'At the Far Tor'
Poems etc. from South Devon, England.
A small collection of personal poems etc. from South Devon, UK, featuring images or photo-art.
by Ade M. Campbell
Jan 2023
[+ now as complete collectible NFT, on BASE (ETH network) + Arweave, as 500 limited editions only, 2024.]
CONTENTS
Intro… + ‘open mind’
‘brave old world’
‘old dogs’
‘the flickering girls’
‘close to right now and the future beyond…’
‘wind in trees’
‘by the sea’
‘a ghost on Stoke Village hill’
‘beyond the dark pines’
‘coastal birds’
‘dark soldiers’
‘beyond all hype and bubbles’
‘to the far tor’
‘coast guard’
‘ceremony’
‘dark soldiers’ (original, shorter version)
'to the flickering girls' (alt. version)
‘that sea’
‘old world’
Extra Note…
Intro… + ‘open mind’
(Blackdown Rings : site of an ancient settlement)
I'm writing poetry again, but I hope it doesn't last. It's all the re-writing and decision-making and it distracts me from just living and being.
I want to write totally free-verse (like Jim Morrison for example) but after I read over them I start to assemble and disassemble parts like building some hill-top 'tor' in Dartmoor of words and it evolves... I don't always like the result and I will shift stones years after it was originally written so it becomes something different or removed (so you might find some of these poems have changed, in various windy or abandoned mountaintops on the web or blockchain).
But it can be good to revisit some of those tors again and there may be insights or wisdom surveyed from their heights. I hope I am free from building them again as there are other things I want to do and to make.
‘open mind’
i open my mind to poetry,
so the world filters in...
through the minds' blinds shine out
these word-lights
but the meanings, the relevance is dim
to the earth's madness and its machinations
and the joy of pure moment and being.
i want to destroy the will to power,
all the books that delve needlessly deep;
do simple, natural work
and be wise, physically tired - and alive...
2017
.
Btw… I lived and worked out of South Brent and Ivybridge (South Devon, UK) with a young wife and two kids for a period of 5 years until 2015. We used to walk up onto the moors, or take trips to the (thankfully) still inaccessible coastlines. These poem-rocks I leave behind, or skim out across the tidal estuaries. I hope to return in my lifetime, or I shall re-spawn to haunt those - impressionable - coastal walks…
Dedicated to (all) my family, who’ve each left some of their spirits in this windy, variable corner of the world. xox
‘brave old world’
the future of our people
is a 'dragon's claw willow' - crooked -
in this garden where i sit
at peace, in the shade;
old as the hills.
how strange, how similar
seems the future…
sun-bright and shadowy on this day.
the ranges; the hollows
of our human fires
will pulse up roots, of upturned trees
twisting, inverted;
spilling out onto the ground.
yes, the future of our folk
is a 'dragon's claw willow' - crooked -
in this garden where i sit
at peace, in the shade;
old as the stones.
some things will remain:
the plough; the cup;
the next fiery pen
the territorial sword...
here's to all that remains!
...to our knowing, secretly,
something of their burial;
those bright and burning coals
brushed for, with bare hands,
then raised to the sun - pure -
in the silver forest...
and that lost realm
of magic, and youth,
where poetry is born,
takes form
and can never die.
(2013)
‘old dogs’
we are not the ones we were - anymore.
a world has challenged us;
won cold battles in the war;
lengthened our long shadows under the sun;
shifted our configurations - unfazed - into the cracked; the crazy,
washing us out
onto whiskey-red shores.
as all things in the world
fragment
we slipped in sleep
downstream
through the falls of mornings
flashing in the green, the blue; the bright gold.
how we sung in unison with stars
while the score still scored its trance
but now -
no more...
the songs skip rings as we sing its grooves;
our lips move crookedly.
let me not lie to myself
but believe in Love and be old now,
another puppet in the show - I now know -
carves puppets of us all...
winking in my nature at the dust and loud dogs on the doorstep;
banging at the frames again.
i would not lie to them...
the game has changed - all unchanged;
bones of our memories will dry;
we cannot rule or fight the widening tide
but just keep on, keep on
in its functioning flow
that flows
and flows -
through the highs and lows -
drinking its drink of us;
strengthening and silencing brief lives
inside Time
(our tiny notion of Time)...
