DORSET COMPOSER - RICK BIRLEY
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      • Marat/Sade notes
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    • Call to Remembrance - a meditation on The Last Post
    • Sar-planina - a Macedonian folksong
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  • Compositions [Choral]
    • Compositions [choral/orch] - SACRED >
      • Advent Carol Succession >
        • Advent Carol Succession notes
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      • Fern Hill
      • Universal Truth
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      • The Jackdaw of Rheims
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      • Carol: I Sing of a Maiden
      • Gaudete, gaudete!
    • Compositions [Choral a capella SECULAR] >
      • The Birds’ Mass
      • Three Hardy Settings for unaccompanied choir
      • The Cuckoo
      • Dance to your Daddy
      • Three Motets
      • Drill, Ye Terriers, Drill
      • The Willow Song
      • My Love in her Attire
      • In Vernali Tempore
  • Compositions [Vocal]
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      • Edges
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      • The Virgin's Song
  • Compositions [chamber/instrumental]
    • Toccata: "On the Edge"
    • Butterfly in the Breeze
    • Austerity
    • Your Presence [piano/violin]
    • Quintet "magnas inter opes inops"
    • Minimalism
    • "Conversing with a Silent Marsh Harrier" for string quintet
    • Five Folksong Arrangements (for the Crucible)
    • Latin Primer [Septet]
    • Latin Primer [violin/piano]
    • Past Tense
    • in memoriam G B
    • String Quartet No.1
    • String Quartet No.2
    • Variations on a Plainsong - piano transcription
    • Variations on a Plainsong - original version for solo clarinet
    • March Wind
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    • Seven Preludes for Piano
    • Carol Preludes [piano]
    • Preludes [piano] >
      • 3 Preludes for Piano
    • Marat/Sade Suite [2-piano transcription]
    • Piano Sonata
    • Folksong Dance Suite for Cello & Piano
    • Dance to Your Daddy
    • Salutation Carol Prelude [piano]
    • Spanish Folksongs [2 piano version]
    • Grazioso (guitar solo)
    • Dorset Suite (guitar duo)
    • Drink Old England Dry: a Folksong Frolic for Busy Fingers
    • Sonatina for Violin & Piano [1979]
    • Donegal - a choral fantasy transcribed for piano
    • The Phoenix
  • Compositions [jazz/light]
    • Funked-up Bach
    • Basement Jazz
    • Too Darn Hot
  • A Dorset Affair
  • Compositions [Pastiche]
    • La Ronde
    • Zartom: Symphony
    • Hornby: Exultate Jubilate
  • The case for a National Rehearsal Orchestra for New Music
  • ARTWORK
    • Gallery - Room 1
    • Gallery - Room 2
    • Gallery - Room 3 [flowers]
    • Rogues gallery....
    • Pembrokeshire scenes i
    • Pembrokeshire scenes ii
    • Durham 'prints'
    • Picture Dorchester....
    • Italy October 2010
    • Paris
    • Prague
    • Miscellaneous
  • Poems
    • We English - a historical rhyme
    • Touching His Face
    • Commanded Time
    • Master of my Fate?
    • Alas, poor Ludo!
    • New Co-op Party Anthem
  • Rick Birley Blog
  • Miscellaneous
    • Maverick
    • Hobie Adventure Island >
      • Maiden Voyage 12.iii.11
  • Compositions [Miscellaneous]
    • Music Hall for Westfield
    • 60th birthday concert: May 24th 2014 Orchestral Concert


Poems

I have from time to time written a few poems. I have no pretensions as a poet, although I have many books of poetry and have set several to music. These are some of my efforts - each title here is linked to its poem, and by clicking 'Index' you can return here:

Index

"and"
little bird
split infinity
Actaeon i
Actaeon ii
the Weather of her Soul
Love's Passage
disappearing
"is your reaper grim?"
I Am My Little World
Rain
new year carol
The Season for Loving
The Buccaneer
I cannot lie
Regeneration
fragments
these fretted deeds....
Night's Canopy
Love
memories
Silly stuff
Birthday poem for Sally
My father's face
Her Father's Ghost

Touching His Face
Commanded Time
Master of my Fate?


