https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/user-198-u668857 en 2005-2012 shakespearesmonekys@gmail.com 42.65593 -71.33391 Mon, 08 Jun 2026 21:10:22 GMT yacs http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 70 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13277-at-the-hospial https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13277-at-the-hospial Limbo-land, halfway house where past and future disconnect; a place of wheeled-in beds and bed-ridden age full of bleeps and tubes and monitors. And waiting for nurses, waiting for visitors waiting for lost dignity to return; a place of moans and mops and closing curtains and strangers with gloved hands; and frail bodies murmuring to nobody. A timeless place were day and night drip by in a daze of formless thought, were the hardy brave a zimmer-frame and the weak are levered into wheelchairs like wrinkled children devoid of joy. Our visit punctuates the stale hours with proffered grapes and chocolate. ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:38:45 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13277 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13277 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13277 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13276-at-the-hospital https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13276-at-the-hospital Limbo-land, halfway house where past and future disconnect; a place of wheeled-in beds and bed-ridden age full of bleeps and tubes and monitors. And waiting for nurses, waiting for visitors waiting for lost dignity to return; a place of moans and mops and closing curtains and strangers with gloved hands; and frail bodies murmuring to nobody. A timeless place were day and night drip by in a daze of formless thought, were the hardy brave a zimmer-frame and the weak are levered into wheelchairs like wrinkled children devoid of joy. Our visit punctuates the stale hours with proffered grapes and chocolate. ... more u668857 Threads Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:30:21 GMT /section-802-threads#comments 1 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13276 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13276 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13276 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13238-iceberg https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13238-iceberg 15th April 1912 - 100th Anniversary u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Mon, 16 Apr 2012 22:11:18 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13238 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13238 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13238 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13209-travels https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13209-travels Our travelling days - that trip to Heidelberg - atop the Kohnigstuhl funicular, snow-cold skies cutting like an iceberg; while far below, along the river Neckar, it's Spring. I frame the ahlte-bruke, snap your blushing pink and hint of black lace. And then that drunk who spoils the Leinpfad: "I make you angry," he grunts with florid face. Or KillyGordon - you ensconced in a field beside the river, picnic-snug and reading, while I'm upstream intent with rod and reel. Until the farmer hails his evening greeting, concerned about the bull, with looks askance - "Honest, Love. I wouldn't take the chance". ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Tue, 14 Feb 2012 01:14:51 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13209 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13209 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13209 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13208-chemistry https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13208-chemistry Lithium or Ritalin or something 'xazid, or 'azole - intensifies a lover, accentuates a smile; will out the spirit, overwhelm the wary new-comer and make a summer of wondrous inhibition. Or was it love's own chemical snare - dopamine, serotonin, vasopressin - that dilated our star-struck stare? Yet something more to this cocktail of want, our raison d'etre of desire: the void extant. My late night boozed-up returns to aching emptiness, and your yawning vista of stark Sundays in little rooms. How ripe we were for hoping, clasping, falling.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:16:00 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13208 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13208 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13208 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13202-valentine https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13202-valentine I'd pluck a red red rose for you to cynically deride; buy perfumed scents to thrill your nose before you snort and set aside. I'd write you sonnets spilling tears for stolen summers, vanished days, to make you mock and block your ears, denying foolish memories. I'd kiss your lips to cure their curse but strangers do not tender kisses: innured to spite, for better for worse we masquerade as Mr and Mrs. u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:13:21 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13202 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13202 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13202 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13154-waking-tomorrow https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13154-waking-tomorrow Waking in this bed, you stir beyond my reach; no arm can span the frozen sheet that gapes between us; waking each to each we lie alone and hear the ice retreat. Your glacial shoulder, your permafrost skin is bitter wasteland. Habitual Winter numbs our waking; these barren days of pallid suns solidify the freezing seas that churn within. A thousand miles away you check the time. Another ice-age day resumes. I turn to sleep and warm my Arctic dreams with ancient sunshine: the light of fiery summers we failed to keep.