Monday, January 27, 2014

Poetry of a Schizophrenic

POETRY OF A SCHIZOPHRENIC
A Book of Poetry

Paul Fearne







The dust of silent heart beats


              a draw bridge that gives a path for memories
a lake that contains a water that can cure the sky of its wandering

                   never before
                         has the dew on a fallen tree
been so in tune with the dust of silent heart beats

            [where has the sea left its dreams?]

     the closer the morning comes to the sadness of winter sand dunes
the further the light of evening will yearn for the embrace of a lunar compassion

                       give the ruined abbey
                             the silence that it burns for
                and what you will find
        is a dance on coloured stone
that will give the stillness of a last breath
                               the courage to steel itself
                for one final glimpse
                               at what the world can give


Maybe Now


A dry twig
Resting in the gutter
It saw a year of sunsets
A year of dawns
A hundred birds rested
On its strength
A hatchling made
Its first tentative steps
Along it
And into the world
Millions of beads of water
Saw a storm depart
From its reaching limbs
Maybe now
It will come home




A thousand


I never thought
that sunlight
would be so thick
as to drown the evening
in its own restless clawing

there are chances
and bright stars
that the daylight cannot hide
there are songs
that take the breathing of dreams
to let wander over sea shells

a corner
in a room
that a thousand children have been taught in
in that corner
a thousand tears have been shed
and each tear
upon hitting the floor
has given birth to a thousand dreams
a thousand new cities
a thousand works of art
untold marriages
and untold books

and when the tears have dried
and the cities have turned to dust
the art picked by wingless time
the marriages gone to a thousand generations
and the books to mere ideas
I will sing a new song
and it will be more lovely
than our hopes could bare
and it will be for you
and our children
and the wishing of the sun


That distant place


close to the heart of things
there is a sound
it is the sound of a sparrow
as it builds a nest
it is the sound of a wave
breaking on a deserted beach
it is the sound of you and me
as we search once again
for that distant place
that we knew as children
and have never seen again





Never thought possible


Announcing
to all who have gathered
that time is not enough
to contain what awaits

I am swinging
from a piece of my childhood blanket
the motion eases my restlessness
and gives to the willing
a more considered calm

             there are niceties
                    which cannot be explained
               they trap the air in lungs
       and banish love to some other place

I am waiting
for I don’t know what
I am holding
something which dims the corners of the world
and in these passings of time
there is white snow
as it holds the ground for acceptance

        I will travel with you
                and hold your camellias
      (picked with such tenderness)
                       I can hear their dreaming
              as if it was my own

I can sometimes be forgiven
(but mostly not)
for wandering into places
that are only for fire
and all that can be contained
by rascals who lay bare
their sleep
to passengers in night

hold on
there will be one more stop
and at this destination
a gathering of gulls
will wind back the multitude
of Sundays
that help us gather once again
       for the forward motion
                 that we never thought possible




Disappearing sleep


standing on a pedestal that is covered in tangled vines
my wayward voice
finds time
to walk its way to evening water
     that has fallen from places
              that are not for those
who seek comfort in times of tempest spark

(a little semblance of darkened respite
burrows into the seeming loss which guides our dance)

last night
the ties that bind our disappearing sleep
to threads of woven travesty
were given to long fought for rambling steps
          that lead the seeking walker
                   to moss and all that love will give

and here
where the dire and the weeping
cast their net in seas made from whispering sighs
a glow will coat the things we thought
were hidden from kings and queens of furthest realms
and in their finding
a larger picture will emerge
it will be of mountains and valleys
whose robust wanderlust
          will still the wind-struck trees
                in their ancient motion
and give to dreams and lost stars in morning light
what characterises the depth of our combined story
and that is hope
and clarity
in something that wraps our final parting
        past death
              and into what is most dear 




Nothing left to hold



open doors
that lead nowhere

mist on morning walks

I have felt
what fingers in times of flight have felt
and that is ease
at what has gone before
and what will be again

                   new insistences
        that take away our breath
            I have savoured your reticence
                     and now I will have it forever

a song is all I ask
a song to take me back
to where it all started
and where it will end

                there is life in these limits
          it drips as blood on ocean floors
                              it will hold us
                     when there is nothing left to hold

a wish
that the air gives to the lungs
is buried in a tomb
that has known a thousand visitors
they stop
to tell their children
that rain will never cease

