Wednesday, December 28, 2011

WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

WHERE ARE YOU GOING?

‘Where are you going?’ I ask
‘I just told you‘, she answers,
‘Half an hour ago’

I was reading her a Gary Snyder poem

‘ - the wideness, the
Foolish loving spaces

Full of heart.

Walking on walking,
Under foot earth turns

Streams and mountains never stay the same’


The door opens:

Light floods in mountains sea
Smell of rain
Conversation of flooded river

Then it closes again
And all that remains is an empty black chair
A woodstove fire

A washing machine on spin cycle.

Now she waters scarlet geraniums
With a faded
yellow
Long-spouted

plastic watering can

Carefully
On the bright silver
aluminium draining board

All grace curving arms
Soft light on sensuous neck

And tells me, ‘Your coffee is made’.

2/11/2011
copyright Mark F Chaddock 2011

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

INTO THE LIGHT


'Into The Light' is an autobiographical poem from one of my forthcoming books that condenses four early chapbooks - 'We Are Islanders - Selected early poems'. I was Winter mountain-walking in the English Lake District (over 20 years ago now) when I slipped and fractured my rt. tibia and fibula and was put in a bit of a life-threatening situation. However, one step at a time, I managed to limp off over a few hours using my ice-axe as a double-handed crutch. I wrote an article that was published in 'The Great Outdoors' magazine titled 'The Yorkshireman'. The Yorkshire man I met on the day will have to wait for another day's story, I#m afraid. I hope you enjoy the poem


Into The Light


And he walked
the high ridges
on the snowy roof of the world
dissolving in
and out of spindrift
when Winter storms ripped
sky opening doors to the Otherworld.

And I
walked with him -
a tightrope between
life and death
as we trod the high
whiteout places where
land and sky and air are one.

And when he left
I fell from the rope
crossed over to a place
of no shadows
a broken doll lay
snowbound
watching the shining
lakes down valleys,
felt that I might drift
to sleep forever.

And the Otherworld snow-walker hid,
I felt him
hiding in his half-reality
felt him treading
the light-blazed heights
half-in, half-out of existence
escaping ever upwards
into the Light.

Until I turned back in my pursuit
travelled miles over snowy peaks
back from the edge
the rim of the world
the door's slam blasting me back
back to Blencathra's storm-fast heights,
lay with fractures in Winter sunlight.

Until the whole of existence
became darkness and pain again.


Copyright Mark F Chaddock 2003

Saturday, November 19, 2011

A HERMIT IN PARADISE


I'm currently busy working away on a number of writing projects, one of them being my next book collection of poems titled 'A Hermit In Paradise' to be published by Sea Eagle Poetry and launched in summer 2012 on Achill - venue to be decided.
It will be 3 years in May 2012 since my 1st full book collection 'The Ordinary Miracle' was launched by the Achill Heinrich Boll Committee.
One of my other projects is a book of 'We Are Islanders - Selected Early Poems' that is the result of condensing four early chap books of mine into this 60-poem collection. Launch dates to be announced.
It seems forever since I read in public, and I must admit I really do enjoy it. I may have to arrange to read some Christmas poems with the Big Day only five weeks away. Anyone out there feel like joining me? I'm serious.
For now here is a poem from the early poems book,
Happy Writing,
Mark



MISSING TREASURES?

Kildavnet lookout tower.
Ebony snakebirds.
Silver sound.
Silver seal heads carve silver wakes
In hill reflections
And hump-backed islands break the surface
Where Irish She-Pirate
Grainne-U-Aille
Once gazed upon.

And I wonder
Still autumn mornings,
Did she notice
The shag drying his wings,
The circling seals,
The Currane hills
And the silver, silver
Swathes of light?

Or did she
Scan horizons
Missing treasures at her feet?