A wedding day

Girl with the sparkling mineral water nature
Always smiling and keeping laughter alive
Eagerly running towards life’s every delight
Somewhere, somehow you learned to survive
Life is appreciated best by those have walked
On the shadow side, learning that day follows night.

Girl with the dark hair tumbling, hiding your face
Voice ever-friendly, transparent, sincere
Gentle with others, always ready to smile,
making all our lives richer, work a kinder place.
Your own brand of courage, kept hidden here
Tilting at windmills, you make the fight worthwhile.

Girl about to become someone’s wife
May all the delight and the wonder
Last for every day of this life
May your day be rich and resplendent
Starting the first day of the story already a family
rich in love and the joy of journey.

Girl with a mother’s soft eyes,
Dressed up in purple and rich, shiny blue
Colours of wisdom, and intuition’s wondrous guise,
May all that brings happiness and life’s rich hue
cross your path now and forever, touching you
with life’s delicate, honey sweet breath.
Sadness brings laughter, longing delight,
Adversity is joy in fancy dress, just wait for her to disrobe.

when flying was a dream

The Worst of Meeting You

Once again I stand at the crossroads going nowhere
Nothing much accomplished, nothing left to do
Funny how just when I knew I found direction
Moving forward was not the choice you gave me
Now l see that life is just happenstance.
Reckon that was the worst of meeting you.

Looking back at the road that I have traveled
It has been a one way street, no turning round
Every milestone another dream’s epitaph
Lives lost and paths not chosen now clearly seen
Now I have to face just how much I never found.
Reckon that was the worst of meeting you.

When first we met I knew you were a teacher
And thought it was for me that you were sent
Standing on life’s edge I saw the view
Now you say me that for me it was
Something borrowed not given, nothing meant.
Reckon that was the worst of meeting you.

Time drives yet another nail into the coffins of the past
Friends and fellow travellers failed along the way
Hoped still to redress ancient wrongs
Say I’m sorry; make up for things left unsaid
Well, now I know I can’t try change yesterday.
Reckon that was the worst of meeting you.

When you came I hoped to learn and understand,
Seemed like life was new, the roads went ever onward
But as I got near I found they were only rainbows
And you faded into the sun, leaving only dust
But for a short while I grew wings, I almost flew,
Reckon that was the best of meeting you.

barbed wire over Dharamsala

This was a quick pen drawing of something that struck me as symbolic of the lives peope live in McCleod Ganj, Dharamsala. This was over a tin roof belonging to one of the many Tibetan stalls. It struck me how the drawing emerged looking quite reminescent of Chinese line drawings. The tragedy of Tibet and the many thousands of her stateless citizens setting out to forge their new lives, trapped forever from return by the iron policies of ruling China. We were lucky enough to see a concert performed by TIPA the first evening we arrived. The next morning we went to the institute so John could buy a dranyen, the Tibetan "guitar". At first we were turned away, but when we said we had come to buy a dranyen everyone was so welcoming, even though they spoke neither English nor Hindi, so even our friend KD could not assist. we were taken to a most talented young man, whom I won't name. He was tasked with finding a dranyen for John. It was amazing to see how musicians speak one language they can all understand. The young man gave a dranyen to John and showed him the basic notes. Of course this is in the Eastern system and a different scale. As John understood I saw the look I've seen so many times on any artist's face. the sudden sharpening of the gaze, the increase in concentration as one recognises a kindred spirit. They were so at ease, both involved in the music, something they both treasured more than anything else. We asked whether the young man would go home for the holidays which started that day. "No" he said, with a very sad smile, " my parents are in Tibet, this is the only place I can go." And the tragedy was brought home once more, families apart never to see each other again - a superbly talented young man whose very talent is crafted by his experience of tragedy. We bought a CD on which he sings, a beautiful voice. I wish I knew what lyrics he had written, but they are lost to me. Yes, barbed wire over Dharamsala is sadly here to stay

lodhi gardens - a jewel in Delhi

The basic sense of delight and spontaneity in a person who has opened fully and thoroughly to him or herself and to life can provide wonderful rainbows and thundershowers and gusts of wind. We don't have to be tied down to the greasy-spoon world of well-meaning artists with their heavy-handed looks on their faces and overfed information in their brains. The basic idea of art is the sense of peace and the refreshing coolness of the absence of neurosis.