Alas, poor Ludo!
The English Schoolmaster in China

The grumpy old man
Finca Fever




​

Picture
West Walks [oil pastel]



        




"and" 
This is a poem describing people and mini dramas passing by the bench in the park where I had taken my m&s lunch bits to eat in the sunshine. I love people-watching, and am an innate nosey-parker busy-body. And I love ideas and words - always too many! - as much almost as I love my music, and my notes! - too many notes! [as the emperor said .... ignorantly]. 

The park is the Borough Gardens, so close that it is like an extension to our own little garden. The picture is of West Walks when the old railings had been removed, prior to the restoration. 



​    


"and”

and you’ll be able to stay with dad
            some times
says the fat non-mum to the sulking 
            unloved child
whose sun was hidden grey
            nowhere else to go
            poor girl divided
by the ignored wisdom
of solomon the so-called wise
and I start to eat my
sun is shining
            here in the friendly park
            the flowers and
            sleepy lazy 
to be yet not two bees
but dying wasp on dry wood
and four girls eight legs
saunter thigh by my
averting gaze each pair
fatter than the last
            crisp in the packet
and I eat my vegetable
            25% fat and obese
            one-pound-skinny-
belsen-boy-samosa from m&s
and the little girl is cross
            and screaming sad inside
            the prison of her care-less
family that is the question 
whether tis nobler to stay
            together for the 
            sake of the
            kids who have no say
and I drink my
friend’s fear of 
daughter’s pulmonary artery
op to come
bless southampton
general fruit smoothie
again from m&s
            in the friendly
and not-so-friendly 
park my ideas
            of life of death
            of dying wasp
and of me. me and dying.
and the pain. and the rest.
            and two tall
            too tall for me
boys-yet-men
one with squashed ear saunter
bye bye and from lunch break
bach to work
in my mp3 in a funked-up way
           and the kaleidoscope of
nursery rhymes too
fill my world with joy
          less the parky pain 
          and not at all the pain 
                the pain
                     of the unloved
                           inconvenient
                                   little girl
          and the fat non-mother
          and the 25% fat-stat
          and the earlobe-less man-boy
          and the fate-fearful dad
and I bin my thoughts
and rubbish my bits
          and my bobs
and wander
neurologically speaking
back to base to work
          and
rumination post samosa
and my picnic in the
          friendly yet
          maybe not so friendly
park




         

​

little bird

Picture
La Gaverie, St Germain sur Ay, par Lessay [Normandy]
little bird

you, little bird
who measures out time
in swoops,       
dives,  
chattering
and song
that fills the space in which we both belong,
in which I heard
 
none of the pain -
it is the song which you and I
rehearse and improvise            
each virgined day,
we bring it on and on again
to nullify
the truth -        
that emerging from this clay
we are the same
 
dulled molecules of dust -
rehearse this scene again -                    
do not disturb
the tramp asleep,
nor restless muse
who races dawn in creative urgent lust
vaingloriously to lose
the sense of noun         
or verb -
 
your soulful song
and my manufactured phrase
come and go and multiply -
the same dulled molecules make our days:
for you to fly,
for me to sigh -
we do not stay for long -
 
you, little bird
whistling in the wind
whilst I temper time’s mortal coil
with sweet music of the mind -
in the final silence no song is heard
your song and mine mix their atoms in the soil
 
10 may 2009











split infinity


Life is but an album-ed span
whose final page, the end of all,
without plan
Marks a pilgrimage, whose shadow
Every day of life is a leaf in history
 
No purpose to call
Save a wonderful mystery
no gold at the foot of the rainbow
 
And within this span
Of Nano years, months and days
Which split infinity
And prise time apart
Lives hopeless man
Measured twixt daytime haze
And dark night’s counterpart
A mortal Trinity
 
Of life,
As we draw life's sweet breath
To blow out the candle of each new year
And watch the smoke drift up above
We listen for the dreadful sound
 
Of endless dark.
We've seen it all before
As one by one our loves and lives
Exit for ever from our stages
Each brief mark
Fading on the forest floor
Our scripts the painful wages
 
17.jan.2009

 




 

Acteaon i

Actaeon, felicitous youth
Unblushingly fresh,
Did not choose his awful, final truth,
Unwitting in his sight of godly flesh.
But Diana,
Rising from the waters whence
She bathed, with nymphs attending,
Blushed full, and more, in naked shame,
Bold Actaeon her privacy offending
When into her glade he came.
Angrily she cursed his mortal innocence.
 