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:37:07 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13154 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13154 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13154 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13137-a-wee-dram https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13137-a-wee-dram “The Gainsborough” Victorian pub, Strand road: engraved windows, mahogany, brass rail, gilt edges. A late-morning sparseness and subdued hum as the old man ushers me in. A brief banter about under-age admission, the old boy quips his excuses, ordering beer and a whiskey chaser. Cornered in a snug under the smoked-window, the traffic-loud exterior fades. He's keen to make things easy - no fuss, no trespass, just an out-take from the hurly-burly going on outside. His “just one snifter” slips away and then he's up again, bar-bright, gibber-loud, firing wit at early locals. ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:34:24 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13137 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13137 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13137 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13072-family-man https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13072-family-man  I find myself admiring the pen rather than words, its variegated casement or nib-flow; and this backlit screen of electronic wizardry: I ponder its fonts and textual functionality. I'm all for analysis these days: deconstruction, modelling, proto-typing. My triumphs are financial reconciliation, home economics, savvy investment. I can understand why the old man was prone to talk over my teenage melodies; pass comment on vocal style or production rather than sit until the music moved. I prefer parkland to moors now. Seldom stray from paths. Have forgotten the sad starry gutters. Find the suburbs soothing. Prune roses. Moderate and mediate. Abandon my bloody outbursts. I grow politic, vigilant for any advantage. I've bitten my tongue. Unclenched my fists. Knuckled down. Faced facts. Stiffened my resolve within a weathered skin. So I can watch my children dance. Be content. Clap-happy at their antics. It's not denial but containment: some utterly fierce and final beauty must surely still lurk beneath it all just prohibited and inappropriate: for their sake I learn to drip-feed love; sure and slow-burning, I self-regulate by measured degrees my relative truth, custodian now of the sweet bird of youth - kindling old flames to fire the future, doused by a new-found ocean of tears. ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:37:00 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 10 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13072 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13072 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13072 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13060-splitting https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-13060-splitting A smug relief to hear he might be cheating: not me; not us; not yet. We had our doubts when she dissembled at the Resident's Meeting, concocting "business trips" for his whereabouts. They lose; we win. Is this how you compare? Perhaps, if us, you’d merely mouth good riddance, resigned, relieved; too cold to have a care; your "C'est la vie" a last indifference. But if you did ask why, I’d sigh the need to fabricate a time - a distant day some random summer hence; when meeting, we’d be strangers struck beside a river, say, or under parkland trees; amazed to find our lost beginning shock us into rewind.  ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:42:10 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 10 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/13060 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/13060 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A13060 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12927-two-in-a-boat https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12927-two-in-a-boat Two seagulls front a gaping moon Apollo-big over Erne’s wide horizon; their soundless drift rounds its pitted rim. The lough calms to a lapping slick, shifts and shimmers to first-stars ringed by trout sucking spent gnats.   Anomalous moon! Such facial proximity is too close and clear in the pallid blue. No fish or the wrong fish snatch our lines. We wait for lost connection, essential depth beneath the brazen waves. Only a perch’s dorsal ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Tue, 19 Jul 2011 22:14:34 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12927 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12927 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12927 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12618-hampstead https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12618-hampstead   Halos punctuate the gloom - Victorian lampposts recede into fog, the stillness thickens.   Am I the street-ghost? half-heard footfalls disturbing silence?   The cold closes in, shrouding Georgian Terraces, Victorian Mansions.   Am I lost in time? seeing gig-lamps corner the gloom from a horse-drawn tilbury, sensing the clop and snort of a phantom phaeton. ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:01:28 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12618 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12618 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12618 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12445-place-names https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12445-place-names Through Derrygonnely and Glenasheevar to Navar; from Magho clear skies to Slieve League. Is that Cuilcagh I ask ? Shall we go to Inish Samer ? Glencreawan was a summer trickle. At Meemameen the wind was a knife, so all day we fished Achork. But we're far from Ardlough and Fincairn; Scalp and Eskaheen are hidden by the Blue Stacks. What's in a name: a rose by any other rose... But remember the woods at Ardmore and lost roads through Kilnappy and Gortree and Gorticross.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:02:09 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12445 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12445 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12445 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12412-song-bird https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12412-song-bird The robin sings, poppy-breasted in leaf light - a moment of sky warbling is an out-take of quiet air before the traffic's drowning blare. But if you topped a fairy glade above the murmur of blue bells still your song would stall and fade: you're a beady-eyed killer full-throated, bloody-breasted, piercing the breeze with beautiful threats. I know your many guises: the shining valleys of discontent, the face of heaven darting fire. Beauty is not truth: ephemeral, the lie of ages; we are ever Time's agitators building motorways through Eden.