(SR) 7: Whittinghame
WHITTINGHAME
Somewhere out there is another little freak who will love us
& understand us and kiss our three heads and make it all better
Carrie Bradshaw
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WHAT BLEEDS FOR FIVE DAYS & DOES NOT DIE?
She moans about her hormones every second week in four
Goes clattering the cutlery & slamming every door
Like when we yearn’d tranquiltiy, then found a paradise
But she was full of PMT & said, “it’s not THAT nice,”
Yet women are man’s reason, so when swings the pendulum
Put on your safety helmet for the fireworks to come –
She sulks & yells, her belly swells, her paranoia grows,
Now fear the snarling werewolf where you once could smell a rose,
Cos’ women synch up to the moon, thats just the way things are,
So never say “irrational,” or let her drive the car,
& if you feel frustrated in a very vocal war
Letting your lady win will just infuriate her more
But when the fun is over, son, there’s one thing you should do –
Embrace your woman, kiss her lips & whisper, “I love you!”
********
FADING LOVE
Somewhere between August & September
There was a change in Sal, she could not tell
Exactly when – a blend of alter’d vibes
& distances, where once two souls clamp’d shut;
By Halloween her love seem’d lost at sea,
The way she insisted Elsie always
Should bring her boyfriends over for dinner;
Intellectual jousting made her cringe
& who, these days, cares for Proust anyway?
Hearing the thump of jackboots on the stairs,
My heart beat fast, her temper broadside torn,
She thrust herself into the washing-up,
Crazy, confus’d, attempting to diffuse
This powderkeg beneath her paradise
Cursing, once more, her love too easy won!
********
RECRIMINATIONS
A letter lies unread on the table
Regret, so bitter-sweet in spite of fate
Waits in those inky sylphs besmudg’d by tears;
She turns her cheeks to wafting solar shards,
Screams, “No!.. No!” I will not read the letter,
Damo’s a pompous ass – no noble prince –
The way he was caressing Elsie’s hand
Indicated signs of secret kisses!
‘Our hearts began their journey beating whole
Then destiny’s perfections race away
‘Til flung upon the muck-heap with the rest…’
A memory of ours hangs off the wall
That was our happy place, but in your eyes,
When I see them mov’d on, these tears bleed hope.
********
MOODY BLUES
The spirit of romance is with us,
A man a woman & a dog,
Listening to sea-girt, violin concertos.
Weather turns unsettl’d on waters
Globs of gallivanting gulls, dancing waves
& this single black eagle…
Senses shatter’d by a drunken Seattleite,
I mean… Sally + PMT + alcohol
Equals hell-sent banshee hell-bent on fury.
Relationship psychobabble pierces nirvana
“We could have stay’d at home to have a row!” say I,
But she keeps on scowling.
I slink to the tent, leave her staring out to sea,
A fisher-widow searching for her long-drown’d love.
********
LOVE’S REPOSE
Ah Sally! Sweet Sally Cinnamon, hear!
Even now, after all that we’ve gone thro’,
From halycon highs to those awful lows,
The fact we chose to share together
Repose in Scotia’s fertile land; where fruit
Grows wild; remember gooseberries were found,
Where Falcons vie with Crows to claim the sky,
Where vista-on-vista splendidly glows
Before eyes remember them when they close,
Where Whittinghame Water flows carefree,
Free as these souls of ours; suppose they met
When they were sleeping, as windy fate blows
Life grows, so rose us from dim city streets
Like poesy from prose, come cherish this truth.
********
THE END
Woman is sacred: the woman one loves is holy
But love is only like water
Graspless when a lovers’ palm untightens
Chit-chat serious, bond about to snap
Altho’ our great, poetic love burns bright
Like Aberlard & Heliose, destin’d to be apart
It is then, as fades the sun
To the sounds of Scottish fiddle on my little radio
I am calmly dump’d
No more gladitorial slanging matches
No more hurt, no more blame, no more pain
Sally retires early,
Leaving me to write these valedictions
Thro’ long midwinter’s night
********
PINING
When I met you I caught a falling star,
Your heart it was, that whisper’d unto me,
‘I love you,’ with a tempest-sigh of breath,
This breath is gone now, like a melt of snow
That make no noise, your silence ends our joys,
For we are ever absent from the sphere
That is the intersuredness of love,
Knock upon its memorial entrance,
I’ll never get back in, my own profess
Of love like gold to airy thinness beat;
What sadness has descended on my soul!