A wonderful quote from Chogyam Trunpa. It encapsulate the joy one derives from painting and watching the work grow, each new layer adding to the atmosphere of remembered or envisaged scenes.

Dreaming in Lodhi Gardens
Let me rest again amidst the humming bees
Let warm air drift around me, stirring fallen leaves
with its languid honey kiss.
Let me touch stones intricately carved hundreds of years
Before the country of my blood had built its first stone edifice
The lilting speech and laughter hang suspended in the air,

Women hurry by in brightly coloured saris
In India again – bliss.
Eternally curious green parakeets with bindis on their cheeks
Scrabble in the sand, pecking seeds fallen from the trees
Frenetic squirrels, tails too short, bodies too small
To be mistaken for their Southern counterparts
Rush, start and stop, and rush again between the birds
avoiding unwelcome contact with curved beaks.
Once again I wander through buildings older
than the known history of my country.
The gardens are lush and green
Havens of peace and tranquillity
We are free to stroll under lofty trees,
Watching kids in school uniform scampering
Up and down on the ramparts of the ancient building.
Tired, peaceful and at ease
I sit staring at the welcoming majesty of the trees
This one, under which I sat, this huge sprawling tree,
this one I’ll commit to eternity.

Our FirstTrain Departure from Delhi

I was remembering Delhi Station and thinking how the two trips we have done to India both had such exciting departures from the Railway Station.

The first trip we flew in to Indira Ghandi Airport along with the others of our tour, jumped into a bus and went for dinner at a very old Colonial-style restuarant. The dinner was served at a leisurely pace. At this stage we had two guides, one who was to take us on the train to Patankot, the other who was our "urban" tour guide. KD the second guide from Dharamsala was starting to look very restive, and I wondered why. It became apparent as soon as we were back in the bus. The traffic was horrendous - it was a major Hindu Holy day and everyone was on the road. We crept forward by centimetres and it was plain we would not make the nine pm departure of our train. After loud discussions between KD and the other guide, we lept out of the bus, carrying our luggage and weaving desparately through the never-ending lanes of traffic. Cars, buses, taxis, motorbikes, scooters, auto-rickshaws, bicycles, man-powered rick-shaws; all bore down inexorably across heaven knew how many lanes. We weaved and ducked and dived, wilting in the heat and under the weight of our international luggage. We were told not to allow the porters to take our luggage under any circumstances, so were fighting off a flock of red-coated porters all clamouring like magpies and screaming at us to give them the bags. The mad convoy rushed towards the station disregarding the everincreasingly frantic blandishments of the porters. On we flew and found to our dismay that we were at the wrong side of the station and we had to rush up and down bridge after successive bridge with only ten minutes to departure time. The Jammu Mail said KD always leaves on time. This voice of doom did nothing to assuage the rising hysteria. I had Nicki next to me - she was 72 at the time and in fairly frail health, which meant the madcap pace was far above her capabilities. Also, in spite of more than half her luggage going on to Bahrain by accident, she still had five suitcases and several bags with her. In fact she did our home country proud - blending in amongst the many bags every Indian national seemed constrained to carry. I landed up carrying three of her suitcases, whilr KD had my case and one of Nicki's. Ever on we rushed up and down bridges, yelling at the now very irate porters who could see a source of income giving them the slip. We had no idea why they were not allowed to carry our bags, but in a foreign country do what you are told was our motto. Of course coming from a country where if a screaming gaggle of porters descended upon you, you would assume that they were going to steal every item in your posession if you were fortunate, and assault you if you were not - we were very loath to trust people we had been told to avoid.

