Hiraeth

Rage, Rage 16 & 17

Rage, Rage
16

I doze in my chair.
The book I am reading
tumbles to the floor.

I fumble with my claw
and its metal hand
pincers the book,
then raises it.

The cat needs feeding.
I pick up her bowl
with my claw
but scatter her kibble
on the floor.

I can’t remember
where I put
the garden kneeler –
I just leave the kibble
where it lies.

Icing on the cake,
I pop my pills and now
I’ll feel less pain
for an hour or two.

17

On my own.
Outwitting old age,
accepting its growing limitations
 with as much grace and humor
as I can and must.
Trying to feel no bitterness.

That aspirin this morning,
falling into my shirt,
then appearing on the floor
a moment before
I sat on the loo.

A blue-eyed, mini-aspirin
winking at me quite happily.

I reached for my claw,
picked the pill up
and swallowed it,
washing it down with a smile,
and a draught of laughter.

Comments:

I doze in my chair. Just about sums it up. I remember playing darts in the Red Lion, Knowle, Bristol. When I threw an occasional good dart, the locals would whisper “Dozy, dozy.” To them it meant “lucky, lucky.” After a bit, I began to play better. One of the professionals made me my own darts set. Hand made. Adjusted to how I throw. I got better and better. One night, playing 301, double in, double out, I needed 131 to finish. I made it in a three dart finish – 57 (treble 19) – 42 (treble 14) – 32 (double 16). This was the only three dart finish, over 100, that I ever made!

I left the darts there. “Weed the board,” they shouted – meaning – clear the board of wasted darts so the next player could throw. “Check!” I countered, meaning I wanted them to check that I had won the game. “Dozy, dozy,” they cried. And, if I went back there, more than sixty years later, those who survived, and remembered, would still call me Dozy.

So, I sit here and doze about my life. The good days, the bad days, the in-between days. Faces drift in and out – [that’s why Moo painted me the picture] – and sometimes I can put names to them and sometimes not. And that’s life. A collection of personal memories – very vivid – and a selection of faces that we can no longer name and names to whom we can no longer fit a face.

My life – A blue-eyed, mini-aspirin winking at me quite happily.



Rage, Rage 14, 15

Rage, Rage
14

As for you, my love,
one moment you were with me,
at the airport,
the next, you were not.

I turned away for a second,
and, when I looked again,
you had walked
through the boarding gate,
and passed out of my life.

Now, I can’t think straight.
Hair leaks from my head
like straw from a scarecrow.

My teddy bear brain
has morphed from sawdust
into a mess of lonely grey jelly.

15

Memories deceive me
with their flickering
shadow shows.
Shapes shift with a click
of the magician’s fingers.

What magic lantern
now slips its subtle slides
across night’s screen?

Desperate, I lap,
like a wild Alpine goat,
at salt-licks
that increase my thirst
and drive me
deeper into thick,
black clouds
of want and need.

Comments:

Shapes shift with a click of the magician’s fingers. Indeed, they do. I love the shape-shifting nature of snow. One day, the ash tree stands stark against dark pines. The next, the garden is winter white and the trees are dressed in their fine wedding garments. The table is no longer a table, though I do not know exactly what it has turned into. The distant trees seem to lean in close. The railings lose their summer dirt and snow turns everything inside out and upside down.

It reminds me of Pete Seeger – “Snow, snow, falling down, covering up this dirty little town.” Except the garden isn’t dirty, just a little abandoned in winter until the snow arrives, or, even better, the ice storm, followed by sun, when we suddenly seem to live in the heart of an icy diamond, looking out.


Rage, Rage 12 & 13

Rage, Rage
12

So many solitudes,
each of us alone in our minds,
isolated by our memories.

You, my love,
have your own solitude now,
far away, with them in Ottawa.
I am in my own solitude,
here in Island View,
alone with the cat.

You call me on Skype,
and as we chat,
the cat hears your voice,
delicate, distant,
and, running to the sound,
jumps up onto the table.

She sniffs the screen,
but finds no trace
of your familiar smell.

13

She sees shadows,
moving shapes
that flow back and forth
on the computer screen.

You call her
by her favourite names
and her muscles tense,
her whiskers bristle.