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 13 May 2010 23:36:02 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12412 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12412 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12412 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12407-return https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12407-return The sky has pricked its cloudy finger: look where a tear of blood beads the nettle leaf. It takes a puncture to sigh release. Look where fork-tails scythe the air, their silent homecomings lift like prayer. u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 06 May 2010 23:01:30 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12407 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12407 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12407 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12395-thorpe-park https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12395-thorpe-park Is it because we are potted plants in Acacia Gardens, a little green lung on the manicured streets, when what churns, core-deep, is molten desire, the lion-loud dark of wildebeest and veldt? Is this what drives the theme at Thorpe Park: the gut-wrenching rides of “SAW”, “Colossus” and “Nemesis Inferno”? That stomach-pit haul and thrust of corkscrew madness, clunk and gust of everything spun into oneness, the serenity of annihilation when now is all or nothing. I've adapted to this roller coaster. Life's little cart, chain-pulled into position then accelerating, through the nursery and spilled down the school-corridor, shunting and jolting through familial swerves, to the apex of love and floating free of cares before plummeting on the down-draft of disillusion, breathless and panting up expectation's thrilling groove only to spill again and again on the turning waves- cresting and burning on the sparks of our rails. All my loves, your faces sublime at momentary peaks, let me caress our balancing instant, pause to touch the sky cradling your cheeks and wind-washed hair before we descend into rushing hours, on-the-turn, bottoming-out of a strained ephemeral intensity, aligning to the drag of chains, contained, shrunk. Gravity is mortgaged bricks and mortar; sleepless nights and nappy-filled bins; a tired bedroom's cold-shoulder - until we rise again, weightless and alive to each other.    ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:31:57 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12395 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12395 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12395 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12382-interlude https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12382-interlude   Supine on the sofa, a propped slob, glued to the box, snuggled down, cushioned by fluff and passive smoke from the old boy's roll-ups. It gets too hot in the airless room, a slow fug exhaled, ingested. Stained fingers clang the tobacco tin; he gets chatty with coffee and rizlas. I'm a stay-at-home deterrent, a passive watchdog, cloistered, dour and docile, comfortably ensconced - he'll stay dry and housebound while I laze out the evening: 70s sit-coms, "Alias Smith and Jones", kettle whir from the kitchen, fire-raking and shoveling coal; till home-coming laughter outside announces her return, and she's back with fish supper and meat pie, and we're scrambling for plates and salt. Three sweats and that marker is useless; Joker Finley won a line; the snowball's carried over again; what are we watching? She'll sit a while then retire with Mills and Boon. He puts on the OU after midnight- mathematical models, atomic structures. I hear whispered footfalls before sleep, the street shouts in the night, snoring, foxes, late cars, lamppost light ghosting the curtains. I dream I am at home, will wake to a smoker's cough and the clink of milk bottles, while tomorrow starts another yesterday.     ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:16:50 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12382 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12382 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12382 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12381-the-morning-after https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12381-the-morning-after This knife inside your head is called remorse: O God it won't come out! and reaching up to stem the pain, your nausea's growing worse. You reach and retch again. God make it stop! It ends in bilious drool; you moan and curse, and vow you'll never drink another drop. And then a dawning fuzz of the night before: broken glass and reckless flailing arms in sudden sordid brawls; the boozy blur of fists in heated moments; drunken storms that flare and die in meaningless furor and leave you nursing self-imagined harms. Or worse: a violated aftermath of crumpled sheets and forceful pressing weight, insistent half-imagined hands and breath on disadvantaged stupor, late at night. And now this morning's stab of guilt and growing wrath - O God turn back the clock for time inviolate!   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sat, 10 Apr 2010 21:21:25 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12381 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12381 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12381 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12379-easter https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12379-easter In faithless years the growing doubts dismiss the meaning of my father's father's son- though greater love hath no man than this. I betray heart-felt delusion with a Judas kiss in a comfortless zone of three-score and ten faithless years when growing doubts dismiss. For logic dictates redemption is ridiculous: a sin-obsessed dream from earliest dawn though greater love hath no man than this. It rained this Easter's walk of witness. We stopped to look before moving on through faithless years when growing doubts dismiss. And as they sang beneath a cold cross I was struck by deep waves of being human for greater love hath no man than this. For a moment some paradox of human holiness restored the God of Love in Man in faithless years when growing doubts dismiss that greater love hath no man than this.