Destiny’s Darling

From a myth within the myth
A lone star is born
Ordained by Lachesis
Christened by destiny's wand.
Push, feel, breathe into existence
Free fall to earth's fuzzy shore
Discover the labyrinth of your sweet existence
Navigate the maze, follow the strands.

The soul sees but the heart knows
The lover's caress, the gentle touch.
The chemistry that gels and binds
And weaves the essential fabric of being.
We seek our echo through the other
To decipher our soul's code, our essence
So that we may spiral and begin our ascent
To where it all began, our source, my God.

Ciara

Second child

Trails the shadow of the first

Time, devotion, halved

Love multiplied.

"Ciara likes her hair being pulled

She told me last night in my dream

I’m only trying to see how many

sweets will fit in her mouth

She only smiles for sweets

You see"

Wah! Puddle on the floor

Soggy Barbie knickers

Attention divides to subdivide again.

"Why can’t Ciara go back inside your tummy

We could still wave and talk to her?

Mm Mm Mm Mm

See Mummy

She likes it when I Shout in Her Ear

God bless Mummy

God bless Daddy

God bless Ciara

God bless McDonald's

Mummy do sisters bite and pull hair?

It’s 'cos they love each other

Ciara smiles when she bites me

She loves me lots you see.

(Untitled)

In the beginning of our not knowing
Is the harvest of dreams
Gathered for the storms
Dreams that pierce our lives
And cling to the heart
Before they flutter and fly
To the timeless future
Where they hover like restless hawks
Watching, waiting, calling us closer.

Will

"Ah, a writer with no pen.
Shame on you Nell,
Have you written anything lately?"
Health news, terrorist strikes
Corporate crimes all night
Not good for the liver.
But, hell, you want to fuel your mind
What can I say? Nothing.
You follow your own star regardless.
A wide expansive destiny
A soul that sees beyond
And behind sometimes.
How can I measure the man
Whose presence sparked by own
Ideas whose time had come.
"Why aren't you writing, Nell?"
Well I am and will continue.
Good days, bad days
Do we ever have a choice?
You, the man who chooses
Soul without compromise.
A dreamer, a player of
Great words and greater truths.
Our lives touched from across seas
Those endless days spent in banter
Fionn and Homer, friends of the field.
And now a new life beckons
A place whose energy calls you
I don't want to think of it.
I can't.
Are not time and space our illusions?
What we built can never be destroyed.
I too hear the words
Remembering the words of a psychic
"You will go to New Mexico
And learn who you really are."
We must wait. The time will be short
But the waiting oh so long.

         I Can Unravel Death

When I raise the coffin lid 
Your glassy eyed stare turns to blue 
No longer dead
You are you. 

Were you sleeping, waiting
Maybe visiting Avalon? 
And the magic apple was your
Only way home?

I take you from a box
Too small to contain you 
Lighter now from your journey
You wrap your arms around my neck

Bealtaine, Lughnasa, Samhain
I can unravel death I can
Reverse round the corner 
Peel back time. 

My mother, a spectator, drives us home 
You are here with us
Breathing, moving, sighing. 
A miracle after so long.

I want to ring your family 
But time has cemented your loss
Into anniversaries, visits to the grave
They only know you as being dead. 

She's here, with me
I long to say but the words implode 
As you dash from my arms
You say you want to play.

Bealtaine, Lughnasa, Samhain
I can unravel death I can
Reverse round the corner 
Peel back time. 

I watch the death robes
Hang loosely on your limbs
I call to you, beseech you
I don't want to loose you

Bealtaine, Lughnasa, Samhain
In dark silence I hear the whisperings
Of beings who tenuously cross over
Like you they don't belong. 

The seed stirs below the ground
The candle melts, the light dims
The earth embraces your bones
You have gone.

The Beach

Barrel-like women
Covet the beach
Formidable and fertile
They crunch their crisps
And crack jokes
While keeping an eye
On children who straddle waves
And build castles only they can see

Ice-cream vans
Call them from their repose
To queue for their sickly rose syrup cones
Sandwiches damp with tomato juice
Are ritually eaten and swallowed with thermos tea

They marvel at the tropical weather
And offer up their bodies to malignant melanomas
Sure you get no rays with those factors
And a good scalding is the best base for a tan

Sizzled and silent they vacate their spot
Driven by a sea hunger
It's the chippy for the lot
I'm too tired to cook
Don't you agree?

        Silent Screams

                       (Untitled)

      Separate Dreams

If I call to him in my sleep

Will he come?