I have often felt
that what gives the stones
of ancient citadels
more excuse
than anything else
to while away untold hours
        is the sound of your voice
               when it touches my heart   





A Golden Leaf



a lake
            hides the silence
that lies between us
                        the morning light
washes over us
            and lifts the veil
from before our eyes


come closer you say
            but I am not here
                        I walk
in the back of a lost garden
            that has been shrouded
in a mist of our making
                       

dew coats your tongue
            as you speak of love
                        a fire
closes the door
            on our crying
you have always been by my side
            it is as if
            the dawn
holds my shyness
            and has covered it
                        in a golden leaf



The Ghosts of Moonlight Shadows


an ancient tomb
that cradles a home for butterflies
it breathes
as the light of centuries
washes over its dust
footprints lead from its entrance
they are left by the ghosts of moonlight shadows
as they dance through the porticoes
wheeling and diving
like the embers of a forgotten fire
that once lit the world
but now
only dream of silence
and the frayed tapestries of twilight



Sonnet of Air


like a sonnet of air
            the moon drips blood
and spills its veins
                        into a condition of lightness


a memory of you
            carefully balances itself
                        in the middle
of something deeper


before I shout
to save you
            a gentle tenderness
                        stills my need
to end the wishing
            and begin the tears
                        I have long held back



The mirror that holds us tight


there can never be a time
when the masquerades
of a thousand balls
are enough
to quell what it is
that keeps the snake breathing

I love what it is
that we take to be our love
it will be like a blister
in the midday sun
and here
where the tendrils of deliverance
are right in the midst of things
there will come a new form of delight
it will be enough
to let our shallow hearts
beat once again
and be enough
to drag us away from the mirror
that holds us so tight 


Whisked Away



a single heartbeat is heard
amongst the remnants of distant hills
last night
a caravan
of cries in the night
travelled through these hills
they heard this heartbeat
and whisked it away
under the stars they hid it
and never once thought
to let it dream
of another mist
another silent dawn


When motion is the only thing left


there is something I should tell you
and that is
that when the dawn has no life left
here I will find you

this is nothing other
than desperation
as she winds in silk
amongst the embers of the day
and when the travelling has ceased
from this to that
there will come a rejoicing
before we can even believe it

come now
we must not be afraid
we must continue on
until the sand will no longer move
and the stars are stationary in their orbit
this is my promise to you
that you will never find me in motion
when motion
is the only thing left 



A mackerel sky


A gateway decorated with the carvings of dreams
A city that no one has yet seen
make-believe curls through the air
as a statue knows it will live forever

contained in this glass
is the sleep of the world
it rests as a dust
that has seen your slow reticence
it hears what the wind has never heard
the echo of our breathing
as it rises on the smoke of forever

feel the distance between the mackerel sky
and the hills
it carries us further than we could hope

and into what awaits


Vers libre

We are in a house near the coast
It is midnight
I am watching television
She who wanders with me
Through this strange life
Is asleep
In the distance
I hear that plangent sound
The sea
I walk to the car
Almost unconsciously
And drive
I reach Thunder Point
I get out of the car
And look

Far out to sea
An electrical storm
Is moving towards the shore
(Closer)
I felt what they felt
Centuries ago
The sublime

The mass steadily moves closer
Sparking
Water meets water
I wait

And then back to the car
Back to home
Into bed
And slowly to sleep




Quartet of shadows


Beading water on a spray of hyacinth
cold on the ground

when silence blankets itself within our yearning
a fire will cry for its soul
as mist and treasured pendants
             cross the land of your dreams

what was once a wasteland
is now a string quartet of shadows
that plays the music
the sun thought was lost to the centuries

when daylight reminds the players
that happiness is a pause between moments
a clatter of pulse-beats course through your veins
       (they are the echoes of times past
                  and everything an hour-glass can hold)