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sat, 03 Apr 2010 02:09:15 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12379 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12379 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12379 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12373-at-bewl-water https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12373-at-bewl-water I am in the garden of oast houses, late Spring and Spring late this year- a slate-grey day of slanting rain. I could do with drying-out like the hops they smoke-dried inside those conical evaporators coiling to the apex of a cowl. Kent is a sponge today. I squelch through pummeled mud, looking for soft hours in the hard rain- uncertain and alive again; like a man on the verge of sex, primed with wet anticipation, filled with the stir and flap of gusts. This is Bewl Water in the High Weald, and I am free for a day, glad for the grey vista of hope. I am a fisherman again, looping coils through fingering thrills, whipping lines in muscling air. Let rain slash the curtained sky, sheet the billowing wind, infiltrate my skin and bone - this old connection thrums the blood, shocks the split sinew when the sunk line volts the moment; slits a throbbing frantic wire pulsing from flashing bloated depths up calamitous nerve-endings. I live this dying struggle: each boil and churn ignites my torpor at the rushing centre of now.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sat, 27 Mar 2010 23:58:38 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12373 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12373 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12373 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12251-ecosystem https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12251-ecosystem Such a glut of rudd in Enagh lough back then: a swung blob of dough, seconds under, would dip the float, mouthed by a flash of bronze sheering from the shoal. Red-finned with scales like finger nails, the rudd bait-balled in opaque depths, thickening shelves and shallows, bulging and glimmering, ever-ready for hooking till our heaving keep-net bent to the bloated sag of their out-of-water weight. Days of rudd and rippling rings in endless evenings, the whisper of first stars on flat calms   through the fading light of home-comings. But some random winter gave rise to change: small fry at first, incremental slashings, till the fat Pike of Time gorged away our plenty. Now Enagh is empty depths where monsters lurk, devouring each other in a fury of moments. I cast my line into shifting shoals of ghosts.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sun, 17 Jan 2010 10:31:12 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12251 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12251 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12251 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12243-snowfall https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12243-snowfall feather and fall in whisps and whisper down in floating filigree hushing the muted night with swan-white ghost-white wonder all mazy and parachuting fluff muffling with icy flecks the spiralling dark melt on the tongue of barking fox and soften the owl’s star-striking talon blanket the frozen moon with a dusting of sighs falter and fall in feathers again whispering drifts of flotsam down the vast and silent shores of night lie out in the far fields and lonely roads and powder dark rivers in glacial repose cover the sullen suburbs and quiet churchyards indulge the drab towns with metamorphosis let us wake to childhood again make first footprints in Eden’s lustre   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:45:20 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 6 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12243 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12243 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12243 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12237-bushy-park https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12237-bushy-park Wurlitzer and carousel softened the night while people shoaled on the milky ice-rink:  a circling interweave of darting blades whooping at muffled slips and spills. We stayed beyond dusk into dark to retrace our path into Bushy Park where night seized us in icy talons, an owlish moon blinked through drifting wisps. And the baby cried in her pushchair to see the Dog Star's frozen snarl while Orion stabbed the savage air  through a black blanket shrouding the car. O we were glad to clunk shut its doors, deny the fanged ice snapping at heels,   cave-safe from sabre-toothed night chilling the bone with ancestral darkness. Glad to edge homewards through the trees headlamping murk with full beams - when the deer broke cover to bolt the road, sprung from peripheral vision into sudden illuminated impact, muscling the night with jolting panic, brown-fur rippling in full flight  giving form to limitless black. How we shuddered to a halt snatching at something alive at the edge of shadows half-caught - a surge of sinew ripping the moonlight.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Wed, 30 Dec 2009 11:05:45 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12237 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12237 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12237 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12225-sore-loser https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12225-sore-loser There's too many bards on the poxy roads anyway. It's just a bloody money-spinner. Failed with three mistakes: undue hesitancy at that roundabout - bollocks! If I'd carried on we'd have needed that handbrake stop. It's just a con! I steered my perfect verse round the corner - he's talking total crap; and my three-point turn was no worse than any other sonnet. Who's he to sit in judgement? Deciding who'll pass or not on some official whim as he sees fit. I did everything right, remembered the lot. It's always too high - that raised bar - for would-be poets learning to drive their car.     ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:57:34 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12225 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12225 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12225 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12223-river https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12223-river Your speckled bed - a thrush’s breast your warbling rivulets - descanting shallows your flow's prismatic splatter - a baptism of light your burble under alders- a garbled lullaby confabulate your song - I'll ford its melody a thrum of summer stars glide through rills visionary water prophesy the parting seas my swallow-thoughts return to you in Summer's dappled dance and Autumn's yellow drift.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:13:09 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12223 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12223 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12223 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12208-inhalation https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12208-inhalation At the top of stairs or entering a doorway; in the blink of a flowering hour you can fall through flowers, you can lose the illusion of now; tongue the memory of a girl’s mouth as walls dissolve around you by the inadvertent bloom of a kiss; and there you are again: pressed-up against Cheryl Long under the link-house in the dark delirium of fumbling night; swallowing the tang of sherbet, your mouth full of flowers flushed with a surfeit of breath only to be flung gasping back to now.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:49:51 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12208 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12208 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12208 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12206-man-of-the-house https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12206-man-of-the-house When I’d “got up a bit” I was to “soon sort him out”; and being one of the street, was eager to prove a hard man, hiding my tender nights. I was to put him to bed when he showed up, check if he’d have any money on him, play the reluctant warden, strip-searcher embarrassed by his effrontery, pocketing his pockets for her. I was to hit him – “go on then, don’t just talk” - when Friday nights were full of fists; and I did, egged-on as I was: a moment’s sudden cuff; one smack and stupid smirk provoked to prove my worth. But though he was hateful to ear and eye (this usurping Mr. Hyde) – the sense of boundaries over-stepped was more disturbing still, had me mouthing “never agains” almost as sincerely false as his broken record of promised abstinence in passing mornings of remorse.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sun, 13 Dec 2009 23:21:24 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 7 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12206 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12206 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12206 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12189-montage-for-freddie-5-september-1946-24-november-1991 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12189-montage-for-freddie-5-september-1946-24-november-1991 I've paid my dues, I've taken my bows, Nothing really matters any way the wind blows. Mother Mercury, look what they've done to me, Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality. These are the days of our lives, They've flown in the swiftness of time. Inside in the dark I'm aching to be free Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality. If there were time in all the world, Outside the dawn is breaking, but each time I grow old. Bring it back, bring it back, don't take it away from me, Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality. Believe me, life goes on and on and on, Forgive me when I ask you where do I belong. Nothing really matters, any one can see, Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sat, 28 Nov 2009 02:20:38 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12189 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12189 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12189 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12184-story-at-a-wake https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12184-story-at-a-wake At my father's wake I was happy with the crowds except when it was hushed for the eulogies too little too late though I choked back grief the pity and silence made my knees buckle so I slammed a surface for support afterwards his old cousin shared a memory in a doorway children playing in summer fields the barley standing hot swallow-skimmed and clicking with insects the elder clan raucous and holy sunday-gathered in the house above Maggie Murphy's six hen-pecking aunts and their suited-men with braces but up the top field it was all laughter and sunlight jam-jars and butterflies and I can see the hot wind fanning down the fields a high wide sky stretched out to Inishowen over Eskaheen and Greenan and the children dance in the heat till they drop in their circles and the August afternoon thickens to a stillness of birdsong and hymn-singing from the house it was late tea-time when they all started asking for him hunting out rooms and out-houses till they followed the children up to the top field going golden in the low sun and there they found him asleep in the careless ground left out to blister under God's heaven gone astray even then too little too late burnt into this old man's boy-memory and now into mine.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:06:36 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 2 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12184 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12184 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12184 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12174-resurgence https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12174-resurgence Though by day the angels dance in time's relentless thrust, a random night of fog and frost disturbs what happened once. The buried moon uplifts again through dormant depths of weight; from tender wounds of waking pain the sleeping hurts reverberate: a gauze of lips, the breath of stars,  a mist of sacred thorns - I ache with ancient scars, I flame from timeless burns.