.
.
(2012)
‘the flickering girls’
(from Carnglaze Caverns in Cornwall)
you! I see you -
you are on fire! - lithe girls,
with all the life that is
leaving me; my strung-out wolf-soul
wondering in a life, now wandering;
leading me down to its smoke-wrecked shores.
in crisp September
burn as I - my yearning world -
never burned
in shelters from the wake.
leaf-deep, you see, my storm quaked
and I could not break into those tree-tall towers -
those shadows -
keeping my all, from your enthrall.
so... no...
there are - here - few sighs of wind
on this ash-buried timber -
brittle - and so blasted.
no bright joy for me, anymore
but there was love, and there was need
and now you're wearing them -
inside the sharp and alarming, closed forest of youth;
stark temptresses, dancing,
full-naked... ebullient…
half-smiling, to someone... just beyond…
not seeing me - no, not really at all -
now sliding away...
(oh how it is - harsh beauties - that this world will wash itself
with ourselves, and with our worlds
to leave us dry - and belittled -
whispers
where we were only
and forever
more fuel;
more bone-meal for its billowing breeze.)
(Sept ‘14)
‘close to right now and the future beyond…’
(from animated photo-art on the edge of Dartmoor)
close to right now and the future beyond
…lies the present…
.…some new influence
or encounter with nature;
the next hunt and reward
where what our inner nature dictates
lies the beginning of our work;
the tomorrow it can create.
.
mostly,
it is restriction in the now; freedom later,
eyes searching for something to be dazzled by, again
but —
all our ‘meaning’ is defined by our efforts;
by the way in which we do or achieve things;
by whatever box or boundary we are restricted by —
confined in —
on a path to some harmonious kind of being…
where the jewels in the far light can be stared into
because we seized just a few of them;
those that were there, too
right in front of us.
.
.
.
4/2021 (from ‘in ash on the sand’)
Collectible as separate NFT (art + poem)
‘wind in trees’
you're like the wind
you're strong then you're thinned
into the rustling.
i watch wind waking leaves of some tall trees
submitting to a slow dance for height
the arms rise and fall
worshiping transience
forming an ancient trance;
a rhythm through the mind.
Flow like the trees
like the sound of their secrets;
the rustling and shimmering through leaves.
find out how they tussle,
how they form with the wind -
like the willows -
why they break up the light
from pure gold hiding high - encouraging sun -
then, flooding my eyes -
behind a myriad mass -
time's trinkets -
overseeing what we build, we arrange on the earth:
for the burning of time;
the burning of fire...
so much to behold
to believe and to see
in these dancing trees…
learning the ways of our flow
of all life within time
the inspiration...
if only we could be as the wind;
to be out in the wind
is to be out with a friend
surrounded by all we are, all we are not -
pure transience...
but to hold on to nothing and to no one
to be an infinite spirit…
would never hold us close to the earth;
would make us just as the wind...
strong and then thinned
into the rustling.
.
.
(2015)
‘by the sea’
(word art for orig. songline from ‘embertime’ recording project)
Collectible as separate NFT
(Slapton Sands)
‘a ghost on Stoke Village hill’
(Plymouth outskirts)
on a top I oversee the city.
i face it squarely; its squares,
my suited back to the heat.
it's a morning drunk with renewed Summer sun
already warm,
birds gossip and squawks
echo above the quiet, hidden
beginning of our activities.
a train is set to move sleepily across.
a clang of industry;
an engine far away
melts into the distant, buried thunder
of some ship, or a large machine.
all the huddled Plymouth homes are waiting for eyes
to fall out of doors and windows
and start walking
on the long, steady legs of our race.
small voices arrive nearby with dogs.
a chain rattles and goes taut
owning someone with its little clinks -
adding already to a whole, soft orchestration.