Hear the Echo of Forever



A large oak hides my searching.  A butterfly catches the spray of the sea.  A pigeon carries a message that we have long forgotten.  Hear the echo of forever.  It drips with dew.  Hear the sounds that a feather makes as it writes the first word.  I thought I would never see you again.  And now you are here.  What is there but memories?  What is there but the red afterglow of the sun as it beats on our silence?  Never has the moonlight been so far from us.  Never has the shade that covers us been so distant.  A stone tablet holds the secret that will guide us home.  An ancient book, whose pages are like dust, and whose spine is as old as these hills, will guard all the seafarers from their dangerous task.  As the temperature drops, we cover ourselves in leaves.  They will shield us.  They will help fight the bitter cold.  And when we are done with all this, a winter wind will grab our pleasures and whisk them to a place that only the birds have ever known about.


Sea Shells

 


Clear morning, clear heart.  Sounds that make the mist snake around your lonely eyes.  Sight that can see forever.  A messenger that travels through the rain to give you my message.  Hunger that is satiated.  A noise in an abandoned abbey that says the mouse has found something to eat.  A child that is cradled by a loving mother.  I know you will never leave.  I know you will never leave.  Hope that the sky will take our ashes.  Living in the knowledge that the sea is our friend, and the seashells that cover our path are our guides.  I pick one and listen.  In this sound is my life.  In this sound is the most beautiful companionship.  It echoes all those lost people that we will never see again.  It brings us home to rest, for a time.  May the golden penumbra of your love never stop shinning.  May your joy reach up and grasp the icicles from under my reluctance.  May you find what you are looking for.  May you find what you are looking for.



Like never before


wisp
wisp
fly to other shores

whittled
like never before

be still
I will find you

be still
there is something more

in times of need
distance is there
     in times of want
         stray cats will strike

a happening
we knew would not last
is washed up on rocks
that hide their roughness from the world

where are you?
where are you?

I can only think
you are lost in desert sands
       I can only touch you
             when rest is here

I will never know
what has kept you from me

hinting and guessing
hinting and guessing

there is a lava flow
that can never stop
it is me
when rain is all that is left
rain
and windows that never sleep
      
I need
us
to stumble into light
       and tell the dark
           what we never have


Rumbling


there is something in the grass
as it waves in windy ease
it placates the rumbling of our walking
       and gives steel to embers in darkness

only time
can heal the worn out travelling
that light does to keep the peace
only time
will bury what it is
    that keeps the whispering sea
          close to your heart

a vacant expanse
whirls in dreaming splendour
it holds the cities we thought were dead
        and gone to ash

my hope 
is that what we need
to lift the sand that smoothers the day
will appear once again
so that the sun
will shine on our combined wandering
with a greater force
and a simpler need
to guard us from the vines of love
          that block our desperation


What we have always wanted


a sense
that we all have
that the daylight is a thief
as the time between moments
is what the scorching of the sun will take

and when we are through
I will have it all
and then
when the dance is done
and nothing can escape us
there will be a foraging
in the oldest places
we will find ancient manuscripts
and know them to be new
and then
when the darkness has left us without sight
I will forge a new path to the sea
            and we will come to know
                   what we have always wanted


Near at hand



What we can never understand
is what the seething mist will reveal
when the tendrils of our love have finished
and the dance of the twilight is at an end

come now
the silence we hear in everything
is what keeps us barking
and what will be
will have been
in this mighty travelling
that levels all that surrounds us
and which has never been able
to be comprehended

I am like the wind
because when the sun is at its zenith
there will sit a new need
to chase away the cobwebs
that are spun by spiders of the eternal
and return to most what we are like
when the distance of the stars
is near at hand 



Caught in the lamplight


           a sail on a boat that has nowhere to go
    two feathers on a moss covered rock

                  where the trees meet the sky
your kneeling is a supplication to forever
         and when the life we have both led
is caught in a lamplight that knows only itself
                 rain will come down
       and wash the courage from our reach

     a gentle evening of tea and conversation
         gives the noise of our thumping hearts
more than what happiness can bring

               when I have heard your last breath
I will chase the stars for what they owe to the morning light
and I will give new listening to the chatter of winter lullabies

     when the snow has forgotten your passing
             you will live forever
        in my most precious sight
   [when I look to the dawn
          and all the sails
                    of all the ships
     that have sailed the wandering sea]


