Photographed off the coast of Bournemouth 2013 (Joe Wilson)
She sits alone with her ancient thoughts she’s sat till she’s covered in grime she never moves from her rocking chair she just wiles away the time.
What does go on inside her head? what does she really think? the pain has made her look so sad with eyes that rarely blink.
Her hands are hard and calloused the cracks are etched so deep you sense she feels some fearful hurt but never does she weep.
Some say she’s sat for thirty years They say she loved a sailor It’s also said all hands were lost The prey to a ghostly whaler.
That ship set sail from Mulgrave Port With fifteen men on board The seas were rough and wind was hard but fin whales beckoned Nor’ard.
A listing ship in thick fog banks the crew fell to watery graves they now haunt the eastern seaboard or rest beneath those stormy waves.
So the old crone will sit there forever she knows that her man won’t return she’ll sit there and rock while she’s waiting to join him when Death calls her turn.
It had been a while it had been an age since he last let his style wander over the page.
He still felt such rage which made him feel dire but there’d be no next stage till he’d put out this fire.
He felt so much calmer as ink flowed ‘cross the page words were such a disarmer he had issues to engage.
The more that he penned the calmer he got as he tried to amend and move on from this spot.
But at the very last line with his pen in the margin he tore it up as a sign and he’d write it again.
____________________
Anger all gone now he looked at the cross and he knew then that somehow He was sharing his loss.
He felt again whole as he laid his pen down he felt back in control from a peace he’d now found.
Presently he turned again to his labours leaving his writing and going back to his lathe and as he looked over at one of his neighbours he thought of his son on a cross being brave.
Who’d not spoken of God or of angels with wings but of the land and the sod and of bread, fish and things.
Ah the mysteries of life are such a matter of faith she was Joseph’s wife But ’twas God kept her safe.
I didn’t realise. I was a fool Just another government tool Beavering away, working hard Until I got the pensioner’s card.
And now my ancient bones all ache I’ll need NHS for my health’s sake But a third of contracts in sickness’ fray Like my local hospital, they were given away.
People’s views all treated with disdain The Health Service reeling from such internal pain While the wealthy go private, it’s simple for them The ire of voters won’t be so easy to stem.
Bruised by life one picks up one’s battered self prepares to carry on into the next belligerence and stoically turns to face the world with all its beauty, yet too, horror and indifference.
We are but a small black, pink, brown baby upon arrival luckier ones will be cared for and loved so well yet still there are those whose lives will be filled with pain from that very first beautiful breath yet fearful chest swell.
And as we grow to take on life’s burden of knowledge some will fall along the way into deprivation accepting life sustaining scraps as they are given It shouldn’t happen in a so-called modern civilisation.
It falls to the fortunate to work to end the crisis but money talks so well, and oft creates corruption those with nothing have found their voice, their fight if answers aren’t found quickly I fear inevitable eruption.
I remember back to a time when the black dog hung around my neck like a heavy yoke, I could never be rid of the terror that it would not someday return to seek me out and strike me down again, and the knowing how close I had come to succumbing.
I remember edging closer to the crowded platform’s edge, too filled with fear to realise the probable selfishness of what I was about to do, only vaguely aware of where I actually was, but just able to register that touch on my right arm and the voice that quietly whispered, “I don’t really think you want to do that.” I remember turning to see who’d said it and seeing that there was just a crowd of people. Of the owner of the voice there was no sign, but it had been enough. It had been enough to make me realise where I was, for the moment passed and I made my way back.
Back to the arms of the woman who had always loved me, and who had carefully, lovingly, nursed me back to health over such a long time. I wept. I put my head on her gentle shoulder and I wept as I had never wept before. I wept for all I still felt, and I wept for all the selfish anguish I would have caused this woman had I let myself fall,
This experience is my own. It followed a period of severe depression after a
subarachnoid haemorrhage in 1986. Thankfully the depression eventually lifted and
has long gone.
I hear the wailing cries that call They’re calling out to me They call to draw the sailors down To the shore at the bottom of the sea.
No one can ever resist their call And so I fear I must go If ever I find my way back home Would I even really know.
The wailing calls grow louder My captain lashed me to the mast But the calls are strong and they took him And I don’t know if I can last.
It matters not if you stop listening For they find their way into your head You just have to get away and onto dry land Or they’ll pull you down to the sea bed.
At last I see dry land is yonder It is almost within my reach but the ropes that tie have undone now And my feet can’t quite touch the beach.
I hear the wailing cries that call They have now come to get only me My mind is so full of their wailing That I’m lost and can never be free.
The small stone fell from a ledge
in a study somewhere
and dropped into a travel bag.
Later the bag was picked up and carried away.
Much later still it was put in a car
being placed on the back seat. The car was
then driven to a port where it was taken off
the seat of the car and carried on-board
a cruise ship. The cruise ship was about
to sail up the Norwegian Fjords. It sailed
there quite frequently, though not
exclusively as it also sailed
around the Mediterranean Sea.
The bag was taken to and placed in
one of the luxurious staterooms.The
owner of the bag and her husband
were celebrating an important event
by enjoying a journey that they had
always promised themselves. The bag
eventually ended up on the deck as the
husband had fetched it for his wife
for an object that it contained. In
getting that thing out, the small
stone got caught up in it somehow
and was pulled out of the bag and
fell onto the deck of the ship,
whereupon it started to roll about.
Ultimately the stone found its way
to the stairs down to the lower deck
where it found a gap to lodge in. The
cruise ship sailed into the fjords
during a sudden heavy storm causing
much turbulence not only on the ship
but in a number of the passengers
stomachs, one of whom, a drinking man
I chance, could not contain himself,
and he was violently sick. The storm
abated however, and all was well.
A crewman took on the task of
cleaning up after the apparently
bibulous gentleman and washed down
the deck, and in doing so, washed
the small stone through a gap,
specially there for the deck washing
purpose, and into the fjord whereupon
it sank to the very deep bottom.
Such are the mysteries of life, but
in that one pebble’s journey you can
gauge the unpredictable future of
every man, woman and child and creature
on Earth.
Isn’t life utterly bewildering?
It is unlikely that the ever-moving tides
in the fjord will not have moved it elsewhere
many times since it fell in off the ship,
out of the bag, out of the car, into the car,
into the bag, and off the shelf
in the first place.
How it arrived on the shelf is
a story for another day.
Swirling visions of kaleidoscopic shapes fill the head with conflicting thoughts The mind in free-fall as it makes its way Through the complex outing of a typical day.
Kandinsky perhaps summed the mind up the best In the broadest proud shapes that show up the tell Of the brains complexities in the thoughts they go through As we all wend our way in the journeying we do.
It’s a hell of a ride so welcome aboard The mind goes to places and takes us along Our imagination rich with creativities mood As it takes information and turns it to food.
Jovis on a Journey... 