'oh no. Oh bloody hell.'
in sympathetic attempt.
'wheelie! Stop!'
'who are you?!' - a joke -
'haha!'
'how is he?'
'i feel so sorry...'
'really?'...
yes, really. We bubble over, into the day
we are all to work in
for the machination of its ways, our world, our non-being;
to feed that low, far off rumble
with traversing words -
those unseen ships in the distance -
we arrange ourselves before within these corners;
on these shores.
here, at least -
in this space and this 'sometime' -
as one new Lord, or next in line
of this lost realm -
just now recharging -
not yet turned on -
i would smoke a good coffee,
drink one last cigarette
and think of everything; everybody;
smile at nothingness;
the summons of a church city bell.
sleepy, waking city
laying it all down again
where are my girls?
my lovers, and old comrades?
i hold a future for you all still in me.
i am not yet a ghost, am I?
not yet a ghost?
yet... what can any of my words say now, to you... from here...?
what can they say beneath the face and sun of Time -
crooked and still carving on -
ever deeper -
spaces into fading faces sown by needs
i've seen and watched before.
and I will not be turned, or pulled
by you below the water; getting washed away.
i will keep my oar in and my eyes looking out
for better currents.
i will write these lines, already set
(i may be fading but I'm still here...)
but I think it's time -
my boat must be moving out…
and so it is
we inch, or cast off, further into the beyond -
that low, ship's rumble -
and this new day...
[c.2013]
.
‘beyond the dark pines’
that shore;
it’s been calling us all day
beyond that line
of old, dark pines.
i’m sure, there’ll be treasures to find;
strange, blue wonders
lost in a time;
hidden within those overlooked,
seaweed-soaked, sodden estuaries.
.
.
since it’s now our turn
let’s go down,
to that bustling old sea-town,
hushed for now
by gusts of this great wind
whispering…
of something still to learn
in seeing — what we can see;
some mystery, unknown
in being — simple, free
as all we can be…
keep close and
maybe we’ll make it
back home safely
before the stealthy tide
turns steadily against us…
.
.
even our small but hardy crew
of fired-up pirates — intent -
on finding, sharing
all the secret light there is
on this bright
and dark earth.
.
.
and what did we smuggle back?
or salvage:
a fine, abandoned shell,
the smoothest rock,
an old piece of string
to wind around the years
and attach us, bind us, to that source
of everything around
still drawing and
calling us within…
.
and where will we steal such power?
to the pulling moon…
out — to other, far stars…
or put back in that land
thrilling and wild
where fierce, sun-filled daffodils
bunched in the hand
belonged to us
with all the tiny changes;
living signs and sounds -
cold, soaked or warm -
challenges; inciting us
to new riots along the sand.
.
indeed
the sun breaks -
and we too — against
those fast, foaming treasures of the sea
freezing our feet
breaking us back out,
or down
in laughter fits;
falling around the wide, giant bay
scattering; splashing us raw
into its shocking, fresh,
timeless time…
.
but soon -
battened down against a wind -
becoming gale -
battering another night -
and nearly all night long
wide awake
thinking, listening -
at the end — dreaming -
of what more could possibly lie
out beyond those dark,
now darkening pines…
.
you know, I know -
the new kind
will hunt and gather -
maybe find -
something new
to burn and shine
for a short time…
draw and excite
then slip away…
like grains of that shore’s
warming sand
through our ever-young,
ever-reaching
fiery hearts…
.
and these sea-cold hands…
with still, its great
and ceaseless work
causing me to pause, assemble,
and make plans.
.
2021
(from ‘in ash on the sand’ but collected here for its S.Devon origins.)
Collectible as separate NFT
.
‘coastal birds’
the wind again;
it owned that place;
we were not supposed to be there
hiding out
on a cliff-edge.