It was by now pitch dark and the lights in the vast station were not the brightest - there was a heavy haze, there were people everywhere - mostly men. Many seemed to have been sitting on the platforms since the railway was built. Suddenly our convoy ahead swept round the staircase they had just decended and vanished. For seconds we saw KD carrying Nicki's large, red suitcase on his head, then he too was gone. Vanished into the thousands of travellers milling on the platforms, inter mingled with the hordes of plaintively demanding beggars. Nicki and I had no idea which way our calvalcade had gone, we rushed vainly on, pursued still by porters yelling at us in broken unintelligible English. We called to several of the men on the platforms asking where the Jammu train was standing. We got disinterested, surly glares, but no response. We must have echoed all the worst from Colonial days bygone. Finally a man pointed two bridges away, indicating that was the platform we needed to aim for, but adding laconically "The train leaves at 9pm - you'll never make it". There was only one minute to go, thinking of home, Nicki and I thought "they can't leave on time in India - trains in South Africa are always late and look how chaotic this appears". We rushed onwards, both bright pink of face and short of breath. Down the last flight of stairs and there at last was our train, pulling slowly out of the station. Frantically we waved and yelled. Then we saw our group, everyone except John on the train all yelling at him as the train started to get up speed. then suddenly the train shuddered to a halt. Dozens of policemen emerged from all corners at the run, rifles at the ready. We were still too far away to make any sense of the commotion. Everyone was shouting at the top of their voices. Our urbane urban guide melted away soundlessly, leaving KD and John to face the police. KD looked quite pale in spite of his skin colour and was clearly unhappy as the policemen yelled at him demanding some explanion from him. John was as usual, quite calm, but unusual for him was clearly very angry. As Nicki and I staggered into view, still pursued by porters, everyone started pointing, gesticulating towards us. The two dozen or more policemen gave us a look of utter disbelief, but immediately dropped their threatening stance. Nicki and I swept past them - confrontations with the police/army being a familiar circumstance of our pre-democracy lives, we did not feel the need to be overawed by them. It turned out that KD, confronted by a very angry John, who was not prepared to leave myself and Nicki in a strange country unable to speak the language, and having no real idea of where we were and where we were meant to be going. He convinced KD that he must stop the train - although KD was of the consequences which he informed John would be dire unless they could persuade the authorities they had a valid cause for pulling the emergency cord. As the police saw us, their scowls lifted - here indeed was the frail old lady accompanied by another red-faced madwoman. They understood immediately how dire the situation had been and how Nicki above all could not possibly have been parted from the group, and left to fend for herself. They melted into a degree of friendliness and courtesy we would never have got from our armed forces, and wishing us well, dispersed, laughing at the idiocy of foreigners. I was, however, livid. I went on board and started to tell the rest of the group how selfish and craven they had been to be content to leave to women alone at night amongst all these men squatting hunched down on the platforms. It will be a long time before I forget the group's faces! I was mad as a wet cat and spitting fury worthy of any wild feline. attempts to pacify only fuelled the blaze. Suddenly the quietest woman on the trip had become a banshee. And I steadfastly refused to regain my sense of humour. Howver, when I found we had all lost our booked seats as people had merely commandeered them, I took pity on KD and helped devise an ammicable solution to the sleeping arrangements. What a day! and what an introduction to what I was later to learn is one of the most beautiful and safest cities in the world. Had we been left on a station at home under the same circumstances, we could have guaranteed we would be badly beaten up, if not dead by light of day.

This one's for you

This One’s for You

Wasn’t that lucky happenstance
when we live light years away
You in the country that stole my heart,
me in the country of my blood.
It actually took me by surprise just yesterday
That here we are you and me, both worlds apart
Both love writing and love life
You a wife and mother, me just a wife.

I love the happy joy with which you write
I see the kids in my mind and laugh out loud
Can imagine the stress, the parent’s plight
The boy’s answers might be unconventional,
But I think they do his parents proud
A boy that young in whom logic is so strong
Must be heading for a wonderful future -
How often the system gets the evaluation wrong.