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:06:34 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12174 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12174 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12174 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12151-the-yonder-hills-for-gj https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12151-the-yonder-hills-for-gj If only here again, old hand, without the cars and jobs and wives; back to where the sky meets land; back to starting out our lives. Let blackthorn pierce, let clouds reveal the yonder hills of high Lisneal  Och away, come on away, for timeless hills and ancient lanes abide when nothing else will stay: here's fields and farms and slanting rains; here's wine-like air to drink and heal from yonder hills of high Lisneal. Ardlough, Fincairn, old Kilfennan, the sun-lit river's bright forever: did we but know we breathed a heaven before the knives of time would sever. If only here when years conceal the yonder hills of high Lisneal.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:01:09 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12151 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12151 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12151 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12114-belief https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12114-belief Tussock and root earth us hugging ground in undergrowth; tented by bole and bark beneath a gauze of leaf-light. A sibilant wind-hush and the river's blabber ease us into waiting for visionary tug or pull. Johnny and me supine in our snug gap of riverbank divining the unseen salmon from quivering rod-tip. I create its reality from conjecture, a pure sensing. Incredulous you all astonishment to see me strike into weight: behold the cutting line, surface boil and glinting swirl. Old friend of my lost faith, if only I could part the seas again.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:03:12 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12114 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12114 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12114 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12109-man-down https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12109-man-down Argyle street curving downhill- one long bend of red-bricked terrace from top-end pub, past Bernie's shop, down to Sissy's house. I'm off the afternoon bus, in step with my youth and sunlight  when I see a man down- grey raincoat mid-road set down in some dead-zone demanding to be noticed.   The empty street averts its frontage, dogs refuse to sniff, no coal-lorry comes to wake the houses. "Man Down!" the body shouts unmoving as I side-step away from him. "Here I am - Man Down. Notice how I fall from grace." But the street is knowing, will not pander to weakness shutting doors with a bible's thump. And I skirt around denial, a no-good Samaritan side-stepping the issue. "Man Down" your silence shouts over-turning my deaf ears all these years later. How we demonized your profligacy. Invented wild threats of breaking and entering. Sissy demonstrated the heavy bolts behind the outer door that night, promised no admittance from the street, no allowance for prodigal sons. But when I woke next morning, there you were again - man down, somehow asleep beside me and all the clocks ticking soundly.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:20:57 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12109 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12109 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12109 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12044-first-impressions https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12044-first-impressions That printed photograph of you in leotard astride the gym - if not quite false was hardly true, suggesting someone fit and slim enjoying life and working out- no sign of flab or thick-rimmed specs; no sign of tiredness or doubt behind that promised hint of sex. Your adoration knew no bounds and sugared me with winning smiles; in fairness though I gave you grounds to think me flush with minted piles: that mansion flat by Richmond bridge with stucco walls and fleur-de-lis- it wasn't mine, I wasn't rich, despite the wine and gallantry. But so what if sycophantic guise pretended we were god and goddess: uncoil my tongue, believe my lies; for one more shining day be spotless.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:26:04 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12044 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12044 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12044 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12019-how-do-i-love-you https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-12019-how-do-i-love-you (Apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning) u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:27:48 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/12019 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/12019 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A12019 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11991-disclosure https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11991-disclosure The day done, long and blustery as a winter strand, now the snug sofa held you, knees drawn-up in fetal repose. The womb-room settled into silence while coffee-cupped hands gestured a sort of prayer- and then you began to disclose:   like a tidal surge stirring-up submerged and restless obsession - how she grew cold and sullen, pre-occupied and quick to snap at mis-judged faults; how soaring bills frequented the letterbox day after day demanding payment, explanations, ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:23:14 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11991 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11991 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11991 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11964-dumb-show https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11964-dumb-show It only happens in the movies- a dying lover clasped upon expiry. I spoof it up - an actress dies on celluloid with such dramatic irony  to make it false, aloof; so if he must disclose her dying I can disbelieve the proof, I can carry on denying the picture reel in my head, its 2AM scene climactic, mounting to farewell whispers on the bed, surreal in his recounting. No, no - not really matter-of-fact as fantasy drama, unimaginable - Did he rehearse this final act, long expecting the inevitable? And when does the ending end? When he brushes aside her hair, re-folds her arms, descends the breathless, dream-like stair to falter lines down the telephone. Lights. Camera. Action - my outtake plays for years after they're gone - her hand in his - unreal, fake.