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The Golden Country
This section is about the experience of early childhood, it is called the golden country because in my memory the very early years have taken on that colour.
Index: Click on the titles below to go to individual poems.
Into the world To Rachel Million Millepeding words. Changeling child Night music Geology lesson Viking morning Dancers dream Sun on shadow Fagment Never pull a tiger's tail Giddy Tidilak New Material!
In the dark coiled and fetal,
Fingers meeting, tips peaking
In contemplation of the dark.
The world is narrowed to four walls
The sky the floor and nothing more.
I am nothing, a thought hidden,
A person as an object
Stored in a cupboard
Ignoring the world beyond the door.
I felt it pressing on all sides
I heard a thin voice and made a choice
To let the door swing wide.
The world looks strange and new
I am an alien crawling on all fours
Into light, chaos, space
Out of the cupboard and into the world.
It’s all right, I will wait
If I run ahead and you follow behind
I don’t mind.
I know myself but I do not know you
Through and through.
What we don’t know we’ll seek to find
To plant a seed inside our minds
You must wait for seeds to grow
Until they do we won’t know,
For seeds that grow to mighty trees
Always have a little mystery
In the beginning.
Poetry is the freest thing I know,
It has a rhythm that ebbs and flows.
So let your reservations go
Sit back, relax, enjoy the show.
Jargon was bargained back and forth across the page,
As all the characters took the stage.
To pantomime their joys and rage,
The poet took the role of mage.
Then the words weaved, dived and flew free,
As ordinary folk lived out dreams of bravery,
Their legends had a simplicity,
Irrelevant to reality.
The rolling, rhyming, crashing, bashing of a million words,
As they millipeded across my lips and,
Danced along my fingertips.
Rhythm, rhythm in my blood,
They nailed it up to stop the flood but,
That didn’t stop the seeping mud,
That echoed each beat.
Beat echoed, beat echoed, beat echoed beat.
Then BOOM up were the stars are shining,
Went the Catherine Candle smiling.
If you think you understand
Each word that stands upon my hand
Then fool to you, it isn’t true,
I only ask one thing of you,
Let your reservations go,
Sit back, relax, enjoy the show.
I am the dreamer that watches the stars
On the wings of the mind I’ve traveled far,
I’ve seen the moonshine where dark shadows play
Some call me a dreamer and some call me fey.
I have the eyes to which visions appear
I dance to music that only I hear.
My spirit is both free and wild
I am the faery changeling child.
I have magic in my blood,
I am neither wicked nor good
But I’m as bitter as can be
For my people abandoned me.
My eyes are black and I’ve pointed ears,
When I sob I cry no tears.
My spirit is both free and wild
I am the faery changeling child.
The wind is rocking the chimes tonight.
The sound runs its hand against my window
Like tinkling glass fingers.
This air has the breath of magic in it
Now it chooses to make beautiful music
But it could rock and shake the frame of our house.
Howling like a wild dog under my window,
There are nights when it runs with the clouds in the sky
Surrounding the moon with a leaping trail
Like a pack of hounds running tail to tail.
The wind snatches smoke form the chimney
Inciting the fire to leap up from its guard.
On nights like these there is a tension
Between the wild night and my cocoon of light.
My pulse dances with the chimes and I
Want to run up to the moon and join the chase.
Slow incremental movements that defy imagination
Take place within our planet.
Telegraph poles were seen to shake
Dogs pricked up their ears and came awake
The great earthquake had come.
Deep songs of seismic resonance
Sought out the perfect tuning fork
Buildings shook as they fought
To maintain a structure.
Fishers ran and fractured land,
They cut across the bridges span
The trembling earth was giving birth
To mountains, valleys, plattues, hills
Anywhere that soil could fill
Was buried in its tumble.
Moving under oceans,
Moving under lakes,
Shifting around the continents
On great tectonic plates
But so imperceptible
So subtle in its timing
That only miners see the leavings
Reflected in a diamond.
The forces that fold evolve or erode.
The flow of time written on stone.
The briefest tremble of a molten pulse
Displaces cities and creates a gulf
In our belief that the earth is still.
Visions flood,
With the moon behind us and the sun above.
Cool morning light kisses our arms.
Iron rings on iron, blows fall, swords sour
Then we run driving our shadows before us
To the sea shore.
Our ships are all away
As wind raises sail and spray.
Waves lick smoothly beneath wood
A frantic cry, wind up some rope
Or rotting lie on the sea bed
Our tails untold in winter.
Good morning stars, sunshine light
Illuminate the stage in turn,
As the dancers intertwine and imitate
The tangled shapes of vegetation,
They leave soft traces behind
The sounds of sliding feet
Their gliding forms compete
Some are lifted high.
They glitter in clouds of taffeta.
They puff and heave like horses
Even the donkey.
Play your smiling tricks puck,
Role and kick your legs with laughter.
Prevent the lovers meeting,
Keep their touches fleeting,
As they spin and collide in mock fight
Grotesque but comic with it.
Sunlight on shadow
And out through the night.
Sunlight on shadow
Let me shine bright.
If you go where rivers flow
Then on out of sight,
If you go through sun and snow
Then on through the night.
Meet you at the Golden Stag,
Meet you there between
Meet you in the Faery ring
With the unseen.
Like a fish that is flying,
Lungs that are dying,
Breathing in air rather than sea.
Never pull a tiger by the tale.
Never disturb a sleeping whale.
Never clean dragon’s teeth
It will only give you grief,
They are all such angry beasts
If you tread on their beliefs
So never pull a tiger by the tale.
Like Tidilak the frog,
Who swallowed all the water
And was tickled to laugh,
I will tickle you
Till your high and mighty smile
Bursts and gushes from the dam.
Giggling and Tickling
Till the tears rise
And you wipe your eyes
Falling flat on your back
Bonelessly relaxed
An empty Tidilak.
Then I’ll tickle you even more
Until you laugh like a lions roar
Not so serious as you were before.