Now she refuses to eat
her food and hisses
if I come too close.

She won’t sleep by night or day.
She just stalks the house
moving from room to room
desperately seeking you.

She vomits in my chair
to tell me how she feels
about being left alone with me.

Whatever will I do with her
while you’re away?

Comment:
Old age and solitude. A terrible combination. Old age is not for Sissies. Indeed it isn’t. First there’s the loneliness. Then there’s the aches and pains – Aix-les-Bains, as we used to call them. The occasional confusion – did I take my tablets, or not? How many? Did I double up on my diuretics?

Diuretics – now that’s another question. What did Shakespeare write, in Hamlet? Ah yes, I remember now! “To pee or not to pee – that is the questions.” Now was that a voiced “B” or an unvoiced “P”? And that’s another question. One we have to live with on a daily basis. Daily? Hourly? Every fifteen minutes when the diuretics kick in.

“To be or not to be?” Well, quite simply, I am very happy to be. To be myself, to be left alone, to still be here, to still be on the green side of the grass – though it was pretty brown last year with all that drought and doubt.

Whatever will be, will be. The future’s not mine to see. Alas, it is sometimes mine to clean up afterwards. And ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies!

Rage, Rage 11

Rage, Rage
11

In one room in my head
my mother’s mother
sits at the kitchen table,
with me on her knee,
playing patience.

In another room,
I stand on a stool in the kitchen
helping my father’s mother
to mix the cake she’ll bake
in her coal-fired oven.

My mother’s father
sits before the television,
leaning back in the chair,
raising his foot so he can’t see
the adverts on the screen,
putting his fingers in his ears
so he can’t hear them.

My father’s father lies in bed,
his dog beside him.
The dog licks his hand,
waiting, like all of us,
for the death that threatened
since he was gassed
in World War One.

I sit at the computer,
following the figures
that track the latest pandemic
singing softly to myself
“¡Qué será, será!”

Comments:

Brightlands – 1956 – we sat behind the goal posts, watching the soccer First XI playing. A dream of Doris Day drifted down to us and we sang this song as we watched the game. Strange how a moment in time can suddenly reappear in full clarity and grace us with its remembered presence. Beside us, the River Severn, Sabrina, in Latin – flowed out to the sea. Then the tide turned. The river ceased to flow, and the Severn Bore swept everything before it as we gazed in amazement at the rolling clash of river and tide.

Above, I have posted five memories, each taken from a small room in my head, and turned into words. “In my father’s house, there are many mansions.” And I can say the same of the memories that crowd my head. Some as bright as the bright lands where our school played their school, some as raging as the fight between the river and the sea, as witnessed by the tidal bore, and some as dark as the mist and fog that always fell with the change of river and tide.

So – what about your memories? Does a word here or a word there, a phrase or a metaphor, make you stop for a moment and explore the Olde Curiositie Shop that thrives in the attic in your own mind? I do hope so. For that is what I would like to think, that my words are stirings that jerk the puppets of memory that dwell in each of our minds. I would be so happy to know that a thought of mine has set your own mind dancing to tunes of its own.

Never mind. “¡Qué será, será!” Whatever will be, will be.

Two Poems

1
The Day Before
My Birthday

Warm air.
Cold snow.
Grey ghosts of memory
drift beneath the trees.

If it were fall …
… if the sun were to shine …
rainbows would grace
the spun webs of spiders
clinging to the trees.

If, if, if …

A warm winter day,
or so they say,
snow diminishing,
a wind from the south,
up from Florida,
rain on its way.

My birthday tomorrow.
The temperature to fall
way below the date.

-16C on January 16.

My fate
to be a winter baby,
to never know
what the weather
will be like
on that date.

2
My Birthday

I won’t sit here
with head in hands
fearing the future
or brooding on the past.

Every day I survive
is a bonus now,
each sunrise
a celestial celebration.

I welcome daylight
with open arms and now,
on my birthday,
I will accept
all gifts with joy.

Sunshine floods through me.
It fills me with hope.
Its beacon beams .
A full tide of love
overflows in my heart.