Tom and Jerry, Mutt and Jeff – poor girl,
Jumping and hurrying in her head
Holding sleep hostage, making her toss in bed
Cartoon characters, animated,
around and round they whirl
how often a mother’s instincts work out for the best.
By giving in and coming from another point of view
How easy it becomes to give the TV bug a rest.

Cultures quite removed and customs so diverse
Amazing that one can so easily find common ground
Be it in a photo, painting or perhaps a verse.
You lift the curtain on your world –
Some things the same, some so very different, some profound
The closeness of family across generations and distance
So very different to the western creed of independence
How much warmer, sustaining and how much less loneliness

It’s in the ancient cultures that the real Global Village will be found

song for David and a painting by David

SONG FOR DAVID

Hey so you know what it is to be happy
Hey so you know what it is to be glad
So life is a glorious roller coaster
So why do you look so sad?

Everyday is a new day, every moment a joy
Give me a break - life ain’t like that
Don’t try to fool me
Pull wool over my eyes
I know what you’re thinking
I can see through your disguise
The world on your shoulders, the burdens of man
If that’s being happy - well, you can keep it, boy

Hey so you know what it is to be happy
Hey so you know what it is to be glad
So life is a glorious roller coaster
So why do you look so sad?

Time on your hands, you can do what you want
Savour the moment, seize the day
Know where you’re at
Get with the programme
How do you relate to that
All the right phrases and at the right time
I know that you’re searching, finding your way

Hey so you know what it is to be happy
Hey so you know what it is to be glad
So life is a glorious roller coaster
So why do you look so sad?

Don’t let them get you, you can’t save the world
Take care of yourself, treasure your friends
Believe in the spirit of man
Know that we love you

If I could

IF I COULD

If I could I’d hold you to my heart
Protect your spirit, help you on the narrow path
Waiting for the wheel of time
To spin our way again.
Sometimes I think what we might have been
or think we are, not destiny, keeps us apart.

If I could I’d hold you to my heart
The camouflage raiment, a finely honed disguise
Keep your distance, don’t invade my privacy.
Controls and secret boundaries
Now I’ve hidden me.
I know you see me only as I appear to be
pleasure seeking, one of Life’s eternal butterflies.

If I could I’d hold you to my heart
You look at me with eyes that don’t seem to see
That I know exactly what you need of me.

Sell my soul to the Devil

Sell my Soul to the Devil

How often and how easily we expose who we are
And who we want to be
Letting strangers in to the distant corners of the mind
Anyone can enter heedlessly
Ebb and flow, exchange and interchange –
Often what we get is not what we wanted to find.

How much do you suppose it takes to sell
my soul to the Devil?
I think that the damage lies in what we tell
Ourselves in the over-interesting quest
of who is really me?
Shadow play does not look evil
But of those who flew how many fell?

Let’s look around and try to count the cost
Stack up positive and negative
Take stock of all the things we gained en route
And then count those things we lost.
Somewhere in life’s eternal barter the deal was struck-
This you give to me and I will let you live.

If I believed I was about to sell my soul to the Devil
Would it give me pause?
Would I shift gear and retrace my steps back to
The starting point and pretend
I did not see Life’s enticing path and
Would it give me sufficient cause
For regret and sorrow, would I think of things to rue?

Looking back I find I got both joy and laughter
Learned some truths along the way
Got the chance to grow and learned to spread my wings
Found the joy in every day
Not being one to believe in happy ever after
Had some pleasure, and I’d do it all again
I have to say.

In the end we all learn that it’s all part of Life
There is no soul, no Devil
Just a wonderful impermanence: the ever changing show
And there is no good, no evil
Not even yesterday and no tomorrow
Now is all we have and there’s no point in strife
In the end there is no I to cherish
What gift can exceed the glory of that?