Twixt his surprise and her displeasure
Diana mutated his natural make
Into a stag, whose swiftest measure
Actaeon’s own hounds delight to subjugate
For lust’s hungry sake
To satiate their appetite,
He with grevious recognition saw his fate,
Started up in desperate flight.
 
Diana, Goddess now, rode as Huntress of the Sky,
Saw poor Actaeon’s hopeless plight
Submit
Within her cruel sight;
Enjoyed his piteous pain,
Waited as he struggled yet, in vain:
His knowledge of her dying with his soul.
She in her heaven, set on high;
He below in hell, by his own hounds
Devoured in bloody whole.
 
Her vengeance knew no bounds
But Death:
And innocence no more
A thing of Beauty on the forest floor.


Cae Rhedyn 13/14.viii.98






Actaeon ii

Actaeon
fresh faced innocent
away with his dogs
not possibly averting his gazing fate
sees Diana naked
sees her moistness
sees her angry
frozen flesh
crimson flush of shame and rage
rising
dripping waters from perfect form
and glistens in sunlit glade

virgin nymphs astonished
in unclothed disbelief
of bold and beauteous youth
entering
such privacy

awesome majesty
fearsome paralysis
transfixed

Diana
crimson enraged disgrace
on with her gown
not possibly avoiding her wounded pride
sees Actaeon hapless
sees his chaos
sees his distress
sees his fearful
frozen form
bronzed build of mighty sinew
mutating
shaggy features of witless stag
and quivers in this scented space

virgin nymphs bewildered
in obvious disbelief
of bold and beauteous youth
enduring
such exchange
petrified creature
fearsome paralysis 
transfixed

Hounds
pack-trained hunters
up with the trail
not possibly eluding their basic urge
see Actaeon helpless


tear him down
tear his flesh
tear his eyes
bloodied meat
torn limb from limb torn
dying
fading spirit of fated boy
and expires in bewildered
virgin nymphs astounded
in apparent disbelief
of bold and daring youth
suffering
such slaughter

innocence nowhere
found again
on the forest floor


Cae Rhedyn 16.viii.98






 

the Weather of her Soul


She peers into her glass
a toad stares back
She steers her wooden stare
through bosky grey to fields of furrowed clay
shared and scored anew each uncalled-for day
With roughshod care
time’s rivelled hack
reflects through her etched weatherglass

She peers into her glass and sees beyond
the dullish stare stares back
from ash veneered opacity
She holds the stare and starts to float
guides her ancient sonde
across the pages of her almanac
to the crowded footnote
of her existential vast extensity

She peers into her glass and passes through
floats through the black lights of her eyes
and humming a tuneless barcarole
drifts into the inner void
The faintly azure blue
stares back in thin disguise
and brushes past the membranes of her soul
vibrates the familiar schizoid

Here she sees another face
reflecting in a room of glass
whose panes touch at the darkness without
Whose edges of infinity reflect in truth
the greater keenness of her space
Whose focus seeks an edge on which to shout
but never sharpens its ephemeral mass
nor matures its sallow youth

That wretched soul of hers
whose heart is filled with rarest art
lies wrecked on the low-tide shore
midst wrack and mortal ruin
waiting for the reaper’s cart
The journeyman whose stealth avers
the artless truth of life’s assassin
The nevermore of evermore



6th March 2008




glass - mirror
bosk – thicket, or little wood
shared – ploughed [ploughshare]; also shares the image
score – notch, gash, scratch; also as in music
roughshod – provided with horse-shoes with projecting nails to afford extra grip
rivelled – wrinkled [OE]
hack – a horse, esp. one in a sorry condition. Also a gash, a notch
weatherglass - barometer

sonde – [Fr] device for obtaining information about atmospheric or weather conditions at high altitude

existential – relating to human existence
extensity – massiveness or spatial quality in sensation from which perception of extension is derived



barcarole – gondolier’s song, or similar

azure – of a faint blue, sky-coloured


schizoid – one with schizophrenic personality – introversion, tending to fantasise, duality





keenness – sharpness – also as in having an acute or penetrating mind; also intense

ephemeral – short-lived -  ie the mayfly whose adult life is very short – often lasting but a single day.
sallow – pale yellow [of skin]



wrack – seaweed cast ashore, stranded; also wreck; also vengeance
aver – declare to be true
journeyman – a hired workman, one hired by the day; also one who is competent at his trade [no longer an apprentice]
artless – guileless, unaffected, simple; also inartistic




