands:

You know he is: he often does.

 

And then, I’ve gone a step too far:

Not you, but me I’m reading here.

You catch my eye, then look away.

He only needs to touch your hands.

 

The thoughts pass on, the words have gone:

The two of us are miles apart.

 

 

This poem was written as a response to the photograph by artist Cheryl Garner. It is part of an on-going journey.

The photographs, with poems, can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.co.uk/category/vicarious-journeys/

the work of Cheryl Garner can be found at:

http://cherylgarner.squarespace.com/

There is (No Like)

 

The thoughts are drops which form and roll,

Are watched a while like birds or breath,

Like everything that they are not.

Within themselves there is no “like”.

 

To journey and become again.

To be a thought amongst the thoughts.

To pass beyond all hope and loss.

To be the emptiness of thought.

 

When nothing is the world, there is

In golden light, in umber night,

In waveforms scattered out: there is

No space but space, no time but time.

 

There is a thought which rolls and forms:

A single drop of all there is.

 

This poem was written as a response to the photograph by artist Cheryl Garner. It is part of an on-going journey.

The photographs, with poems, can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.co.uk/category/vicarious-journeys/

the work of Cheryl Garner can be found at:

http://cherylgarner.squarespace.com/

 

Flight

 

And into air I spin and twist:

I never knew my scattered world

This high, this bright, this burning light.

And down below they swirl in blue.

 

The forests and the fields, they flow.

Their dizzy hearts, their green and grey

Are fading out, escaping from

The boxes and the traps we built.

 

And here, I hang on cirrus lines,

On eddies at the edge of space,

In jouissance, in points beyond

The passing earth and all it was.

 

It slips away: a distant star,

A point of light in boundless light.

 

 

This poem was written as a response to the photograph by artist Cheryl Garner. It is part of an on-going journey.

The photographs, with poems, can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.co.uk/category/vicarious-journeys/

the work of Cheryl Garner can be found at:

http://cherylgarner.squarespace.com/

 

Train Leaving

 

That lost, bewildered look she loved:

So why, today, was he a wreck?

“Forget the night”, she said again.

They fell in drops about her feet,

 

Those heavy tears, they fell inside.

She made her smile for one last time:

It formed a line about her lips

Which wasn’t there the day before.

 

The first he knew she’d walked away,

A rueful cast upon her frown.

So there he stood, alone and cold:

He wished he’d worn a better shirt.

 

He wished he had a clever line.

The platform span and she was gone.

 

 

This poem was written as a response to the photograph by artist Cheryl Garner. It is part of an on-going journey.

The photographs, with poems, can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.co.uk/category/vicarious-journeys/

the work of Cheryl Garner can be found at:

http://cherylgarner.squarespace.com/

Between Stations

 

I sit between points A and B,

And watch the rooks begin to roll,

Across the fields, all scattered leaves.

We pass them by, they fill my mind,

 

With thoughts of wings and freer things.

We journey by the forest track

And see the beech and maple turn,

With golden branches trailed in shade.

 

And yesterday will come again,

With all the love and hope alive,

And none of this will then have been,

And we would take a different train.

 

I sit between points A and B,

I close my eyes and feel life pass.

 

 

This poem was written as a response to the photograph by artist Cheryl Garner. It is part of an on-going journey.

The photographs, with poems, can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.co.uk/category/vicarious-journeys/

the work of Cheryl Garner can be found at:

http://cherylgarner.squarespace.com/

 

Commuters

 

I’ll see her standing in the rain.
The place, the time: they never change.
She hugs her bag in front of her,
Her toes are on the yellow line.

It’s rare to see her raise her head.
On days like this her hair is wet
And darker than its usual brown.
She stares on to the tracks, unmoved.

For years we’ve shared the same routine:
She stands, I wait – anticipate
Her being there, existing there –
A confirmation of our lives,

And how our lives are drifting by.
Her toes are on the yellow line.

 

This poem was written as a response to the photograph by artist Cheryl Garner. It is part of an on-going collaboration.

The photographs, with poems, can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.co.uk/category/vicarious-journeys/

the work of Cheryl Garner can be found at:

http://cherylgarner.squarespace.com/

 

Broken

 

He broke his journey on that day.

No reason why, no thought before,

He simply picked his bag and left,

Four stops before the usual place.

 

And still without a question raised

He left the station, walked into

The town whose name he’d always seen

But never thought a real place.

 

He wandered on without a goal,

Just looking at the streets and shops,

And people on their way to work,

And none of it made any sense.

 

He stopped and stared up at the sky.

Same sky, same day: different life.

 

This poem was written as a response to the photograph by artist Cheryl Garner. It is part of an on-going collaboration.

The photographs, with poems, can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.co.uk/category/vicarious-journeys/

the work of Cheryl Garner can be found at:

http://cherylgarner.squarespace.com/

 

Soliloquy

 

The light was dreaming for the swans:

A morning mist, an autumn drift,

For necks to lift and court their kiss.

I wonder how I’ll break the news.

 

The leaves beneath my feet were soft,

But dry despite the time of year:

It could have been the perfect walk.

We are apart – so nothing’s changed.

 

I close my eyes and count to ten,

And nothing’s changed: it never will,

No matter how you try to hide.

This train pulls further from that past.

 

And closer to the end of things.

Oh god: the beauty of those swans.

 

This poem was written as a response to the photograph by artist Cheryl Garner. It is part of an on-going collaboration.

The photographs, with poems, can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.co.uk/category/vicarious-journeys/

the work of Cheryl Garner can be found at:

http://cherylgarner.squarespace.com/

 

Thought Sky

 

She had a thought: that sky was true,

That sky was blue as eyes, as deep

As weeping in a loveless home:

Not cold, but crystalline it shone.