For Merle - moving on 17 Sept 2008

Merle – moving on
I remember all those years ago in the mountains
Merle’s laughter echoing around the kloofs and kranse
in the stillness of the warm blackness of the night.
She was all the things which I longed to be
dark-skinned, elfin and everyman’s dream.
A sense of fun and boundless energy
Crossing our separate cultures as though she
had her feet firmly on a bridge spanning the divide.
The bright stars swirling round seemed to follow her
Vibrant, alive, one of nature’s chosen few.
The rocks over which we scrambled
in the day seemed grateful
For her feet as they lightly trod and took flight
The cold, rushing mountain stream hurried by,
Stopping only to caress her feet,
Eager to contribute to her delight
Birds in the sky dipped and swooped
Then once more turned to gain height
eager to share in joyous bounty, freely given.
Now those distant days are recalled in memory,
Today’s she’s gone, taken slowly and silently
Gone back to become one with the earth’s dust.
Missed by me and all those she knew.
Rest in peace, wonderful woman of light.

black velvet cloak

Black Velvet Cloak
The soft brush of black velvet against my mind
Stills the echo of long buried hopes and tears
A gentle cocoon of safety from the present world
Held in strong but silent company
I gain strength to face my fears.

A cloak of comfort like the breath of owl’s wings
in the still black night, angel kisses for the heart
I hold myself in reverie and wrap the smooth
Black velvet around my troubled soul
Gaining peace in part.

In my mind’s eye the flowing mantle gently moves
Stirred by compassion like a gentle breeze
Velvet cloaks the panther hunting in the night
Soft and sinuous, the danger well concealed
But with me – he is almost at ease.

foam in the storm

the flatlands of France

the doorkeeper's door

The Doorkeeper

Doors, keeping one out or keeping one in?
The ones who guard the door can be like Cerberus
Fearsome to behold and quick to anger
Or they can guard doors of shelter, protecting all within
Portals of the mind as much as of the physical
the steward of the door is entrusted with all that's precious
How does the Doorkeeper decide who may gain access and when,
What mysteries are kept safe from the eyes of the curious
I dream of warmth like a glowing hearth,
laughter silver, like the ancient people's voices,
and a safe haven in any storm, a protective den,
down at the bottom of life's garden,
waiting always out of reach.
But yet might I hear the silver voice calling
The Doorkeeper is almost within my vision,
Perhaps he will come again.

for Rosemary - we remember

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray, love, remember

My mind had turned to Rosemary unexpectedly
Out of the dark she came and paused centre stage
She seemed to wait for someone or something uncertainly
I sensed a tide of sadness washing over her, almost drowned
Wraith that she was, etched in my memory.
Wonder why it is that she is calling me,
Things undone holding her trapped
Between the place beyond and where she would like to be.
Well I remember how she graced the stage dressed in shining green
She smiled and dipped graciously – lady-in-waiting to the Queen
Consummate courtier, make believe for her came easily
Reality was not a place she would always choose to be.

There’s Rosemary, standing on a corner, going nowhere,
This time she sprang to mind as though I’d just
Found her, standing wondering which road to take.
It’s not the sadness of before, the memory of yesteryear,
There’s something unfinished, some decision she has to make
Before she can turn and dissolve into the eternal night.
What things and times gone by and not fulfilled
Keep her sadly wandering here
Forever caught in the place between present and past tense.
Somehow we need to set her free, let her go
Leaving the domain of wraiths and ghosts and the echo
Of what might have been, drifting slowly, away from here.

the one who is left behind when the light goes out

Retrospective - lessons learned too late

I have found how hard it is to lose one’s life,
The small things which I took for granted,
the infinite daily subliminal expectations,
how things used to be only noted by their absence.
Every minute, every hour I become more aware
How unappreciative habit had become
The repetition blunting the edge of gratitude
Making commonplace the extraordinary.

And unexpectedly the chasm looms,
Gone is the author of my life’s even tenor
The ache becomes deeper than the sea,
wider than the horizon, higher than the sky.
And now all these things that teemed with humanity
Have no substance, are lost, alone, empty
How could I know that when she left
She would take the whole of me?

