We Could Have … ?

The first night?

A different night?

The last night?

The only night?

A different night?

And who would have thought

We could have flown so high,

Got so far; fragile bone frames

Wrapped in simple rags?

Young Traveller

Gunpowder sky-sharks

Spun, crackled; are gone

‘Neath their magic sparks

We laughed, loved and shone.

But this is silver time

Passing on by –

The Universal Coffee Bar

The cakes are sweet and

The coffee bites bitter back

Like God’s guard dogs.

Lights, reflected in smooth,

Mock-marble floors:

Pink, off-white, tetra-blue

Speak of different therapies

The Blood

The blood,

The hours

They spill

So quiet,

So quick.

And they

Run, run, run

Like tears

From the sun:

The Original Search Engine?

Something magical about the air in Upper Austria. Altitude? For sure, but also freshness and sparkling light. Amazing skies throughout the livelong days. Sunrise with pinks, lilacs, golds and pale blues hovering over the mountains and forested hills.

Making walking the wanderweg (paths) a treat. Not anywhere near cold, but crisp, clean and invigorating. Not the steep challenge of more serious Austrian Tyrol/Wildekaiser landscapes but gentle, wide walkways, sometimes beside rarely used roads, sometimes alongside quiet, therapeutic streams, the borders of newly turned farmland or through friendly forests. Oh and no snow yet, just end of season glorious warmth, meaning a T-shirt was enough once I had warmed up.

Strapped

Strapped …

And delightfully suspended

In a seat inside

The somehow-gravity belly

Of and east-bound

Iron angel.

Far, far below the

Blue-highway we travel

 The yellow earth is

Devouring itself again.

Am I safe?

Is any of us?

 

photo:www.izismile.com

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Shadows and Motley

That miniscule, gem-precious moment,

When the present isn’t yet history,

When today is not quite yesterday

But not quite turned –

As it must – into tomorrow;

Space Odyssey, Gravity and Peace

Went to the cinema to see Gravity. Opted for the 3-D version. Good decision: the effects were truly realistic and made me realise that there really are such things as space stations and Shuttle-type missions. With people doing jobs in space!

The film itself is an epic, in terms of scenery, special effects, drama,  acting, storyline, humour, message and the way it set me thinking. I will not spoil the film for you; but would recommend it whole-heartedly. It is not a science fiction story, I would suggest, but space and the frontiers of current knowledge are used as a setting for a wholly human story on many levels.

Diadem

For a single, diadem moment

I can hear the sunlight sliding

Across acres of damp,

Autumn-ochred grass stems;

Feel the air parting to allow

Dry, falling leaves to pass.

Remembrance

Parts of this allotment shed: the frame, the roof trusses, the oil-saturated railway sleepers that it sits on, if they could talk:

… they would recall the young miner who grew food for his hard working family and neighbours in the years of the Great War. The war, they said that would end all wars. The miner, and his pals who kept producing the coal that kept the factories going, with women taking up the tools, that fed the effort that changed the world. The miner whose brother, giddy to fight the common enemy, so full of life he lied about his age when he joined up, left … left but did not return.