Tentatively

Secretly

Silently

In sleep I am open to the invasion of the other.

Does he not know that he is welcome?

Dreamless I rummage through

My awakening thoughts

To pick up a thread,

A strand

The tiniest piece of evidence that he was there

But what if our ships of dreams

Passed by in the night?

Oblivious to the slow steady

Drone of the other.

And in that instant we stay aloof

Alone

Separated by our course

Divided by Destiny's lanes

                             Back to Eden

Last night my soul spoke to me

And sent me back to the Time of the Roses

When smell divined the day, determined the hours.

Ashes of roses, yellows, peaches, hard bony stalks

With thorns to guard their sweet essence

From a world that covets beauty without mercy

Back then smells converged and mingled

And became forever framed in time.

As if in those moments they truly belonged

Like a partridge in a pear tree

Or the little figurines atop wedding cakes

Ashes of Roses and lamb casserole

Created my day, my space, my time

Beauty and flavour pirouetted.

When tomorrow was so far away

It scarcely mattered.

What could impinge upon that now?

--On full moon before Winter Solstice 2000

                     Lateral Dreams

Who is the designer of my soul, if not I?

This fixed determining blueprint

Pointed like the north star.

Am I then just along for the ride?

The craftsman creates but he also destroys

The misshapen pieces that mock his efforts

And refuse to be born

Rejecting animation, choosing suspension.

Am I the harbinger of my hopes and dreams

Misguidedly absailing through time

Gathering scree and scorn?

Dare I play dice with the Gods?

Souls recline on feathered wings

And whisper predawn messages

To the unsuspecting ones

Who figure it must all be in the mind.

Who listens? Who will care?

When we take the wrong turn

And wander into the wasteland

Of dashed dreams and unfulfilled loves.

Disconnect to dream and float on high

Abandon my earthly pull

Don a heavenly hat

Then I shall know.

               A Witch's Lament

To live inside my skin is to feel raw

Unprotected and see through

When I go up my vision enlarges

All that I can see and feel

I fly and fly and fly.

I am the light and the light is me

I am the Queen of the meadows

Lady of the moon and stars.

My immortality is palpable.

All too hot the eye of heaven shines

hastening my descent into the underworld

of worn out images and dreams and hopes.

There is no other Troy left to burn.

The darkness awaits her maiden fair

To offer her seccour and safety

I crawl back to her inviting womb

As I long for rebirth once more.

                  (Untitled)

"I am the sun," he said

You are the moon

Together we are stars

Or Gods perhaps?  

Or just a tiny bit of both.

"I am in your heart," he said

You are so in mine

Together we are one.

Or whole perhaps?

Or just a tiny bit of each other.

                         Will (#2)

I exist in your mind as you exist in mine.

You are my north and south

I am your east and west

We are on a pit stop

Between heaven and hell

She knows

She does not see

She senses

She does not feel

Your caress

Who are you

When you are not here?

Two wooden figures

Side by side

Shared lives

Unfulfilled dreams

Domesticity weaves the web

That chokes and binds

The bird still sings

In his gilded cage

But he has forgotten

How to fly

He hops from one leg to the other

And pretends

Just for a while

I exist in your heart

As you exist in mine

Pictures, images, flashbacks

Present, past, future collide

This is the raw material of creation

What we have may not be here and now.

I talk You talk

Electricity’s current is palpable

In my mind’s eye I see you

Crossing over the bridge

A fire in hot pursuit

Without ropes there is no return

And no Troy left for me to burn.

The black holes in space will

Show us not just what was

But what might have been

Dancing, dazzling lights

To lure and torment

But I am here You are there

The missing pieces of

A jigsaw puzzle that refuse to be made

The ‘Bermuda Triangle’ isn’t just a haven

For lost socks but untrained hearts

That get sucked in and spat out.

Railway stations and airports

Have one thing in common

Their graveyard of lost goodbyes.

We only exist in direct relation

To those we touch

To those we caress

To those we once loved.

MY ANGEL HAS GROWN WINGS

                     Ode to Ais

February sixteenth

Nineteen eighty-seven

Five thirty

The world stood still

In anticipated silence

Your arrival broke the spell

To open Heaven’s Gates

Letting the light in

Your eyes and mine

Locked and knew

This was also

Once upon a time

We are back again.

My heart bloomed

With the miracle of my creation

A gift for me on loan

Why am I so afraid

I feel unworthy of such

Perfection and total happiness.