Love's Passage



Willed yet not controlled by will
I was lifted to a great height
Onto a vast and grass tussock’d hill
Up into the yearning light.
She and I ran hand in hand in love
On endless summer’s days
Protected and immune up there above
We happily lay together till dusk’s haze
Willed again; as time drew on we ran as one
Toward the edge of the unknown
And plunged headlong into the dying sun
And over the abyss! And there our spirit has flown
Into an ageless clime, the kiss of Spring
Gives our love in timeless bliss its fling.


 

 

disappearing


an appearance demands
     a physicality, whose balance
     both demands and exudes purpose
and the stage is salty wet with lamentations, curses,
     the unfairness of it all
     the choppy swell
          of the level playing field drowning
          in its own tears
the hopes, the aspirations of this single chance
          of life
and all its borrowed abundance.
 
no choice, out of nothing but no choice.
creatures of the moment, trapped in a brief instant,
prised out of the enormous enormity,
     no purpose here
     no selected team today
to complete the mindless relay 
 
under starter's orders we writhe,
     crawl, totter, walk, amble, run
blindly leading the blind
     with erudite emptiness
and learn-ed philosophy to ease the pain

     of physicality,
     whose balance still

both demands, seeks and manifests purpose
     on the slippery stage.
 
as we tire, urgently breasting the end tape,
we writhe once more in pain
     lamenting the loss and counting the gain,
     ship the oars and unfairly drift
at the mercy of the fading dream.

 some life! some death!
a transient nothingness disappearing,
     the parting waters departing
     with the drowned, whose wet memories merge
          merge and are lost
into some vast ocean which knows no depth
     and flows into itself
     over and over
          and never knows the pain

          of the tears
which are its eternal spring.


 such sick physicality appears --
     endlessly appears --
and just as endlessly
     disappears
for life and death are one


 
5 April 2009

 




"is your reaper grim?”


“
is your reaper grim?
and does he greet you with a smile?
does he sing a calming hymn,
gently take you by the hand,
and like some old acquaintance, like a friend,
with subtle assurances beguile
with promise of a greener land?


“then does he gesture to the end
that previously you did not see?
do you struggle, try to flee?
or do you place your trust in him
to lead you to some better place?
does he have a kindly face?”


we all, we all alike do ask,
we all would want to know
how brutal is his thankless task.


does he divert or stop the flow
of love, of thought, of life, of entity?
where does the lively stanza go
that sang with such sonority?


what lies within his wooden cask
he does not deign to show;
neither his face behind the mask.


“so, is he grim, your reaper,
and are you sure he has a smile?
the beating of your pulse keeps detailed timing;
Time marks out each step, each yard, each mile.
you are Time's slave, he is your keeper,
his the strike that sets the knell a-chiming.”


well might we laugh in drunken glee,
well might we fill our days with joys;
well might we hope or pray we do not see
or feel the fateful blow
that shatters hope and fells our mortal frame,
the ghastly strike the enterprise destroys
of rich, of poor, of old, of young,
of all alike both high and low
to this assassin are the same.


he wanders constantly among
the sick, the dispossessed, the lame.
his crooked smile is with us from our birth,
and waits awhile until we leave this earth.






Feb 2016






I Am My Little World


 I am my little world, said he,
     And round about my soul 
          unfurled for all to see
The pennants of my lifeline flutter helplessly
In the silent hurricane of this other me
     Tattered, unravelled
          seams of my humanity
     Trailing in sparkling  threads
          of bright mortality.

There, there for all to see, he said,
Save by the sighted blind, who have no tear to shed.

I am my little world, said he,
     A willed and willing player 
          yet a hapless refugee
Unsewing pennants' seams creatively
Unpicking threads of fragility: 
     Wrapping new lines round sense
          to help me be
     Inured to life's nonsense,
          and its keen insensibility. 