Never found again



a river that flows with the trappings of time
an eclipse of the sun that drips the dreams of tomorrow

in the middle of a lake of mist
the echoed silence of times forgotten
sing with the breath of what may have been

                      hold me close
                              for in the morning
             the vines that cover this antique cabinet
will forgive the dust that marks the passing of each day

what is here now
is a forgery of hoped for lullabies
that will guide these reckless autumn leaves
              to a place
                      that will never be found again


Where salamanders dream their ancient dreams


I know that what has kept you chained to this summer heat
             is not enough to let the listening our hearts do
      climb once again to the top of everything

                      I want what you want
            I desire to be cast in the stiffest bronze
                 until the breath I breathe
     cannot hear its own echo

                           love
and the chance to gather what we never could before
            keep me running up that hill
      running to the darkest part of tomorrow
where salamanders dream their ancient dreams
                          and rocks of forgetfulness
                    lull all there is
           into boundless oceans
                            boundless hearts


So that we may never rest

what we want
is never here
what we have
is always here
and when the night
is like the wind
here
we will sing again
and know he harvest to be a blessing
and the tempest
which spars our ruin
to be a ghost
that trails on the weather
as a harbinger
that delivers its bequest
to the stars themselves
       and then back again
              so that we may never rest


The fire of the twilight

there comes a time
when the sails that shield us
are what we most need
this is a truth
we no longer have the time for
but that is what the sight
of our ancestors
has always known
to be what the dance is most like
and be the treasure
of all that it is
keeping the dawn dancing
on arrows made of silk
and fingers made of cobweb

I will come for you
willows of regret
and we will be something
that has belief as its corner stone
and something that the fire
of the twilight
will be more remiss
to let go of


The smell of smoke


what is this?
the tempest that buries all around her
I have seen her face
in twinkling sand
     I have smelt her smoke
          under bowers of night

when can I have my sight
returned to me in bags of gold?
when can I sit at ease
without the scars of untimely adventures?

in the winter
homes build fires out of wastelands
they warm the need we have
to swim amongst the embers of life

give the world what it wants
and you will have a gift
        give the wind what it needs
              and solace will be yours

I am sitting here
where sand is mistaken for air
where blueberries
hang from stable doors
inside
the horses that dull our dreams
are taking a simple rest
      they will rear again
          when time and chance are right


The neverness that holds us tight


                    tomorrow
      [light and the dreams of silence]

when happiness       is the last thing
                   that these tears have seen
       it is as if the river of your yearning
has forged a new path        to the sea

             silence (yes) silence
      and winnowing regret

the oneiric sound of feathers      in the night
            will help us shed our nervousness
      [and let the moisture of a desert oasis
 seep in between the fire of the sun
           and the neverness that holds us tight]


What the Clouds Will No Longer Let Us Hear


Silence that carries with it all our hopes.  A boat in the distance is about to carry us away.  The hours pass so that I cannot tell who you are.  I cry but there are no tears.  I shout but there is only stillness.  Hearing in this place is like a breeze in the sky.  Laughter as if I had forgotten your name.  In our need to stay young, we have forgotten the moon.  In our most disinterested moment, we catch a glimpse of the sun as it rallies our inspiration to go beyond itself and into a lost forest.  I hear you.  I hear you.  I take your need to throw stones at the sky as a sort of investment.  You are investing in the need to grow and cover yourself in the light of tomorrow as it dances on our fears.  Love. Love.  And a need to hear what the clouds will no longer let us hear.  There is nothing left, only the wind.