The firmness of my being now in thrall
To some dark watcher, hover’d over days
That stretch on haunted where I’ll weep once more…
********
DANTEAN EXILE
If Whittinghame was a modern Florence
Half-parted by its very own Arno
Its little church basilican duomo
& Heather Lodge a hub of renaissance
Then, am I victim, too, of vendetta,
As the assassins knife on Darnley drew,
Curs’d by hot schemes hatched neath an ancytent yew
& lawful as a long, landlord’s letter?
& now, as Dante rode, my ways must roam
& leave behind those two loves of my life
A paradise that I could call a home
& all the soul’s completeness of a wife
Yet as I sense that poet in exile
I sense some great endeavour, then I smile!
********
LOVE’S TRUTH
As chemistry glues people together,
However great or toxic love may be,
Relinquishing the flight of the feather,
Let us ride this stormy weather, you & me.
As like that lone fuggazi on the sea
Which saw poor Shelley’s galley torn in two,
Its pilot haunted by the memory,
Oft fled in fretful thought, like me & you,
To troubl’d shells our turtle minds withdrew,
Where I observ’d thee when you were withdrawn,
Searching your soul for something bright & new
& with that search a chance to be reborn!
If that is so, my love, I shall depart,
& rest these bitter testings of this heart.
********
LEAVING EAST LOTHIAN
I came, I saw, I ceilidh’d with the Scots,
Veni… vedi… a private victory,
My lady swooning to wild lily-knots,
Oor homestead settl’d in serenity,
Soaking in Scottish sensibility,
Itching beyond mere whistle binkie bards,
I strove for all that’s good in sonnetrie,
Woodwound, museyon the New Town boulevards,
Seertitle shining thro’ the teller’s cards,
What Lothiads dolphin’d across the stage,
Sturdy as Napoleonic grognards,
Peerless as pioneers upon the page,
Another host of sonnets safe in store,
From Rydal Mounts must makars take their tour.
********
AMABANDON
My love, as with the sea & the waves & all the oceans,
Once more the tides of time have brought you to my side,
From where I now drift sadly,
Floating upon the endless waters of stretching time,
Pausing to reflect on the light of your face,
Half-a-light now, then brighter than the evening star.
So, let us set adrift for islands of soft exstasi,
Two fine liners fluttering the ocean blue,
Until the occasion we next dock in the same port,
Some shanty of Mauritius or the harbors of New York,
Bobbing together in unison, a special shared tranquility,
& our essences commingling on many a fine night upstanding!
So, until time & life’s pathways converge us once again
Remember kindly always… you are forever in my heart!
********
LEAVING LOTHIAN
I came, I saw, I ceilidh’d with the Scots,
Veni… Vedi… a private victory,
My lady swooning to wild lily-knots,
Oor homestead settl’d in serenity,
Soaking in Scottish sensibility,
Itching beyond mere whistle binkie bards,
I strove for all that’s good in sonnetrie,
Woodwound, beyond the New Town boulevards,
Seertitle shining thro’ the teller’s cards,
What Scotiads dolphin’d across the stage,
Sturdy as Napoleonic grognards,
Peerless as pioneers upon the page,
As with a host of sonnets safe in store,
From Rydal Mounts must makars take their tour.
********
ODE TO SCOTLAND
Well I’ve been here for years, but its time to do one,
I’ve sank a load of beers & I thank ye for the fun,
Spinnin’ thro hootenannies with a bonnie halean howl,
Purrin’ with pretty pussies on an m-cat prowl,
I’ve driven round Loch Lomond, walk’d five hundred miles yon Tain,
Gone roamin’ in the gloamin’ wrapped in midge-proof cellophane,
I’ve organis’d four Jock Stocks with a need to make folk dance,
& I’ve scamper’d up yer Cuillin rocks as mountain mists advance,
I’ve mused thro’ an Ediniad of sonnets, Reekie round,
The best nights that I’d ever have with best friends that I’d found,
But something in the poets’ souls must sail their craft abroad,
& leave behind the rock ‘n’ roll – when lightening the load
Gone furrowing down foreign streams, forgetting never, they,
Those places full of god-sent dreams, like Garvald ‘neath the hay.
********
DEPARTURES
As planets in their stolen orbits sway
Enraptured by the sun’s eternal day
So, too, must move the motions of the heart
& lovers from each other cleave apart,
So I shall go, some Rama far from Seeta,
Or then again, maybe I’m yet to meet her…
As Autumn’s vegetation makes decay,
Down Goldenacre-Warriston’s pathway,
I see the sun rise up on Arthur’s Seat
& silhouette the city’s spinal street;
This is, I think, a hint of things to come,
Like Sufi’s singing Sindhi to a drum.
Thus poet-prospects loading up with ore,
These feet shift forth to wherefore, & what shore?
Mumble Words 