July 5th 2010




Rain


we form our state high
high in some shapeless vapours
immeasurably refined and redefined
from past wetness now washed clean
and raised expectant shy
we grow newly redesigned
with vibrant sheen
our drop drops roundly from the sky
begins the folly of our freefall capers 
 
some float as mizzle
some sting as driving rain
some from a huge and frowning height
            dive headlong earth bound
in joyous pain
most from the dullness of some grey drizzle
            touch ground with silent sound
            with empty gain
 
all fall in vain
 
few shine resplendent bright
in glory of sun’s refracted light
most lost in viewless blight
in numbness of endless night












 

new year carol


and the waters singing shall wet the stage
on which we tread
on which we lately tread
there on storied pebbles fresh immersed

 washed on riverbed
washed clean on riverbed

 reflecting slippery time whose yellowed age
when done and said
when all done and said
makes its exit finally offstage
 
no curtain call
no scene change
no props to rearrange
no sounds at all
 
save rippled water coruscating over shallow stones
and new laid bones burbling their sweetest tones
to gently soothe our hapless quicklimed yearning
 
its flowing thread
intently binds our weak and helpless rage
now stranded dry – such parched and brittle learning
entirely unrehearsed 
 
its calm and flowing thread
intently weaves a new and endless age
entirely sans script unrehearsed
 
when we are dead
 
we all are singing unversed
songs of pebble-washed time
which will become immersed
one unsuspecting day
in lime
or clay
over which will run the ever running stream
smoothing out the pain
smoothing forever the awful pain
 
singing softly of a pebbled dream 
 
our new year carol strains the air
in sad lament
as the melody of one so fair
is spent
 
 
19.i.10

 



 

 

The Season for Loving

Now is the season for loving;
For the days are long,
The nights warm,
And the sun rises each day
On a timeless holiday.
I've reached this dubious maturity,
Sweated my tears,
In dismal places,
And in those dread days
Each hour was an eternity.
 
And after each eternal day,
Another;  yet as I look,
Look back on hell,
I am as far removed from then
As then I was from now.
Each moment flashes swiftly by,
Some savoured,
And some hated;
But I am changed and older now,
Impervious to their mood,
 
No more afraid of living,
Longing but to love;
And hell long since gone,
Replaced instead by a timeless void,
Timeless season for loving.









The Buccaneer

Picture
My Dad

The Buccaneer
 
In the weather of his dreaming
A dull grey mist
Blends the edges
Of the above
And the below
His horizon no longer
Sharpened keenness
 
Where once the clinched nails
Held fast the full-ribbed clinker
Planed and skimmed
To the finis terre
And made battles
With the monsters of the deep
Where once the smooth-oiled planks
Of seasoned oak creaked
In the high sun’s radiation
Now groans with agued age
And splits the splinters of wisdom
Into brittle sticks of parched sinew
Smiling with confused emptiness
Redundant in thought and deed 
 
Just as now the proud
Proud jutting prow
Is blunted
No more the wave slice
Synergy of winded cloth
And sheeted tension
Dividing the waters
In pursuit of gems
That boyhood treasure
Plundered in eternal leisure
Is now spent
Linen sags today
As yesterday
Listless and heavy cheeked
The contraband was spent
The open chest full empty
Cutlassed spoils dispersed
Vacant and sallow-cheeked faces stare
From dark recesses everywhere
And he himself in skull and bone
From deep in a spray-damp chair
 
Which was not always so
When strutting the decks
Visioning through the prophetic glass
The shortened view
And the long range investment
Riding aloft the crests
Tearing through time
Amassing considerable wealth
Crafting imagination with fire
Jewelled and crafted fire
And objects of great beauty
Ripping through the Roaring Forties
Into a cascade of rich abundance
 
Until the distant years drew near
And gleaming metals gathered rust
And riming reason turned to dust
And
And memories forgot themselves
Forgot themselves and
And
Fragmented time and space
 
The old buccaneer yawned
And the chasm yawned too
Tales displaced doing
Stories found their summaries
In the hold
The gold is tarnished
What is old is withered
And encompassed with an acrid mould
 
The eyes that smiled grow grey
Deep blinking confusion
Non-thought nonsense
The glimmer of who are you
And hopeful of a deeper well
Of cognition
 