All these years together, how I drifted into complacency
Knowing that our lives were drawing to a close
I made no allowances, carried on unfeelingly.
Then suddenly she was gone, fled this life
I did not think that I should be the author
and that her life would end so violently
Like holding a robin’s egg sky-blue in my
Hand, clenching my fist – shattered inadvertently.

The remaining years are far too long suddenly
Life’s hopelessness stretching to infinity
Nothing is important, what can living mean to me?
Without her life is lost, never to return.
All of nature’s beauty is calling her name
Places where we once laughed and loved now
Weep in the wind and cry on the rain
The sun has set, she will not come again.

the eyes through which one sees the world

This photograph was taken with the painting in mind. At Huyumans tomb in Delhi one is transported into a past both decorative, spiritual and, in contrast, palpably echoing of all the blood shed in those distant years. The pointsettias in the foreground were to have the delicate tracery of the lattice work in the tombs. The sharp red bracts told of spears and blood.

To lend light to the painting I muted the colours to blue, moved architecture and nature around to give a simple, decorative look, changing angles to draw the eye to the poinsettia bush as the dominant factor. In the end I got what I was looking for and luckily, as the photographer myself, trod on no toes in the translation.

for a magically talented friend

Mardi Gras Eyes

Mardi Gras eyes, laughter just out of sight
rich as maple syrup,
warm as only the wise can be
Mountain stream brown, reflections of light.

Etch images with your eyes, tell stories with your soul
Capture life’s litany
Each frame a gift to those like me
Collections made of days, chapters of nights.

I wonder if the essence of all you see
Stays locked in your mind
Ghosts of other’s lives and loves
Caught in the amber of your artistry.

I’d walk in the labyrinth, run in the maze
Of your memory
Collecting a scrapbook of images
Culled from your journeys, halcyon days.

Margi Gras eyes, laughter like velvet
Mind caught in crystal
You sing the song of the artist
In visuals no onlooker could ever forget.

**Mardi Gras -the day before Lent, celebrated in some cities, as New Orleans and Paris, as a day of carnival and merrymaking; Shrove Tuesday.

caught in the spider's web

Nicholas - not at ease but not moving,
unresolved issues put on hold.
Life locked into a welcome limbo
of almost silent companionship.
The bustling plans, the constant movement
in abeyance for just a while.
An empty space in a kaleidoscope of
changing company - a sanctioned opportunity
for no particular activity.
The clock ticks on, winding up or winding down,
heralding plans and people soon to approach.
concentric circles spinning ever closer.
You seem unaware or unwilling
to see how close they’ve come.
I stand and watch you caught in
briefly frozen time
And wonder how I became ensnared in
your magic net.
Nicholas - not at ease, but not moving……yet

tears like autumn leaves

MISTAKEN IDENTITY


I thought it was a road, it turned out to be a parking lot
In my hands I held a crystal ball but it was
just a bubble waiting to be burst.
The conveyer belt seemed to take me forward
but everything around me was really moving back.
Often what you’ve lost isn’t obvious at first.

Seems what you never had is what you miss the most
Shards and splinters of what might have been
carving initials on your heart.
The bright promise of the rainbow
is really just another way to look at rain
Reality not circumstance keeps us apart.

Close the windows, lock the door, throw away the key
Draw the curtains on the happy memories
they were never meant to last.
The sun goes down on hopes and dreams
fading swiftly, fleeing forever into the dark
Trust and innocence are relegated to the past.

Cobwebs of a life gone by like a maiden’s wedding dress
All gossamer and lace dressed for just a day
the magic fades all too soon.
Tears fall like autumn leaves and lie forgotten
on the ground swept over by the winds of time
Leaving only echoes of a long forgotten tune.