Fragments


a seat
in the middle of nowhere
on it
rest dreams
and the wanderings of lamplight

I have felt
in the middle of deepest winter
all the fragments of the sun
    as they dance on lonely wings
          that fly to furthest destinations

in time
to a drum beat
that only the stillness of regret
can ever reach
I will find the nothingness that drags us downward
and I will raise it
       like distances that seek no shelter

there is a place
between the sea
and my heart
that even the most daring
would seek to avoid
and here
where storms blow in tight anger
      I will find birdsong
          and know it to be clam

a sure sign
that the breath of all our longing
has made its way to the stars
is that merriment has come
to those who have felt only wandering sorrow
and who now
wish for nothing more
than light
in darkest vaults
     (and tears
            in dead of night)



All we have


a carousel
that children have never played on
a lyrebird
      that only hopes for home

there is time now
to rest on soft sheets
action has passed
    and the wandering of clouds
            will only fill us with dread

a safety
          that hourglasses never hold
                 will unfurl itself
       from rooftops wrought with unease

I can hear
what it is
that sends letters to welcoming hands
it has nowhere left to go
and nothing left to sing for

there is dirt
       that cushions our fall
                  it makes a mud where we land
             that will never release us

a certain hush
greets the hands of sailors
as they hoist a final sail
      before land break steels them

what is left of our worry
now that roads are drained of ice
what can we do now
but quickly sleep
and let the eating we used to do
        climb itself to a new view
              that will hold all we have 



Once again


               rain on the sea
  treasures that time has stolen
         an antique glove
      holds the hopes I have long carried
I gather up all the reminiscing we have done
          and scatter it through the clouds

a laughing stallion paws the ground
upon which the night rests its tenacity

   a watch that eternity has forgotten
             ticks its last
and the crow that carries my heart
     calls out
       for another touch of forever
and another
        close call with the wind
    as it bends us all
to the soft and tender ground
              once again



The Dust of All There Is



                  the lamplight kisses your reluctance
as the dreams of all the memories that have become lost
       silence the moving wind

         what was cast in bronze by the night sky
has come to define the edges of a forgotten manuscript
                           its gold leaf
                cradles the dust of all there is

      when the empathy of the morning light
                     washes the tears from your eyes
                            a little urn
                (filled with solace)
      will spill to the ground
                          and what will remain
will be the reflection of the clouds
             on the polished marble
of a building that can only be found
                      through a door
           resting between two waves of the sea



Next


Last night
I heard a murmur in the trees
It was the same sound
The dawn makes
A sort of deep creaking
There are other times
We hear this sound
We hear it
When the day ends
And we come home
We hear it
As the kettle is boiling in the morning
We hear it
When the heater is on
And outside it is cold
It is a sound that carries with it
Our simplest hopes
As they peer beyond us
And into what is next



Never Melt


A light filters into this room.  It tells us that the time to leave has gone.  It tells us that the only thing left to do is hurry to the shores of the nearest lake, and skip stones along the surface.  A breeze whistles past the longing that brought us to this place.  A stillness surrenders itself to the last tree in a lost forest.  A healing hand wipes the sweat from before our eyes.  Now the trees in this valley are catching the dreams of birds as the travel to the great beyond.  Now the snow in the centre of my heart will never melt.  It will only lift me up so I can see the newness of your face.  The scent of this moment travels through the ages and never seems to wrinkle.  Life in the darkness of another December moon.  I have thought many times that when the sun had set for the last time it would sing a song – one we had already heard a million times, form the moment of our birth to the moment of our death, and every moment that fell in the between spaces of this journey.  Satellites of despair are swept away until our dance can once again gather up the crying that each seagull does for the home that it can no longer see.  The ocean is rough, the wind a stranger in the night.  Coldness blocks our path so that silence can longer rock us to sleep.  But despite this, we rise once again for another step onto the dance floor.


Another Lost Castle

 

A rainbow reaches for the safety of tomorrow.  Neverness dreams of another lost castle.  An iris opens to the dawn.  We thought we had lost our way.  We only knew that the way home was hidden by mist.  We only knew that the silence between two blades of grass would comfort us.  In the net cast by a lonely fisherman the cries of a thousand lives vanish.  Come closer to this forgetting.  Grasp it like a heart that has never been broken.  Grasp it as if the life we led was truly stable.  A mosquito draws blood and lives.  A stained glass window thinks that the morning is a time for rejoicing.  Music runs through these halls as a dancer draws their partner near.  Sometimes there is only silence.  Sometimes.


