THE LOST 1980’s JOURNALS

.   .   .

LOOKING FOR LIFE’S SURPRISES .. .

REMEMBERING VENTNOR 1975 .. .

..

Grey bulging clouds hang like badly drawn curtains

Broken by pinholes of lemon-gold laser light

Whose beams create this epic set

And on the brow of skyline hill

Green-grey and settled

Like some armchair patient

Tripping and dancing into view

Three moorland ponies

Two grey and one like silver foil glinting

Whose mane flickers and falls

.

Then I stood deep in woodland jungle

Shielding my eyes as I searched hopelessly

For the black and red drummer

Whose beak drummed the hollow skins

Of tall, ageless oaks

The brilliant sunlight falling and rising

In tiny motions on the rushing surface

Of the stream which quarelled

As well as babbled below

.

I yawned and stretched 

Where am I and am I really lost 

from all gaze that is not heavenly?

Is this relentless pursuit of honesty fair?

And why, even standing in dawn wind

and seeing nature unclothe its rarest beauty

Why, lost in the solitude of noon-day revelry

Haunted by the strange mystery of a woodpeckers work

Why, when quietly musing and fashioning moving pictures

from rough-hewn syllables and grey-edged words

Why do questions remain? 

.

Was he right who said – ‘Must discontentment reign?’

Or was he deceived by hearts illusions?

The misty dark clouds of reason 

dented by life’s sadnesses and trials

Or can we like mythologies phoenix

with feet as burnished bronze

wings charcoal and feather

hearts burned and fused

beak gold like sovereigns

Can we, lost in life’s metaphor

grope through, firmed by resolve

to say yes, it has been worthwhile!?

For a moment, a flutter, a rush

black, ivory and grey feather

crimson flash on nape of neck

and he is gone!

And I wait to hear that resonating, distant putter

And I am off in search of a black woodpecker again

..

edenbraytoday14.06.1986

..

Authors Note:– I found two old journals of verse that I wrote in the 1980’s during my thirties and even younger and I was struck by their freshness and minimalist naiveté.

I have enjoyed reading them, almost as though they were written by someone else. They speak of aspirations, of faith and hope which is what I believe we all need right now. There is a nice Kerouac naturalness about them too so I’m going to put them here on my site for people to read and make their own mind up about them. Catalogued and Categorised – THE LOST JOURNALS 1980’s

Also, I am reminded of the great wordsmith and troubadour BOB DYLAN, a personal mentor and inspiration to me, who has said that on reading the early songs he wrote back in his twenties from albums like the Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan – that he doesn’t recognise the person who wrote them anymore. Of course Dylan is in fact the supreme enigma and says a lot of stuff but then we all do, don’t we?

We all metamorphosise, evolve in our appearance and the words we use but essentially remain the same. These poems, essays and thoughts were just skimming stones I hurled at eternity’s misty shoreline and in many days I have found them again. A cluster of stones, returned by the tide and left upon the stoney beach. 

Different sizes, colours, shapes, some rough hewn, some smoothed by the eternal sea.

‘ . .. make up your own mind, all the time .. . ‘

.

edenbraytoday