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Category: Memory

When I Am Here No Longer

When I Am Here No Longer

Published by admin on 9 February 2021

When I Am Here No Longer

When I am here no longer
Grieve not for I am nothing
But if a memory of me comes unbidden
Haste you to that great oak
That has at times so gently guarded us
And spread its shady limbs above our souls
Then sit you down against that hoary wrinkled trunk
And view again those verdant fields
Where often dancing larks on wing set flight
And cautious deer do snuggle in swelling grass
And when winds warm whisper
Your ruddy cheek so tenderly kisses
Silent hold your remembrance of me within
And know that I am near
At last at peace beside you
And tear not that I am gone
When I am here no longer

09/02/2021

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This Too Crowded Island

This Too Crowded Island

Published by Adrian North on 4 June 2018

This Too Crowded Island

This too crowded island
Drains me
Cold wind, cold rain, cold people
Chill me
Sadden me
Make me
Homeless in my own home
Take me
On dark, dark roads
Going from nowhere
To nowhere
Through brick built jungles
Sterile sanctuary of sterile souls
Grey dank faces watching me
Through dusty windows of dust minds
Unattractive, unappealing, unclean
Living corpses crying
Putrid babbles
Of nothingness
And hate
Yet I remain
Unheard
Unseen
Unwanted
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When the world stops

When the world stops

Published by Adrian North on 14 May 2018

When the world stops

The coffee cup grows cold slowly in my hand
Whilst I, distracted, think on you.
Then the world surrounding me
Stops
And I lose myself in fading remembrances
My heart is warmed
And I am slowly lifted
Out of the darkness
That I have built around me
Since you left.
And when I turn back to reality
I know you are with me
Within
And I am whole.

13/07/1990

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In the silence of summer standing
A Homecoming

A Homecoming

Published by Adrian North on 23 April 2018

A Homecoming

Suburban walls, suburban gardens,
Suburban bricks
Confront me
A decade on
So much has changed
Behind my suburban exterior
Am I as unrecognisable
As the scene before me?
As cold, as hard, as bleak?
So much changed
Beneath the same shell
Like these houses and shops
Am I, like them,
Decaying,
Rotting from within?
Have these ten long and weary years
So etched their pain
Into the very stones of my soul
That I may never return
To what I was?
But if I could
Would I?
Have I endured the torturing winds
And tormenting rains
For nothing?
Have I watched them erode my hard exterior
And expose my raw and bloody flesh
To the tempestuous elements
Just to say
"It is right,
Right to suffer so"?
No, no I will not
But stand and shout
At my new found strength
Swept clean by those who seek to hurt
And once more return
Return to this suburbia
Unlike those around
In their safe suburban lives
A newcomer
Returning to my fathers' land
To these
Suburban walls, suburban gardens,
Suburban bricks

13/07/1990

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What Memories Will Die
So many years have I

So many years have I

Published by Adrian North on 16 April 2018

So many years have I

So many years have I
The littling voices heard
And listened whilst
They lying spoke
And mouthed deriding words
Malignant in my mind
Of how I ungainly, unseemly and unfit
For custom social and for life unsuited was
Of intellect enfeebled and any skills divorced
And so believing siren song
Until now I travelled blind
But now I meekly sit and I ask
The truth of all I knew
If so unskilled am I
Then how have I become
All that I am and that is much
And more there is to come
So now must I
The littling voices still
And onward go
And higher still
To see what lies beyond
Then shall I with perfect peace
Full consummated pass
To darkness then
To seek what lies beyond

29/11/2009

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Passing By

Passing By

Published by Adrian North on 6 April 2018

Passing By

How many years have these stones
Here stood?
Mute watchers of hurrying seasons
Here where once lived voices
'Neath turf and heather roofed
Lie now open to storms hungry soul
Windows where eyes once gazed
On walls and ferns and burn below
Now lie open to the clouds
Like needle eye unthread
All is silent now
Except for winds harsh howl
Garden grazed by black faced sheep
Lichen grows on fireplace
Where peat a family kept warm
All is cold now
Untended
Unheeded
As I walk on

18/09/1998

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American Maize

American Maize

Published by Adrian North on 3 April 2018

American Maize

"It's not as good as ours" he said
We stand looking at new brought trailer load
Of Yankee maize viewed under azure sky
Got from a silo in the town
By road-sore tractor on road-sore roads
"No, it's not as good as ours.
Look at all these husks and leaves.
I'll have to get rid of them
Before I can mill them down."
By I, he means, of course, They
Who long, hard labour for his pay
Whilst he and I sit in humble shade
And drink of coffee while they sweating sort
The useful from the dross in that heavy load
And feed the hungry maw of hammer mill
With maize from foreign, far off land.
He gazes at the work and load
"No, no it's not as good as ours" he says

24/04/1998

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As you lay