You are me and I am you

Two hearts beat as one

A warm channel links us

Showing me this is Love

It hurts to see such beauty and truth

A reminder from where I came

I can see you now and smell

The essence of your babyhood

Your little hand in mine

Entrusting me with the greater part of your journey

My privilege my destiny my life.

Yours and mine ‘twixt for now and forever.

My Angel has grown wings

To fly and soar and dream

I am now on the sidelines

Watching, caring, gently loving

Like a swan whose beauty inspires

I gaze at you in awe my most precious

Miracle of all that I can create

                    very small poem

I live in a pipe dream

A crazy misshapen bubble

That floats but never bursts

Ain't that lucky

Or magic or what?

Where I came from is full of bubbles

Rainbow coloured and luminous

Each one houses a soft soul

If you get hard or cynical

The bubble bursts.

If you want to stay airborne

you throw away the heavy thoughts

and release the saline tears.

And when you have survived forever and a day

You go intact to earth and are conceived.

                  THE JAGGED EDGE OF DREAMS

I WILL WRAP A CLOAK AROUND YOU

TO PROTECT YOU IN YOUR LAND OF DREAMS

TO SHIELD YOU THROUGH THE HOURS OF DARKNESS

AND KEEP YOU SAFE UNTIL YOU WAKE.

MY BOAT GLIDES OUT TO WATERS STILL AND DEEP

UNTIL I AM A LONG WAY FROM THE SHORE..

UNABLE TO RETURN UNTIL PSYCHE HAS DONE IT’S WORK

OF RECONSTRUCTING FACTS FROM DREAMS

THE THREE WITCHES PASS, BENT AND DISSOLUTE.

WALKING ON WATER , CACKLING AND SNARLING.

WEAVING LIVES AND CASTING SPELLS.

THIS IS THE MOMENT BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL

AN ICY COLDNESS WRESTLES WITH MY HEART

AS I FOLLOW THEIR FOUL AND MUDDY TRAIL

TO A NO MANS LAND WHERE SOME SOULS GO

WHO FAIL TO NAVIGATE TO THE TRUTH

AT THIS POINT I CANNOT DIVIDE AND SEPARATE

THE DREAMER FROM THE PLACE OF DREAMS

I AM POWERLESS TO STOP AND RETURN

TO THE FORMER KNOWN SHORE

THERE IS NOTHING NOW BUT THE WITCHES AND ME

MISTS TRAILING AND CURLING AROUND MY FEET

DRAGGING ME TO PLACES TIME FORGOT

AND WHERE I UNSUSPECTINGLY FIND MYSELF.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE AND THE TREES

BATTERED, BRUISED AND GONE FOREVER.

THE WITCHES GATHER AND POINT AND LAUGH

WARNING AND SHOUTING AND CRYING

I SEE YOU AND YOU SEE ME AS WE REALLY ARE

HAUNTED BY THE FUTURE’S BARREN LANDSCAPE.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE COLOURS GONE AND THE LIFE

THAT NOW FLOATS BY UNAWARE, DRIFTING.

IN HONOUR OF THE DEAD

A whistling wind

Divides this world and the next.

A web like tangled morass

That I tear apart

To step beyond.

No looking glass

Nor gilded bridge

To guide me through

Yonder gateway to

The other world.

Spirits and sprites

Beckon and wave

Smile and cackle

With welcome and scorn

Where the undead live.

I thread softly

On cloud like stones

Lest I fall and break the spell

And hasten my descent

My fall from grace.

I expand and contract

And then I contract again

My mind taunting me

With concrete facts

And worldly images.

I am being lured

From the edge

And drawn back to

Whence I came

The world made flesh.

A tiny thread

Binds me, blinds me.

Chokes me, stifles me.

In one powerful breath

I release my earthly shackles

There is no divide

No chasm , no abyss.

But a cocktail of vivid colour

And pure white light

That I soak and drink.

Floating on ecstasy’s wings

I expand with

Love, truth and beauty.

This is all there is

This is all there ever was.

         Heart's Kaleidoscope

Morning's half light mutes reality

To enhance the dream

And gently camouflage the truth

Moments not yet born

Steal into the now

Redolent with love’s sweet promises

Dreams caress a future path

That divides and dwindles

Into a formless hue

Hearts soaring and tumbling

And climbing to fall again

Our shooting stars, our meteorite tears

Love’s colours interchange

And blur to realign again

Vivid reds and cooling whites

Trailing threads of tints of pink

We sense a cushion for the morrow

Love’s final resting place.

                                                                                                   Nell's Short Stories                 email Nell