You are who
Who are you
You are you
How do you do
Not too good
These days 
 
Bless
Bless the shadow
The like of which inhabits me
Bless
Bless the blessed memories
The dreams of which possess me
Bless
Bless the man
The seed of whose being made me
 
The old man falters unbalanced on the edge
Still dancing on the dancing ledge
His canon defiant
His cannon silent now
And at the edge of the world
He drifts helpless
Over the eternal waterfall
With monsters
Me and all



[me and my Dad]

16 July 2010




 

I cannot lie



I cannot lie, I see him there,
death waits by without a care.
His rasping breath marks out his time
    and I wish him dead

I cannot lie, I see his stare,
behind closed eyes his skull laid bare.
His stubbled face plays out the mime
    and his life is bled

I cannot lie, I hear his prayer,
from deep within behind that glare.
His starving frame begins the climb
    and his mind has fled

I cannot lie, I shape despair
to ease my pain I stroke his hair.
Beneath my hand his paradigm
    and now his words unsaid

    This time the lesson is for real
        his ancient primer finally laid down.
    I shut my eyes and try to feel
        the syntax of his verb and noun.

I cannot lie, I know not where
to find him now I am his heir.
His very presence now sublime
    a ghostly maidenhead.



2.1.12





Regeneration


The trunk is felled
we branches thrown to earth
are now the root.
The man that I once held
like as he held me from my birth
was resolute.


I saw him go
and heard the last drawn breath:
I bid farewell.
My fragile embryo
is now enfeebled by his death
his cell my cell.


My once child form
held strongly in his arms
in case I fell
was sheltered from the storm.
He was full watered with love's charms
from holy well.


I watched him die
and felt his wounded life
come grasp my soul.
I would it were some lie
that now confounded death's midwife
and left him whole,


but hope in vain.
This breathing is his last,
his frame now still.
I mould my burning pain
into the stillness of his cast
whose dream I fill.


Rick Birley

24.2.12







​

fragments


the mighty daytime gale becomes the night breeze
blows dust and debris from the floor
to cloud the fullness of my moon


becomes a passing breath
a gentle sigh too soon
calls death
heaves
lies still
breathes and breathes no more
through the twigs and branches of my trees


my dad




in shards of things he said
he did
he moved
he penned
he laughed


my dad


gave to me, now deep
within, organic in my dark
feeding my heart, light


my dad


shines on my footsteps
shades my voice and
sweeps my soul, bless


my dad





4.1.12










these fretted deeds....





which of these fretted deeds
    that lend purpose to my soul
    and vision to my heart
and in part and in whole
    sustains and feeds
    with priceless art
and fills my cluttered head
with tender sounds of glory
lending compass to my tread
    and direction to my story 

which, which fretted mark
will wither slowest on the posthumous stalk
and which will float in endless dark
and which will run, which walk, which talk
    to those who are not yet here?

which others will move to weep
    strangers born to some future sun
which of my present pain eke out their tear?
and which to lose, and which to keep
and who will take the pick
    when all is literally said and done?
who and which and why and when
    as carbon dust comes round again
    and all that’s left is silent word and empty sound
who will choose those bits of me?
the bits that swam, or those that drowned?

with which small fretted deed
    will those who are not yet, yet see
the soulless think of one now freed?
[the fretted deeds of rick… 

… birley] 


26.vi.09


 


 




Night's Canopy


Gazing at some distant star
so small, so slight, so delicate in light,
I feel the coldness of a blinded night
shiver my flesh. This thing so far,
so far, so delicate a sight,
is maybe as our own.


And as I blink, 'tis lost
amidst a blackness all alone,
pierced with tiny shining shards,
so many countless milliards
of living light embossed
with mysteriousness unknown.


20.ii.16







​

Love

Love flows from its eternal spring
the stream becomes a river;
the water's torrent has its fling
and waterfalls deliver.
Such freshness endlessly renews
the body and the soul;
and hand in hand continues
to the vibrant ocean's whole.
Here ripples turn to waves,
and waves to tidal races
whose music fills my staves
with tuneful airs and graces,
which silently evaporate
into the azure sky;
to fall once more into the spate:
Love's spring will never die.