.
below us, dark sea blasted
netted stacks of stones
holding us in place.
that bright morning
black rooks had tried to warn us -
about it all
through their high, ragged calls.
well,
it could now actually be
the end of us-
battened down as we buried heads inside warm beds -
like birds in one of those
dark pine trees
we would fall and not matter to the world;
its turning, booming, crashing storm
rolling out battalions of waves on another dark,
abandoned planet.
.
or else we might — even —
win through in the end -
you’d hope;
break away —in rockets — up to other stars;
some display at least against
that sleeping force
threatening again to snuff our fires
so easily out.
.
for yes, that night, was a battle
only dumb men would presume to dart out into
or describe;
believe they could ever conquer…
.
we are just birds -
grounded it’s true -
but only birds
fleeing and flung, into new, blue skies,
opening up a while
clasping our crooked worms;
landing more and more
into any safer, quieter corners.
.
did you ever, like,
like this world, we held out against?
where we walked and talked
and decided, what we needed
to decide on next;
where our minds -
still fly and roam, swiftly
stirring our stomachs again -
through the great night -
those nights -
some time ago…
yet only figments to this lost world
we serve utterly and will return to
wake up in again then be worn down,
sleep deeply, snugly into;
for the length of a dream it seemed
to have some need of us…
.
our fires maybe, are like its deep fire
feeding on its own creations,
where each will face that storm —
embrace — fully what its life is, what our death’s merger means;
for this blind biosphere
some freedom and great sacrifice;
our erasure, for its grind; its continuance.
.
.
.
2021
ref: dylan thomas ‘the force that through the green fuse’
(from ‘in ash on the sand’, collected here for its S.Devon origins.)
‘dark soldiers’
(Lydford Keep)
the words we learn have no meaning
but by rote
before the day's guns
thunder
into life again.
we are caught in the humdrum
while Time marches on
to leave us
dry, old soldiers
marked
and bitten
by a cold war
we can never end, nor comprehend.
a few - behind lines -
seized more time
to find; unearth this knowledge of ourselves;
this system.
they've carried this power within them
through strange shelters.
'how much will I be changed?
before I am changed'?
but... you, dark soldiers of Life,
when will you come -
and will you come -
to understand
the true shapes of the borders of this war?
we share with our all our voices and our ways, our roles;
selections of campaigns
born out into the light -
this harsh land of day?
how will they take their quiet toll
here, too
within the flow, directing flow, of this transfixing river
...before the new day's thunder comes?
so much there is to know
need never be known
where we are sown
enthroned
thrown
unknown
and now
all flown.
2014/15, revised again 2019
Note: i (think!) this poem was something about how an understanding of Nature can expand the mind, if we appreciate our connection and our role to/within it.
‘beyond all hype and bubbles’
(Flete estate + estuary)
old photos
feature outlines of pines.
a distant ship
shifts on the horizon.
.
beneath this,
lie the treasures of Time
to spend away, today,
down by the sea,
not always looking ahead
or feeling so numb, comfortably.
.
many, were found -
then lost -
or at least
held for a while…
.
you know, one day
we will forget everything,
our lies, our strange ideas -
these words -
even this wind which brought us;
bound us, so close.
.
.
will we find our future?
do you think?
no, don’t cry
or be dragged down
remember a here; the now…
.
your pure joy, rising up
through every moment -
the very first and last -
not written yet — or far off
but snug — as we were -
within that timeless,
time-forged coast -
its new pioneers…
.
where everything that ever was,
and is -
still is -
forever near; attainable;
forever incredible and possible…
yes, possible…
.
.
.
.
2021
(from ‘in ash on the sand’ but collected here for its S.Devon origins.)