A Wind Catches the Branches



a cloud of seeking
            bends itself
onto the world’s envelope
                        in desperation
a wind catches the branches
            of all our hearts
unnervingly
            and with a compassion
                        that we thought
had long ago
            vanished
                        from the world


never again
will a draught of nightingales
            keep us still
nor sing
            with quite
the same sweetness
                        that they did
before
before
we had lost it all



The distance between raindrops



complicit in my silence
are the tears that tomorrow will shed
I know
that in the distance between
this raindrop
and another
there is something that binds us
it calls from the cloud
that gave life to both
it cradles the very fibres
of what we once were
and tells us
that in the morning
what we thought were tears in the sky
are a sun-shower
and the black clouds behind
will only serve
to make us think
that what we see
is beautiful



A Splintered Silence



The splintered silence
We have longed maintained
Breaks
And shatters itself
Without even a whisper
A breath carries it away
And sends it home
A sparrow sees it
And tells the story of it
To her young children
Weaving it into the nest
And giving it a kiss
It is left to be alone
It suffers no pain
And is simply free
To be as it likes
And live again

Not before too long at least



Orphée


          what the world has forgotten
    is that distance is a play of light
and that the treasure of a moonlit firefly
         is not enough
    to bring the underworld to life
                   here we learn from Orpheus
who has grasped at the air that clothes nothingness
  and said to those who wish to censure the sky
             ‘we will have no more
 of what the sea has spared from its beaches’
                                and then
   when the listening the end of the day does
                 is itself at an end
        a new tomorrow will paint itself
in the nectar of what we hold most dear 




Stained Glass


a hand clutches at a moss covered branch
   it searches for something to rest on
   
a noise in the abbey
      sends a mouse scurrying
it is the sound the dawn makes
as it meets the stained glass

     a nervous twitching
gathers in the trees
it is a pining for tomorrow
and all the silences that it will bring




Before they have even breathed


Hold the happiness we had
as a wine between your lips
cover the passing of each day
      as a lyrebird does the forest floor

there was once a music
that held in its embrace
all the whispered tears of night
it crashed as a wave on trembling shores
     and sent sparks and fiery embers
           into times of fiercest battle

what is close to my youth
is a march of swollen after-thoughts
they sing as a minor bird
         that no longer knows the way

I hope
that in the rapid fall that greets calloused hands
there will be a new resistance
it will peel back what is no more
      and lay bare what is brittle
                    (and in need of heat)

I will lay beside you
as the grass lays beside roots of ancient trees
I will kiss your hand
as day will give in to motion
and what will follow
         will hold a nation
            it will talk
                 and scrape
as seeds on dirt and oily water
and then
no more will be borrowed from our arms
only winter
and shards of what the basket of our former ease
will send toward the morning light
        and back through the thorns that bind
                   our love with bitter footsteps

then
hands will come from breaking echoes
and they will cradle
what it is
that arrows never could
and that is the distance
between
             me
                    and
                          you
and all that we never thought
was ever possible
for an aching treasure burning
and the seamless needs of wandering fireflies
that die
before they have even breathed
          die
before they have even breathed
                 die

before....they....have....even....breathed



The night will come



A rush of what should never be
a glimpse of all that holds us

in the distance
between silk skies
and lonely hearts
windows look onto empty streets
they foretell
    what can only be remembered
         in a light that reveals nothing

why has the wind
buried its chains
despite what is grasped
by the telling of the trees?

a little flutter
of smoke on rose petals
washes the tears from our eyes
         it is a ritual
            that has never known rest

I will cover the crying the night does
in all we have ever wanted
        and then I will hold you
               and sing your favourite song
and whispers will then spill
down backs that bend forever

a drive down to the lake
with simplicity in our ears
will temper the sparks
that fly from worn out places

[there is something I should tell you
and it is what will keep you ticking
when sleep should reign in spades

        I have no soul
             and the night is coming for yours] 

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