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]