Samhain

A Spell for Saboteurs

The Hunter’s Moon is never discreet; that

night it was was lofty, sanguine, rather like

my mood.  I joined them after sunset below

the rowan tree; white witches, saboteurs,

moongazing together beneath the moon’s

penumbra. As their spells were cast, their plaited

tresses and the moon shone with a reddish

hue, the brilliance befitting their eclipsed

emotions, the sacred craft of Wicca

no illusion. The only darkening

on our souls were the murderers of  badgers

and other beasts: hare, deer, fox, rabbit, pheasant,

and other such game for evil players,

chasers, slayers, cullers, shooters, all with

a sickening lust for the bloodiest kill.

They sensed my presence, I stayed softly in

the shadows knowing Evil, for once, was

beaten, banished by the light, so that only

goodness prevailed on this night of heightened magic.

Cait O’Connor

Perfect Day Lou Reed

Lou Reed RIP

The Journey

THE JOURNEY

Sometimes everything
has to be
enscribed across ...
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.
 

 David Whyte
From The Journey: in ‘River Flow:
New and Selected Poems’

Dave King In Memoriam

Dave King

In Memoriam

19  - 2013

http://picsandpoems.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 

Dave King, who sadly died this month was a truly great poet, a brave and caring man who is sorely missed by all who knew him.   He followed my blog for many years. He was a great inspiration to fellow writers; he cared, he always had a kind word.  He wrote until the end.

I was too upset to do so when I heard that he had passed but I am now working on a poem in his memory.   Meanwhile, here is one which I wrote about him not that long ago, I was unaware of his illness at that time but I had been really affected by a poem that he had written.


Shadows


There are many writers in cyberspace;
words flow like a proverbial, perpetual fountain
but one poet- soul, a wise one,
who weaves his words with skill and feeling, said
that the shadows racing over sand were
thoughts that the land is having. I marvelled
at what seemed to me a revelation
for I live amidst mountains and am often
found watching shadows as they cross, soft-hued,
quiet and tender, covering and changing
the landscape in their wake, from dark to light,
from light to dark and back to light again.
Now I imagine the land’s emotions:
the wind is its anger, the sun is its
benevolence, the breeze a tease, the snow 
its strong urge to hibernate and always,
always I shall see the rain as its tears.
From a penumbra in the poet’s mind,
something ghostly, insubstantial, half-glimpsed
and half-hidden, just an inkling of an idea
became pure poetry,transformed itself
and flew on a journey to me, through space,
reaching my mountainous place from the sea
inspiring me, from those thought-shadows in the sand.



Cait O’Connor


I shall think of Dave now whenever I see the passing of shadows; God rest him.

The poem below, Meeting the Dreamer is just one of  Dave King's poems, I shall post more of my favourites written by him soon. His talent was amazing, every poem he wrote was 'different' but still carried his own unique voice.

Meeting the Dreamer

They call me the dreamer, he said,
I having asked him who he was
who'd burst upon my idle time above the tide line,
lost among the marram grass and sand dunes,
watching the sea-whipped waves play in the bay.
Strange boy: man's body, girlish face that now
and then would greatly age and then be young again;
and covered head to toe in moths and dragon flies
that when the face changed would fly off
to form a cloud that followed him -- or was it her?
No answer ever came in all the years we met.

Why do they call you that? I asked.
That's not high science, sir, he said.
Because I dream! I am the one
that has dreamed you and put you in
this dream time and dream place. I gave you
what you're pleased to call your life.
I thought about this deeply for a moment as I watched
the moths and dragonflies dance lightly on the waves.
Then: I'm just a figment in your dream?
I asked. He nodded his assent. And yet, he said, We were great friends before I dreamed you here.


Dave King
http://picsandpoems.blogspot.co.uk/


I am sure that Dave is at peace now, having moved on ahead of us, and that he is still dreaming and creating somewhere,

Grief - a poem for National Poetry Day (theme is water).

 

Grief

Once upon a  time she could fly, if only in her dreams

but loss has rendered her both wingless and limbless

so she can hardly place one foot before the other, let alone fly.

Left  stranded  in an unreal world, inhabited

by people who could shoot a creature, an idea or a

flying dream to smithereens. There is so much they do not understand:

her passion for the kind, half-heartedness of mountain rain,

a  need for its gentleness and the solitude it gives.

Her habit of watching clouds which often seem to match her moods,

or do her moods match theirs, either swift and moving, bright with hope,

or wraithed in greyness, wretchedness and constant changeability?

All she can do  is stand on the edge of the golden strand,

gain some healing from the silver crystals of the sea

and wait and watch and wonder at the the waywardness of  waves.

Not  trying to be brave,  just still and quiet;

persistent, unflinching and private,

rather like her tears.

 

Cait O’Connor

 

For National Poetry Day

I am a little late, I apologise.

 

Seamus Heaney, reading his poem 'Digging'

 

God rest his soul.