 

She had a thought: those lines were meant

As purpose, point and route to run,

Another means to fake escape,

Until the next direction pulled.

 

She had a thought: of someone trapped

As everybody else was trapped,

But who would see her questions asked,

By fists she formed as stations passed.

 

Her music played, the sky was sky,

She had a thought and let it die.

 

 

This poem was written as a response to the photograph by artist Cheryl Garner. It is part of an on-going collaboration.

The photographs, with poems, can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.co.uk/category/vicarious-journeys/

the work of Cheryl Garner can be found at:

http://cherylgarner.squarespace.com/

 

Terminus

 

And so it seems this all must end

In blue and gold and shattered glass,

In metal coils around the throats

Of mottled lives between the cracks.

 

What route I took I just don’t know,

It seemed so long and hardly changed:

No matter how, the rains will fall,

The storm will come and I will fall.

 

I have no questions left to ask.

Explosions in the sky can pass,

Explosions take my eyes and pass,

Explosions bring this to its end.

 

The summer lost its heart to me,

But I was cold and told it so.

 

 

This poem was written as a response to the photograph by artist Cheryl Garner. It is part of an on-going collaboration.

The photographs, with poems, can be found at:

www.thecheesewolf.co.uk/category/vicarious-journeys/

the work of Cheryl Garner can be found at:

http://cherylgarner.squarespace.com/

 

Transhumance

 

Above the tree line of the soul,

Where air is thin and minds can float,

She sparks her memory, speaks her loss.

She moves through pastures draped in blooms.

 

And there she lives her ghostly life,

She watches shadows cast on clouds

Which gather on the valley floor.

She knows the turn and flow of things.

 

But further up, beyond her gaze,

The bells of cattle ring the peaks,

The gentians stain the petaled sky,

The crystals carve the rainbow’s curve.

 

Her soul awaits the season’s change,

With buttermilk and waterfalls.

 

Stepping Out

 

The dress was blue and never aged.

She dropped it on and felt its cool

The same as on the autumn day

She bought the dress, without his say,

 

Her week revolved around these streets:

Her home, her walk, her week of work,

The wall which held a wagtail’s nest,

The ruts on pavements, worn by years.

 

She passed his parent’s former house:

The new folk kept the garden neat.

She passed the chapel, then the pub.

She felt the village watch her walk.

 

He never said he liked the dress:

Or if he did, she didn’t hear.

 

The Shepherdess

 

Beneath a sky of stars and moths

She trails her light through olive groves.

And silences the nightingales.

The stars are stilled, the moon is dimmed.

 

Her breathing draws the warmth from earth,

Her feet float soft as owl’s wings,

She leaves no trace, she makes no mark:

This is her world, this is her night

 

She walks amongst her sleeping flock:

They twitch and flick, but barely move.

They trust her, breathe as one with her,

She guides their dreams to mountain pasts.

 

She is the shepherdess of souls,

Across the streams of Epirus.

 

Belfast City (Airport Lounge)

 

There’s nothing here that’s left to say.

The street sides reek of other worlds.

An emptiness envelops us:

The bars are full, the hilltops dark.

 

There’s space between the cranes and stars:

A pile of other people’s trades,

So high it greets the tourist jets

With soulful songs of loss and regret.

 

The shops are full, the eyes are down.

I’ll walk a slightly longer route.

I don’t – and never will – belong.

I left and didn’t add a word.

 

The sun’s the same: it lights the glass

Of windows up The Falls to Whiterock.

 

 

 

First Born

 

Before the writing on the rock,

Had scratched the miracles away,

Before the clay had stamped its songs,

Before creation raised the seas,

 

Before the ignorance of Greece,

Before Tibetan chants of death,

Before the worthless wars of Rome,

Before the Dreamtime thought to dream.

 

A child began its cry for life,

Like every other cry at night.

Her cries rebounded through the hills,

And echoed up beyond the skies.

 

Her father had a cheating mind.

Her mother screamed and broke the ground.

 

The Knowledge

 

A nettle soaked could set a curd,

And burrs could wrap the butter pack.

A copper pan could spoil the taste.

For sixty years she’d made these notes.

 

The life within, the voice without,

The cream and structure, rind and heart,

The village and its changeless ways:

For sixty years she rose above.

 

The young she helped and coaxed on through

The mysteries, rituals, places, times –

Between the ageing racks and shelves –

For sixty years, traversed the gaps.

 

Her hands are supple, soft and strong:

They play her secrets like a song.

 

 

 

The Next in Line

 

She waited for the perfect age,

When all the edges fell away,

And language came to mean much more

Than angry taunts and lines in sand.

 

She waited for the smile to grow

Into a subtle arch of peace,

Until the skin had formed and filled,

Until the dresses calmed and flowed.

 

She waited, as she always did,

And when she moved it made such sense:

Her daughter would begin to learn

The secret silences she’d borne.

 

And so began her long decline,

And so began her future’s rise.

 

The Silent Keeper

 

She held her breath and life whirled round:

It blasted, blew and buffeted,

But somehow, silent, she stood still,

As if untouched, she stayed her voice.

 

Within, she held the secret tales,

And slow, she acted out their ways,

And slow, she carried on the lives,

Of all the slow and silent ones.

 

And all the rest just passed her by,

Ignored her quiet, hopeful words.

They lived so quick they barely lived.

They spoke so fast they made no sense.

 

When she breathed out, all history bent,

But no-one saw their world whirl round.