Collectible as separate NFT
‘to the far tor’
i look to the top
to the far tor, looming;
bare, honed, and huddled bones
revealing their formations
to themselves; a wise assembly
into which I'm bound…
to share their silence
between their cracked stone palms;
to reach a distance;
survey formations in this life
before
some far release…
.
not yet…
let the hills be dim and rugged in the cold wind
all around
but there are birds for it is spring soon.
a plane - flying low - turns
and I think of all we are
this struggle -
hardship - fellow, windblown figures -
piloting their way to the tops.
.
i come to feel this life - exposed here -
one reality - forged - by forces, stark -
i bring my soul into their massive hands;
the rocks like buried fingers
cannot move where they've been set.
.
.
this life of art
for just a vast, restless mass
struggling in the dark
to keep alive and breathing;
producing food,
burning our energies
back to the sun.
.
where we cannot live without our other
tiny, island lives;
close but far-lit tors, with beacon fires
fierce, hungry stars
we are;
blinking on and off..
.
sharing in the taking, the restless
need to give, the being; our own breaking…
feeding some message to the earth -
with strange circles
celebrating themselves so well -
through us;
deep-dented by so many sudden, violent storms
that test the whole landscape.
.
i keep climbing...
to burn on, burn free
and then be gone
to memory, the force of love
and the ghostly wind
haunting glorious ruins of time.
.
but these unreal, barren spaces
must be roamed to feel and understand
the gaps - this other side - to the fires
of modern designs, the new campaigns
of our own conjuring;
striving to keep us fixed and safe
and not exposed or loose upon
the hillsides of the world.
.
but I take this slower time, today
breathed in, now smuggled away
back down, steadily
to the sheltered spaces where we fight
for brightness and joy -
new shreds of brilliance -
building up our fading towers of words…
however long they stand within the shadow
of that far tor, looming.
.
(June 2015)
note: I lived on the edge of Dartmoor and finished a poem following a walk up onto the hills to get some wind-swept peace. At the top, there are 'tors' of ancient stones that are features of the old hills, once covered in forest.
Anyway, I wrote it partly on this walk to escape modernity for an hour, getting away from continual organisation required in the role of a manager. I was trying to reconcile something: modernity, life, death, and art as a whole I guess, in the presence of the old stones and hills. I'm not sure how successful this attempt was... but the words became piles of stones in themselves, set in a kind of stone.
‘coast guard’
in the dark I lie back
thinking of when I first heard such
desolate presence
turning and pounding at a near shore
changed utterly by a storm
quietly raving; crashing and
eroding time
beneath heaps of stones,
under directing stars;
even a vengeful moon.
.
that sound — oblivious to men —
is no friend of
everything we stand for
everything we hold dear.
.
besides
there was only just a TV signal,
a small open fire had warmed
our perched and smokey, cosy home
and life was newly-fired but now so fragile
where our family clan lay —
except for I —
listening…
timing…
the next bleak and random space between each close
and far-off breaker.
.
it really is our dark earth; our troubled sea
conspiring against us;
expelling or at least
getting it all out, or something.
.
under such siege
others slept on warmly
thru that loosening, booming night…
then i too…
buried deeply in between —
and found rest
within oblivion…
..
before
.
a brand new day -
bound to come back beyond the dark
to herald -
.
brave, fresh adventures
for our greedy spirits, surging
to ride out again; to seek the source
of all that restless power
beneath the near and steady horses of
our parents love.
.
.
you know
the memory of those waves —
and my fear —
all turned over; changed;
into bright wet sand; seaweed wreckage,
running — to tame a land
of windy, fresh mornings,
ransacked and renewed
for quick plunder together
as the waves worked on, distracted;
so far out —
.
we stole their treasures while they regrouped;
hushed; more settled; sure — but still…
and ever since
i think on it —
.
that sound, cementing us
in a fiercer realm; that time
ruled by timeless, unstoppable stallions
forever charging, rising,
spilling and commanding —
from their distance in the dark —
smothered, yet ever present,
beyond the measured law
of each
and every day
since childhood…
.
since the music and voices grew all around us
and let us drown.
.
.
.
.
.
(2020/1)
(from ‘in ash on the sand’ but collected here for its S.Devon origins.)