Love lost dances solo on a darkened stage
Movements to a sad and silent melody
the last act draws to a close.
What I thought was reality was just a pretty show
the curtain comes down, the players leave the stage
I’m on my own - Love’s Labours Lost, I suppose.

underestimating Neptune's wrath

the storms which hit us as August was ushered out, where quite spectacular. Unfortunately this often brings temporary insanity out in photographers and their ilk. Here is a bird's eye view (bird included) of a photographer with his tripod sheltering from nine metre high waves. Two people were rescued from the sea off the breakwater on Sunday. Hopefully he did not need rescuing as well. In the next shot, if the fishing fleet could talk, you would be able to hear the frightened scream as the wild white horses ride them down.

the stairs to oblivion no longer travelled

A Fragment from the Diary of an Epileptic
I’m tired and it has been a long day. Maybe it’s the time of the month, maybe it’s the time of the moon. It’s stalking me again. I must be vigilant. The beast is out there coming in to take a piece of my mind and my life. How to arm against it? Quick - take an extra pill - wait quietly and hope the beast will go.
No, he’s moved closer now. The giddiness begins. Just enough for me to feel it deep inside my head. Now I begin to use words out of context. Me, the wordsmith, the person who guards the power of words with an almost religious fervour. The words mill around inside my head and I try and catch the right one as it swims past me. But miss and stumble and correct myself. I look at the people around me and wonder if they think I’m drunk. I toy with an explanation but it seems too distant - I can’t quite get the enthusiasm necessary to care.
The room is brightly coloured, iridescent and surreal, shapes elude me and mutate around me. The beast is winning the fight. I continue to talk to the shadow people around me. I try to catch what I’m saying. I watch them to see if they notice that the beast has taken me to his liar. I wonder what I’ll remember at the end of this absence. I try to put up a struggle in my head. Try to leave the situation and go to bed. Go to sleep with the beast where no one can see him hijack me. I’ve left it too late. I am no longer me. I spin away and have no conscious mind anymore. My last thought is always the same. “ I hope no one notices, I hope I hurt no one by saying things I can’t control.”
Hours later I wake up in bed. I’ve got quite good at getting myself there over the years. I have a headache. It feels like the inside of my brain is shattered particles. The pain is intense. The world is fog and cotton wool and I try to move through it. Everything happens so slowly, it’s like straining against elastic bands imprisoning me. Time to pick up the pieces. I go into the day, pretending it is a normal day. The beast took the night. I remember watching myself talk to my friends, but that was early in the evening, before supper maybe. What happened next? Did I appear normal until they left? What did I do?
It’s too late to get time back. Try and screw up the courage to face the day, my life. Move forward, work out a game plan of how to find out what I did without people knowing I have no memory of the night. Pick up the pieces left behind by the beast. Pretend I don’t really care and am not frightened by the now absent hours. They are gone. I know from experience that no matter what people tell me happened in those hours, it will never strike a chord in my memory. They are gone forever, stolen by the beast.
Like a child learning to walk I pick my way through other peoples memories of last night, desperately piecing together a kaleidoscope which will remain forever broken.
And wait for the beast to fetch me again.

eternal chatter

0109007 –Nepal Commentary

Silent screams fall on deafened ears
Man’s inhumanity to man caught all too easily
In eyes widened at the horror, dried of all tears.
Comes a stage where only mute testimony
Bears witness to fratricide and lust.
Mask’s used through the years
Silver, copper, gold
Age-old patterns etched on frightened faces
Seen against the Holy red
Speak of blood split recently
Gone are the days of the good and the just.
Keeping company in minor key
Dark Ganesh’s face looks on tranquilly.
Above saints, sadhus, Buddhas lined up
A fragile last defence against the cluttered Khurkuris
Hilts displayed in a threatening legion below.
Life’s pageant spread for all who wish to see
A latticed screen reflects the knot of eternity
A sign of hope caught only in photography.