Comment:

Bilbo Baggins gave away presents on his birthday. Today it is my birthday and I have joined with Moo to give away two poems, the first written yesterday, and the second today. Moo painted the picture, as always, and presented it to me for my birthday. A nice gift. Thank you, Moo.

I got some other nice gifts too. In the local superstore I discovered Polvorones. I have never seen them there before. It is a long time since I have seen them here in New Brunswick. So, what a lovey find that was. Tengo polvorones.

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. That’s why I never break them. That said, I do intend, and Moo agrees with me, to start posting regularly once more. So hang on to your hats – and let’s see how long that intention lasts.

Rage, Rage 8 & 9

Rage, Rage
8

A late summer storm
lays waste to the doggy daze
that clouds my mind.

Carnivorous canicular,
hydropic, it drains my soul,
desiccates my dreams,
gnaws me into nothingness.

Tonight, the old black hound
will dog me,
sending my head spinning.

It will force me
to chase my own tail,
round and round
in ever-decreasing circles.

It will devour my future,
leaving past failures
to ghost through my mind.

9

Where now are the hands
that raise me up,
that rescue me
from dark depression,
that haul me out
from life’s whirlpool,
that forestall
the jaws that bite,
that save me
from the claws
that snatch?

Where are the hands
that move the pieces
on the chess board
of my days and nights,
that prepare my breakfast,
that bake my birthday cake
and count the candles
that they place and light?

What will I do
without them
now they are gone?

Commentary:

Gnawed into nothingness – the umbra nihili of the medieval mystics, the shadow of nothingness that sometimes falls upon us, threatening our peace of mind. An AI search offers – Umbra Nihili (Latin for “Shadow of Nothingness”) refers to a concept of cosmic loneliness or existential void famously cited by Meister Eckhart. A great many of my friends have recently discovered this umbra nihili. I am not sure why. I guess it varies for each one of us. Mal de todos, consuelo de tontos / that everyone suffers consoles only fools, the Spaniards say. What can we do at such times? Reach out, help when we can, count only the happy hours, as the inscription on the Roman sundial tells us – horas non numero nisi serenas.

Many have walked this way before. But that should not be a consolation in itself. Rather, it should be an acknowledgement that there is an exit to the maze, a key to unlock misery’s door, a thread to lead us out of the labyrinth. We must just acknowledge that fact and search for the exit, the key, the thread, that will prove to be our personal salvation, and hopefully the salvation of other fellow sufferers as well.

Rage, Rage 4

Rage, Rage
4

I walk from room to room,
startled by shadows,
and open doors,
search under the table,
look behind chairs.

Nothing. No one.
The house stands
still and empty,
but for the sadness,
the silent sadness,
that fills each room
with their remembered
presence.

Commentary:

Absence and presence. How many of us feel that something is there, walking beside us, or just behind us? How many feel that an empty room is not empty, but is filled with a presence, something we feel, half-recognize?

I have been in houses, invited for the night, where I would not sleep. Why? I do not know. But I felt a presence, a prescience, if you wish, that filled me with a desire to leave and not to stay.

What is it? Is it other memories, other lives, that impinge upon ours in this current time frame? I do not know. But I do know that there are houses and rooms in which I will not stay. I also know that there are others that throw open warm arms to welcome me.

Look at Moo’s painting(s). How many of them welcome us in? Do some of them shut us out and make us shiver with a fear, not of the unknown, but of the hardly-remembered, that lies in wait to shake us out of this dream which is our present life?

Rage, Rage 2 & 3


Rage, Rage
2

These problems start the day
you realize you are alone.
Your beloved goes away,
for a holiday,
to be with your daughter
and grandchild.

Now the house and the cat
are yours, and yours alone.
No problem you say and
everyone believes you.

You jumped in the car,
drove daughter, and child,
holidays done,
to the airport.

Your beloved went with them,
her holiday about to begin.
And that’s when it all began.

3

When I come back home
from leaving them at the airport,
the front door stands open.

I thought I had closed it
when we left.
I tip-toe in and call out
“Is anybody there?”