14 February 2011





memories



my fragile memories are your fading dreams
these make the fabric of our world
flutter in the sunlit breeze
like sea that coruscates at dusk
before the beckoning darkness 
of universal night

the very sun that wakes your day
wakes too my brittle dream
and spills its soul into
the vapour of my shallow breath
and the tracings of my stare

but through the dulled greyness
of eyes now weak and strained by looking
glimpse half-shadowed living figurines
play out these fragile memories 
in song and dance and silent mime
deep inside the strumming sinews of my soul

my fragile memories fill my inner void
and gently strum the membranes
of my very self, my very inner self
which play out in the autumn gale
until the Winter freeze
binds them to the hard earth
in thin coatings of glistening light

see how your heavy footprints press
the precious glories of my frosted glaze
see how your sad feet journey through my past
and how their searching wakes the dream

my faded dreams are now your fragile souvenir
diluted into the thinness of my absent stare
which once you loved

I loved
I deamed
I lived

what was is gone







Silly stuff




We are such silly, minute stuff,

clinging to this spinning lump of clay.

My notes are writ, yet not enough

to comfort me.




The pains of each new day

are shared. But who will see

the unrecorded myths my muse

no longer yields to liquid song,

nor rhyme?




Enfeebled now, I somehow lose

that urgency, my very time,

that sense of who I am, where I belong,

I am so singularly remote.

That none cares




nor comprehends my stiff decline,

misinterpreting my stares

they know not if I sink, or float,

this chafes my soul. For love I pine;

just intuitive love




to fan the still warm coals

which heat the last few stanzas of my air.

When present push succumbs to final shove

and I am gone, then who is it unrolls

the tuneful legacy of me? My disrepair

the abstract coo of turtledove.




March 2015








Birthday poem for Sally




The tides flow in, the tides ebb out,

We celebrate another year,

In laughter, joy, we raise a mighty shout

For you, my love, so wonderfully dear.




And near the water's edge we dip our feet

To sense the heat or cold of what's to come:

The mysteries of the life we wait to meet,




The sights so incredulously dumb

With wonder; for these we wait,

Our blood quick coursing through our veins.




For, although none knows what Fate

Alone dictates, who holds the reins,

We can still swim against or with the tide,

And would not know what waters lie ahead

Beyond the spume blown crest. May I confide

With you, my love, that I, when all is said

And gone, will love you 'till I die,

My breathless calling is the sea-bird's cry.




17.ii.16









My father's face




[i] 27.v.15


Such stillness, such straining silence,

such gentle sun rising through the mists

of my awoken soul,

ascending with the lark

to the warm-remembered dreams

of supernatural child,

held in time's embrace,

reflected in the wild laughter

of my father's face.




I hear his voice, and suddenly rejoice

as there across the table in that chair

his eyes meet mine.

And in the blinking of his whiskered eye

his impish smile imparts the gift

of his enduring love.

And my heart sings with the lark,

up there, above.







[ii] 27.v.15


My dad rose early with the sun

and descended daily to the rocks

below the house.

Without least element of fun

he dives straight in! And flocks

of oystercatchers take flight

below the house,

wondering, surely wondering

at the sight.




For brief while beneath the waves

my dad is gone.

But reappears! - and from the caves

burst forth rock doves in wild alarm.

In urgent flight they disappear.

And in my mind I still can hear

my dad returning from his swim.

I am not now the half of him....







[iii] 27.v.15


I never knew the child

my father oncetime was.

I never saw his boyhood face,

nor heard the treble of his voice.




Yet in the stillness of this place,

this hallowed house,

this ghost-filled holy space,

why, here I am that child,

the son I oncetime was.

I feel once more the freshness of my face,

and hear again my little childhood voice

raised in laughter,

innocent and free.




The child my father oncetime was

is me. The groaning age

is only what dull strangers see!










[iv] 28.v.15


There came a day, a slate-grey day,

when light grew light

without the morning sun.

No larks rose, no songs begun,

no flight to heaven as only a skylark may.




No oystercatchers probing in the bay,

and no choughs

grubbing in the clay.

No swifts slicing through the dampened air

with scything wings. No 'daws

riding high the clifftop drafts

with skillful flair.

No noisy rooks, nor black crows' raucous caws.




The day stood still and waited.

Thus came this day, ill-fated.




On the rocks again, my dad,

those rocks below the house.

Now vacantly insane, quite mad,

he dived once more and vanished

from my sight

into that dark that is forever night.