*to see the visual go to the address in the label......

requiem for a friend long dead

SONG FOR ETERNITY

Sometimes when I watch you march
with your legions across the sky
I wonder why you chose to fly
away leaving me earthbound
to mourn your passing every time
clouds fill my mind or fill the sky

Sometimes I watch as you and yours play
Tumbling down over cliffs
Soaring back into the firmament
To vanish with your laughter
an echo in the fabric of my life
and I long to hear your voice today
but tell myself that was never meant

Sometimes when I watch you march
with your legions across the sky
I wonder why you chose to fly
away leaving me earthbound
to mourn your passing every time
clouds fill my mind or fill the sky


Sometimes when I fly
I look down on you and the ancient souls
of Africa towering above the ground
filling up the sky
I feel even more apart from you
When I look down on clouds that
contain you below me
than when you are above me
But I don’t know why




Sometimes when I watch you march
with your legions across the sky
I wonder why you chose to fly
away leaving me earthbound
to mourn your passing every time
clouds fill my mind or fill the sky


Sometimes when I think of how
we loved and laughed and the games
we played when first we met
I know why when you joined
the legions marching across the sky
you took my childhood with you
Leaving me eternally alone and yet
part of me is always at ease
when I see clouds fill the sky

lyrics to another unsung song

Mistaken Identity
I thought it was a road, it turned out to be a parking lot
In my hands I held a crystal ball but it was
just a bubble waiting to be burst.
The conveyer belt seemed to take me forward
but everything around me was really moving back.
Often what you’ve lost isn’t obvious at first.

Seems what you never had is what you miss the most
Shards and splinters of what might have been
carving initials on your heart.
The bright promise of the rainbow
is really just another way to look at rain
Reality not circumstance keeps us apart.

Close the windows, lock the door, throw away the key
Draw the curtains on the happy memories
they were never meant to last.
The sun goes down on hopes and dreams
fading swiftly, fleeing forever into the dark
Trust and innocence are relegated to the past.

Cobwebs of a life gone by like a maiden’s wedding dress
All gossamer and lace dressed for just a day
the magic fades all too soon.
Tears fall like autumn leaves and lie forgotten
on the ground swept over by the winds of time
Leaving only echoes of a long forgotten tune.

Love lost dances solo on a darkened stage
Movements to a sad and silent melody
the last act draws to a close.
What I thought was reality was just a pretty show
the curtain comes down, the players leave the stage
I’m on my own - Love’s Labours Lost, I suppose.

mack the knife

On the indian ocean side the waves marched in their usual regimented lines, one of the few places in the world where parallel waves occur. But the waves were bolder, higher assuming a Jack in the Beanstalk character, thundering down on the shore from way out to sea. In the distance, caught by the light, but invisible in this photo, a giant tanker nestled in the comparative safety of the Bay, glistening eerily red low on the horizon. And in the shallows, on what is normally a sandy beach, three little boys played in the shallows, dressed in wet suits to insulate against the cold, ignoring the strictures of parents and the hazards chillingly printed on the notice board. Images of joy incarnate.

mystic meringue

The Atlantic seaboard was in the teeth of the storm which hit us on the weekend. The sea on that side is cold, wild and majestic. Stirred by gale force winds the shoreline became a cauldron of white meringue as Neptune tried to entice the seafront houses into his embrace.

Sail on silver girl

"Sail on silvergirl,

Sail on by.

Your time has come to shine.

All your dreams are on their way.See how they shine.

If you need a friend

Im sailing right behind. "

Across a silver sea, light caught in a glistening frenzy,

A tiny boat sails silently,

caught in the crystal lens of the photographer's art.

Dark shape gliding on water's wild reflections,

heading for peace, and home.

bridge over troubled water

Strange how violent water can get sometimes. They say it is the strongest element and that it will always find a way to get to where it's going, given time. We have been sitting in the centre of a storm for two days and in a gap in the weather, when the gods had turned their heads, we went to see what the sea was doing to the coastline. The peaceful little estuary of our vlei which only shows ripples instead of waves, and then only if the tide is running into the vlei, was an angry cauldron of waves hurling themselves against the suddenly fragile-seeming bridge. Two hours after Spring High tide had been and gone, it still looked like this. It was though the water wanted to reach out and drag the bridge and its occupants down into its arms and devour them.