Echo answers me –
‘… there, there, there …”

Commentary:

Raymond Guy LeBlanc, one of my favorite Acadian poets, published his poetry book, Cri de Terre, in 1972. My painter friend Moo, who also likes Acadian poetry, borrowed the title and changed it slightly when he painted this painting – Cri de Coeur. Earth Cry / Heart Cry.
What is all creativity, visual of verbal, but a cry from the land or a cry from the heart? Sometimes it is more than a cry – it becomes a clarion call, a shout out, a calling out.

So many of us are born with creativity in our hearts. So few of us carry that creativity, be it verbal or visual, into the adult world, a world that all too often grinds us down and sifts us out. We become grey people in grey clothing sitting behind grey desks beneath artificial lighting, doing grey jobs that slowly turn us into nine to five (or longer) dusts.

Moo has promised me a series of red paintings for this sequence. We shall see how he does. Red for anger, red for age, a red flag for danger, a red rag to wave at the raging bull of life, to provoke it, then bring it under control.

Nadolig Llawen – Welsh for Have a Joyous Festive Season. You can add other languages, as you wish. But above all remember Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s words – “Life is a dream and dreams are nothing but dreams.” One day, we shall all wake up. Artists and dreamers, grey ghosts and people of straw and dust.


Rage, Rage 1

Rage, Rage
1

Old age creeps up on you,
slowly, ambushes you,
catches you unawares.

At first, you don’t believe
that it’s real.
You ignore the signs,
pretend they aren’t there.

Then comes a knock on the door.
There, did you hear it?
Around you your body’s house
slumbers in comfort.

You lose your footing,
but you do not fall.
Your book drops to the floor,
you bend down and pick it up.

Everything is as it always was.
Or is it? One of your friends
slips and falls down the stairs.

You descend the stairs
with more care than usual.
No, you don’t need a cane.
Nor special shoes and socks.

You convince yourself that
all is well. And so it is,
for a little while longer.

Commentary:

Rage, Rage
against the dying of the light

Dylan Thomas’s famous poem celebrates the passing of his father. “Do not go gentle into that good night, / old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

I am no Dylan Thomas, although I am still a Swansea boy at heart and, as my paternal grandfather used to sing while at the fighting front during WWI – “and still I live in hopes to see Swansea Town once more.”

Alas, I never will see Swansea Town, save in my dreams, for Swansea Town is no longer a town. It is now Swansea City and no, I will not be leaving Island View again, not even to return to Wales, the land of my fathers. But I can and do age, and ageing is a strange and very personal experience. These pages contain the thoughts that occur to me, in my solitude, as I come to terms with my diminishing existence.

Moo has been very silently recently. But when he saw this poem he climbed out of the woodwork where he had been hiding like a silent spider and he said “Roger, have I got just the painting for you.” The painting is also called Rage, Rage – make of that what you will.

Carved in Stone 72 & 73

Carved in Stone
72

Is this world I create real?
Of course it isn’t.

It exists only in my head,
and on the page,
but perhaps, one day,
you too will see
the things I have seen.

Yet the world I describe
is as unreal as the words
from which it is woven.

73

Heraclitus once wrote
we can never bathe
in the same river twice.

This is the Catch 22
faced by all poets,
to remember,
and to try to recreate.

Shadow hands on cave walls,
colored pictographs on gesso,
hieroglyphics on papyrus,
ink on paper, raw words,
and in the end,
everything reduced
to these three little letters
carved in stone –

RIP

Commentary:

If you have read this far, we have walked a long journey together – 73 verses that comment on life and the meaning of life. Hard reading in places, easy in others. I trust you have enjoyed the journey and found some stops and resting points along the way in which to contemplate the ways in which the threads of your own life intermingle with mine.

Throughout this journey, I have tried to use a four step process. (1) Verbal – the poems themselves. (2) Visual – photos that intertwine with the verbal. (3) A Commentary – that goes beyond the verbal and visual and opens up the ideas a little more. (4) A Dialog between myself – the poet – and Moo – the visual artist who has so frequently loaned me his paintings when he thinks they illustrate my words.

It’s been a topsy-turvy journey through what Bakhtin calls a world of carnival, where little is at it seems, and the world is turned upside down. That said, we have a clear choice – to slide down the downside of this life, or to scale the upside, to contemplate, with joy and happiness, the world from those heady heights.

Blessings. Pax amorque.
And thank you for travelling with me.