Such stillness, such eternal silence

in my house above those rocks,

those rocks below the house

from which my father leapt.

Yet in this aching stillness,

my senses sharpened by the night,

I feel and touch his presense

still.




In this house above the rocks

where I such anguished tears have wept

I see him in the blindness of my sight

as I, my father's lonely child,

have lonely vigil kept.




Once more he blinks his whiskered eye,

once more his impish grin imparts

the gift of his empowering love,

and my heart sings, again,

my soul rides high

with morning lark,

so high up there in dazzling blue above.




[Cae Rhedyn - end of May 2015]



Her father's ghost


She is her father's ghost,

for he was in this very place

    where she is now.

She is in her father's space,

he was and is her very host -

    she knows not how.


In the noisy stillness of this rain-soaked night,

where thundering darkness blinds her feeble sight,

    she sees his weathered face.

    and the mischief in his eye

coruscating sparks of silver sea-cloaked light,

    each flash a memoried trace

    of frozen heat that passes by, strumming

the chilled and tender membranes of her soul

    and out of sight, gently humming.


She is in her father's ghost,

she is in this very place

    where he is now.

She is her father's space

and now he is her very host -

    she knows it now.


31/7 - 2/8 2016 (Cae Rhedyn)


​



The English Schoolmaster in China
(apologies to Oliver Goldsmith)


Beside yon Chinese Wall that skirts the way
With border'd parapets keeping all at bay,
There, in oriental mansion, skill'd to rule,
The English Master drills his little school;
A man laid back he is, and tall to view,
I know him well, the Chinese students too;
Well have the slumbering backrow learn'd to trace
The day's translating in his morning face;
Full well they laugh with adulatory glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke has he:
Full well the chinese whisper, circling round,
Conveys the pain of baijiu that he'd down'd:
Yet he is kind; or if severe in aught,
The love he bares to learning is in fault.
The Natives all declare it [but in Wu];
'Tis certain he can write. And sporting too:
Grids he can measure, trivial pursuits presage,
And e'en the story runs he is a Sage.
In arguing too, the Chinese own his skill,
For e'en though vanquish'd he can argue still;
While words of learned length and thund'ring sound
Amaze the gazing students rang'd around;

When Ben said "Fuck" t'was meant as 'kung-ho' praise,
This English mandarin for sure continues to amaze.
And still they gaze and still the wonder grows,
That one small head can carry all he knows.



Rick
7.xii.10







The grumpy old man






The grumpy old man
With the claustrophobic pictures
Has captured time
In well-rehearsed and
Regular trembling
Each movement marking its painful passage
To the blackness
Of a think-free night
Of a dreamless void


The grumpy old man
With the claustrophobic pictures
Laughs silently now
In disowned mirth
Each soft guffaw
Pulsed with shaking
Laced with timorous tears
And fears of lone


The grumpy old man
With the claustrophobic pictures
Feels his aching limbs
And feeble gait
And slumps and slumps
Under the crushing
Expectation


The grumpy old man
With the claustrophobic pictures
Cries silently
Love love he cries
Cling to love
Still he cries


The grumpy old man
With the claustrophobic pictures
Sighs without
Breath he sighs
With clayed breath


The grumpy old man
With the claustrophobic pictures
Of life
Of death
Lies


The grumpy old man
With the claustrophobic pictures
Trembles
Still


The grumpy old man
With the claustrophobic pictures
Weeps


No more


The grumpy old man
With the claustrophobic pictures


Was a father once


No more




Rick Birley
2008





Picture

​Finca Fever


(with apologies to John Masefield)



I must across the road to Finca again, as the time for a coffee draws nigh,
And all I ask is a cup of the best, and some bars from next door's wi-fi,
And the caffeine's kick and the CD's song and the white cup's shaking,
And a warm smile on the Don's face and a Ricchiato making.




I must cross the road to Finca again, for the call of the other side
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
All I ask is a double shot with the white froth lying,
And the choc'late spray and the silver spoon, and my taste buds sighing.




I must cross the road to Finca again, to the fragrant coffee life,
To the Don's way and the Marti's way where the wit's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And some cake or some toast to go with the roast, and cold water to drink when it's over.




RB 28.10.14





Picture
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