2nd last line: see ‘ghost song’ by jim morrison
last line: see ‘the wasteland’ by ts eliot
‘ceremony’
we must destroy
each other
before the world
destroys us
groping, closer
in our brimming nest
high above
the world’s unbounded power,
ceaseless and spare
.
the new, TV news
gathers us in
but i need you here
to share this form I bare —
this body —
with all its fire
for you — for all your kind —
for on my own
i can be strong
but i am nothing -
a ghost enjoyed by ghosts -
i am no stark
victim of your next decision,
or abrupt,
enveloping moves.
.
it’s only someone
such as you —
your feline folk —
who keep me real, and clear:
fangs bared and sharp,
tongue lolling;
my mind primed;
ready to blow.
It’s how it is —
you know —
we all share
in our desires
everywhere;
worlds of desire
destroying — to be destroyed;
surviving — to survive
ourselves
until …our fires die out -
or are subdued…
.
…and we are freer,
emptier shells
painting each other;
creating games with words;
lip-syncing from the shade
or noticing change;
smiling up at that sun
which will burn us
altogether.
.
others may notice our destruction
even witness it
but they’ll never feel more -
no, they never partook of it.
.
believe me
we’ll have a great feast
and after
start out again
into the unknown
foraging in fresh estuaries.
just as everything we’ve come to know
once was — unknown,
strange and new
this Earth, to be discovered
.
just as we were
discovered
while discovering
in our joy;
destroying —
in this wind’s bitter grip -
amid old ghosts
of the destroyed;
the once-proud, empowered
departed.
.
we’ve survived their desire
and must keep on
loving and not hearing,
fearing
or becoming them.
how we laughed at them!
and i recall that chilly breeze
how it made the whole
hushed and flowing scene
of sand; of sunlit water -
flash with gold -
beneath my only small, warmed toes
digging in…
i heard only a few
high cries, ecstatic yells,
from other souls — very far out -
lost in the breakers.
.
harsh beauty,
we must perform
our ceremony of fire
enough times,
before all time.
we must remember
this is what we were — once;
it’s what we are —
raw energy
controlled by that chaos — ancient;
older than the hills
around our bones
as we stare back —
stare down —
from atop such soft
but brittle,
shifting thrones
so many fathoms out -
to that far source —
that shining sea…
and hear it crash once more;
hear it roar beneath.
…
..
.
2021 (from ‘in ash on the sand’ -last burnt poems)
last line: ‘hamlet’
Collectible as separate NFT
‘dark soldiers’ (original, shorter version)
the words we learn have no meaning
but by rote
before the days' guns
thunder
into life again.
we are caught in the humdrum
while Time marches on
to leave us
dry, old soldiers -
marked;
bitten by a cold war
we can never halt
nor comprehend.
some - from behind lines -
seized more time
to find; unearth this knowledge of ourselves;
this System.
'How much shall I be changed?
Before I am changed'?
Life's dark soldiers:
when will you come -
and will you come -
to understand
the true shapes of the borders of this war?
we share with our all our voices and our ways, our roles;
our selection of campaigns that take a quiet toll
within the flow, directing flow
of this transfixing river...
...before the new day's thunder comes.
'to the flickering girls' (alt. version)
you... you are on fire
with beauty, boundless and harsh,
and all the Life, this power, that is
leaving me…
my strung-out wolf-soul
wondering in a life, now wandering;
leading me down to its smoke-wrecked shores.
but, hey -
in crisp September -
burn as I - my yearning world -
never burned
in shelters stolen from the wake.
leaf-deep, indeed, my storm quaked
at what could break;
and i could never fell
those tree-tall towers -
those shadows -
keeping my form too galled; too wary;
and so far
from your fast mystery, and enthral.
no…
few breaths of wind sigh here
on this ash-buried timber -
brittle, stilled; sand-blasted.
no bright, feverish joy for me anymore
where there was Love, and there was Need;
where now you're wearing them -
inside the sharp and alarming, closed forest of youth;
stark temptresses, dancing,
full-naked... ebullient…
half-smiling, to... someone... beyond…
not seeing me - no, not really at all -
now sliding away...