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Sun, 11 Oct 2009 08:51:52 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 4 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11964 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11964 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11964 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11938-penton-hook-lock https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11938-penton-hook-lock The Lady Tegan moored, then Heloise, securing lines from head and stern to wait alongside bollards fixed to narrow quays. September - conkers stuck to rusty trees with Autumn holding back and Summer late. So someone suns on deck with panama hat and tinted glasses tilted back at ease. Hydraulics moan and creak the closing gates- a final clang and shudder locks the lock; and then an in-between of parakeets atop the chestnuts, water lapping slack while slowly dropping down on surface slick, exposing algae walls and sunken leats, re-surfaced green and dripping brick. From towpath passing by the lock-keeper's house, a pause of swirling leaves and flotsam trails; the afternoon adjusts in quiet intervals to birdsong, meadow grass and grazing horse; until, at last, the lower gate reveals the waiting river's long-reaching course- and then the steering through on even keels. ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Tue, 22 Sep 2009 20:44:40 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11938 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11938 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11938 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11928-daddy-s-back https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11928-daddy-s-back World-weary, work-weary, home-returner, tholing the day's long sigh. Umbra to your sun explode my burden, my half-hearted arrival; inject my dark with light, your sun-rush of joy a bright miracle of smiles.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:34:57 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11928 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11928 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11928 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11926-st-paul-s-cathedral https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11926-st-paul-s-cathedral Gilt not guilt, colonnade and font, vertical air vaulting through organ music, the cassock swished by milling throngs. More Saul than Paul, I stay below your veiled and whispering ascension; crick and tilt expectantly to recognize your simple waving climbing still the concave light whose distant apex winks the eye of God. Far below, I'm sunk like marble blinking back the Light of the World, indifferent to geometric stone, undoing old Donne's words - Every man is an Island; Death be proud, for thou art mighty and dreadful; The Damascus road outside is uneventful traffic and no-one asks for whom the bell tolls.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:50:35 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 2 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11926 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11926 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11926 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11867-pruning https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11867-pruning Bramley's ripe for gravity's thump, hanging hard and pendulous, thud from hacked boughs -  I'm cutting back, inviting light to wash the window-wide murk. Wasps suck the fallen shriveled globs of wrinkled rot. Ripe with purpose, ladder-high, I chop through leafy summers. It's the pricking holly that stings though I recall her apple pie topped with cut-out leaves of pastry.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:11:00 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11867 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11867 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11867 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11826-meeting https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11826-meeting The glug and slop of undermining waves at Sharkham Point - a sounding interface where far-off fathoms surge to coastal shelves and bloat St. Mary’s bay with tidal race. The keening cries of gulls are razor blades that edge and echo out to churning sea. I know this in-between, where flesh and blood and restless winds contend for supremacy. The folded swallow perched on telegraph line mythologizes summer - ruffled azure, poppy-throated, skimmer of ancient Nile - you visit me with voices; almost bizarre to chirp in close-up. Inside my cage I cut the starry winds before we disengage.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:51:00 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 3 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11826 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11826 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11826 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11387-lost-children https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11387-lost-children When my father talked of his sister, not my aunt, I knew that time had shifted. I was now an interim: another child reclaimed the years that went; the child he failed to leave behind - in memoriam of Eden's endless easy light; Elysium before, not after, life's bitter coliseum. Dare we admit this favourite? Golden girls will come and go and take their tender gifts, to leave us lastly harping back to firsts, before the weddings, cots, the seals and rifts. Aging to boyhood, we seek the river's reverence: a dance of gnats, lost glints of rippled gold, a home beneath the trailing sky's beneficence; we youngsters leave our children growing old.