Jeremy Bell

The warmth doesn’t seem as warm as it was

And the cold’s like a wintering tide

But I remember long summer spells

When muscle-taut skin glowed with pride.

Though the winters were sharp as icicles’ spikes

That pierced every bone to the marrow,

I grew in it’s grip, and drained every drip

Thirsty and eager and callow – but

Now my old body can’t capture the warmth

Dance and play in the green’s dripping dew

But deep down inside, there’s still a spring tide

In the life that I still share with you.

We have come to your wilderness

For healing

For we are sick of accountants’ analysis

And the tensions of tabloid terrors.

Within your ancient, oh so ancient

Dumb stillness

We recognise our deepest need

And cling like heather

To your bosomed slopes

Rooting ourselves

Into your waiting skin –

While in the valley

Unconscious men drive blinkered on

Counting the units

Of their measured roads.

Curse this cross that nails my mind

Confines me in this tortured cell

Naked, but for one wrapped towel

Around the sex I’m taught is hell.

These polarised, magnetic spikes

This rack that stretches every joint –

Is this a resurrection life

Or what I worship, but a point

Towards a mirage in the sand

Where virgins wait to drain my powers?

Is my vain worship in between

The aching thighs of time’s twin towers?

Oh, I could wish a madman’s plane

Would lunge inside, expunge each tower

Destroying both to end God’s game

And let my soul burn in that fire.

I met a dog the other day

He stood before me in my way

He did not bark or howl or whine

And not a hackle on his spine

Was raised, as he looked full at me

And gruffly asked me ‘are you free’?

I looked him in his tired, sad eyes

This haggard hound, with some surprise;

Was I imagining he spoke?

Twas not a growl or snarl or croak

I had translated into speech.

No, he had loaded my mind’s breach

With canine cartridge so well fit,

Pulled the trigger, fired and hit

The very bull’s-eye of my heart,

Such I could not doubt we were a part

Of some lost, unifying tongue

That all spoke when the world was young.

I felt ashamed, I dropped my gaze,

No answer could I give, or raise

My eyes, and look him in the face –

So turned, and stumbled from that place.

I found a grave atop a mountain

Dug beneath a cairn of stone

And on a slate I saw was written

‘This is not my real home’.

‘Do not cling to flesh and tissue

Do not grieve for bones and blood

Do not pine for brain and sinew

The worms will turn them all to mud’.

‘But sing of that enlivening spirit

The light intelligent inside

Creating springs of living quanta

Upon an island in life’s tide’.

‘Until was formed a conscious person

Who fearfully learnt to be humane

Who faltering, danced in three dimensions

And slowly learnt his real name –

Which is the one you might remember

If you have loved what must survive

This chrysalis beneath this cairn-pile –

This butterfly is more alive’.

Shall I worship at your altar

Try placate your ancient fears –

Or seize the fluttering offering

And launder it with tears.

But I believe beyond religion

Still voice inside the trembling quake

The real you, born deep in fear

With fiendish nightmares lurking there

Which love may yet awake.

Truth is drawn up from the springs

Of the ground of being

The silent reassurance

That all will be well

That all will make sense.

It exposes it’s pictures

In the darkroom of the soul

Healing the shapes of nightmares

And lovingly breathing

Every fear away.

When the tortured silence

Is heard again,

After the bombast

Of man’s mechanised dream

Lies dumb – rusting, rotting –

Blown about

In the devil-dust wind

Only the rhythmic hum

Of the struggling organism

Will still be making music –

Ravaged, faltering notes

Striving for harmonies.

Then wounded, traumatised man

Will curse his ancestors,

Outlaw any hint of lost, Atlantian power,

Worship every uncertain element

Displayed by nature,

Project his every fear

Onto all that sings of something higher,

Deeper, transcendent, omnipresent –

Until the weeping, dribbling spring

Begins to rise again

Cleansing the toxins

From land and mind.

Then earth, fire, air and water

Flora and fauna

Will reach out again in friendship

Bidding the survivors

To join the healing dance,

Lead them again

In concert.

They screen out

All the smells and sweat

All the wild barbarian growth

Springing from the rampant earth

Their living, breathing mother.

Earphones executing songs

Drumming rain and choralling lark

Alone – web-bound they shout for hearing

Publicise their outward worth

Compare the image of each other.

The being’s arid seed cries out

To root and shoot and flower and fruit

To give and meet and spread it’s seed –

But all it hears are tombstone texts

Terse, brain-tweets of a robot lover.

Sell the image of your body

Kiss your unformed soul goodbye

Fulfil each siren ad-man’s message

To keep the ego’s flame alive.

There is no book beneath the cover.

Down in fair Devon a builder did dwell

He saw some green acres and his heart did swell

‘That’s four hundred houses and five million quid

When my friends on the council have backed up my bid.’

 

Chorus

 

‘I’ll have it, I’ll have it, I’ll have it my way

Most councillors worship the rich of the day

If I offer a hall and five starter homes too

They’ll jump at my plan and nod it on through.’

 

‘There’s an A.O.N.B. and a triple S.I.

A rough country park that I’ll offer to buy.

But they won’t be bothered they’ll do all they can

When I’ve wined them and dined them, they’ll vote for my plan.’

 

 

‘For there’s only one mantra that they understand,

Money more money if they sell off the land

To raise all their salaries, pensions and perks

With a little bit over to spend on new works.’

 

It’s not just more houses they’re eager to see,

It’s more and more tourists paying a fee

To park in their car parks and spend money free

When they fumed in the traffic jams down on the quay.’

 

‘But it don’t bother me, I’ve a villa in Spain,

Plus an old country rectory down a quiet lane

Near a friendly thatched pub where they serve a good meal

2 miles from my golf club where I can swing a good deal.’

 

‘Now I’m in limbo, I think I am dead –

A rich councillor friend at my graveside just said

‘How much did he leave then?’  he asked of his mate

‘Everything, everything – he left it too late’.

 

Final Chorus

 

‘I had it, I had it, I had it my way

The planet is dying, my children will pay

I made loads of cash, people thought I was smart

I wish I had heeded the voice of my heart.’