(oh how it is, lithe figures, flickering - that this world
will wash itself with our worlds
and leave us
dry and belittled -
whispers from a bacchanal
where we were only
and forever
more fossil and fuel -
bewitched and so beguiled -
more lone, now levelled
bone-meal for its blind; its blinding breeze.)
‘that sea’
Death is shining at me
in the distance -
in that great Sea -
beautiful -
in the blue light
of faster, former days.
.
only now I see It — feel It —
closer now,
moving inside me, too,
with those waves
of my annihilation.
.
i’m waiting to be hooked out;
cast into some sea beyond
even, this golden sun.
.
.
sure, we’ve worked; we’ve played
in the bright wake;
defied It for some while
shifting our dreams,
tapping on proud castles in the sand;
all these many forms of fishing
for the reeling in — tight turns -
to lend us ‘peace’; notions of control;
while It slumbers there — or wakes;
to shed Its scale, so deep,
Its mystery
wide and ever-tempting; to drink up,
then sleep off on the beach.
.
it’s no mystery:
that Sea is Death
It breathes; It breaks into life;
It brings new life to us more sunken
in the sand; this hungry shore.
hello -
i take a photo and admire the light
but it does not capture this
inner-sea beneath; my turtle soul
blanched and overheating
toiling now more slowly
over its sharp, dry rocks.
.
It will pull us away you know, or crush us;
shells like stars
summoning tired bones.
and we will go;
fall down on the shore once more.
born — we were, and bound — to slide -
or be winked out;
pulled back to fill the world’s spaces
as our fingers forged new patterns
of its thriving; surviving
shadows.
.
isn’t it great to love
such an idea of Death?
to marvel for a moment
how everything is shaped by that Sea:
the very shape of this hustling, bustling shore.
.
.
yes — everything is Death, or has been:
trees, notched and crooked,
grains of sand, fine-honed those gemstones
beyond so many flickering plans,
brief, sudden laughter, drowned by
harsh separations
barely noticed; in our imprisonments
from each other.
.
i cannot say much more, of course.
we are Its avatars,
loaned-out creations - and -
It is a force
we ride, and are ridden
far, and away…
from plans, to have no plans;
to pass long before our time is run
or surrendering our selves - to just be old;
tilling the land;
ignored, as worn-out sand-keepers
letting others live;
sharing in their joy;
smiling simply into the wind and the waves
with all other half-baked notions
washed and cleaned and dried.
.
remember… me?… why?
‘i’ was just another of Life’s white lies,
another of Death’s tools
working together for a while
.
to feed what Life is emerging
in the careless, care-free
flames of those waves out there
whispering
they were always there.
.
.
‘Oh, how, time flies
With crystal clear eyes
And cold as coal
When you’re ending with diamond eyes.’
[inspired by a song ‘cross bones style’ by cat power, plus the coastline of s.west england, uk.]
(from ‘in ash on the sand’ but included here for its S. Devon origins.)
Collectible as separate NFT
‘old world’
(photo-art for a song outline:
https://audius.co/embertime/old-world-guitar-800727)
Collectible as separate NFT
Extra Note…
(Stover Park)
Thanks for reading! More poems can be ‘found’ online or off, evolving or devolving, including ‘In Ash on the Sand - Last Burnt Poems’, ’Across the Shore’ (an NFT collectible poem catalogue) plus earlier work ‘Gathered on This Beach’.
‘Estuary’ is a guitar song from an ‘Embertime’ project - maybe - still out there online.
Recommended reading: the elemental ‘Moortown Diary’ by Ted Hughes, for his vivid North Devon homage.
Ade, 2023.
(Flete estate)
(now you've come along, you must go down off the moor now, and return to the road....)