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Tue, 05 May 2009 09:36:35 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11387 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11387 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11387 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11366-the-incredible-hulk https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11366-the-incredible-hulk The tight winding of unreleased spring; a balloon before it bursts; the agitated wasp’s incisive sting; the welling spume of Vesuvius, Krakatoa. An accumulation of hurts; final constriction of the Boa; a straw-laden camel’s broken back; no flight but fight’s unleashed attack. The red-eyed blowing boiler. A roaring boy! The tanked-up spoiler! Surging bile from black abyss, the stabbing tongue’s bitter hiss. Mindless by-pass of thoughtful sanity, electric as the pulsing eel, short-circuiting humanity, Shouting! Shouting the fires you feel! u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Fri, 01 May 2009 12:41:53 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11366 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11366 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11366 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11160-respite https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11160-respite When the river turns to ink, oiled and slick, glazed with a rose-pink, syrup-thick film of floating sky; when the furious hours abate, all artifice recedes, all lies disintegrate and silence stills the reeds. What then can signify under the careless stars in this momentary quietus? I heal my scars by twilight's soft hiatus. u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:28:47 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11160 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11160 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11160 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11159-bicycle-in-august https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11159-bicycle-in-august The cow could jump over it - a runaway dish, buttock big hugging the tree-lined horizon - I harvest this lunasa moon. Spitting midges on the towpath; cycling through intermittent puffs; up the moon-river, my wind-rush flickers down the evening hush. Through a sudden midge-cloud I clear a memory: the setting of a timeless sun, and light forever on far fields, and Sammy Livingston, top-heavy, thick-set with thigh waders swaying through the swallows up the Carrig-a-Brigi; his rod and creel shoulder-strung, slow pedalling in the fullness of time all the evening long; while vast reaches of endless sky vault beyond Scalp and Eskaheen in a moment's unbearable distance.   ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:27:46 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11159 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11159 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11159 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11158-cardiac https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11158-cardiac   Once I made an ocean with my heart to swim and fathom forth, and pound my surf against the shores.   Then I made a fist with my heart to beat my rib-caged bones with bruising bare-knuckled hits.   Then I made a clinker with my heart, burnt-out and crusted cold, brittle and bitter in its ash-pan.   Now I make a flower with my heart ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:26:20 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11158 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11158 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11158 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11157-fabric https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11157-fabric No ghosts to garner lost beliefs - just failing feelings, unfelt griefs. The tree of life has yellow leaves; the cells of heaven break apart and atomise the dormant moon. I fail to feel what died too soon - confetti falls like fading stars while gutters plash the wedding cars. I pin the cushioned days with twigs of hope that strain to snap. Our half-lies are half-lived that tinkle in the chiming wind their hollow notes of sounding brass.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:25:23 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11157 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11157 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11157 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11156-mind-the-time https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11156-mind-the-time The snug and chimney corner, cosy pints, a hum to soothe the numbing senses; and proximity, fire-lit connection, an easy banter, relaxed and ready wit in beer-bright frothy confabulation, conspiring with words to sing our acts. More power to your elbow, bright boys; the long ago and much ado enthusing us with airy matter - not so much the doing as the talking up what's done. Get another round of hyperbole in, a few chasers of dreams, snifters of hope. Recounting fish in a beer-bright lake when the reeds danced like willowy girls in and out of flickering time; and in between the spit and sawdust, announcing we were there, witness-sure.  ... more u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:23:44 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11156 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11156 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11156 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11155-permafrost https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/article-11155-permafrost In my wolvish tundra pick away the ice. I am abominable, a yeti in numb snow; my glacial ice-flow grinds and packs hard. Discover my hidden seal-pup when polar claw hauls it up. Its death will be an afterbirth dragged across the savage snow; gobbet for the polar bear whose dog-breath steams the air. Cut a hole in me and fish my innards out; use a narwhal's tusk or sabre-toothed walrus.   u668857 The Personal Space of U668857 Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:21:07 GMT /section-449-the-personal-space-of-u668857#comments 0 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/post.php/article/11155 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/comments/feed.php/article/11155 https://dev.shakespearesmonkeys.com/links/trackback.php?anchor=article%3A11155