Rocky Mountain High

Driving from a multi-story car park yesterday, I flicked the radio on. "Rocky Mountain High" was playing.

Now, a confession: I'd never heard the song before.

I know, but sometimes these classics just elude us for a while. (I'm still biding my time before I watch "The Godfather" trilogy).

Anyway, the song was playing, the sun was shining and my window was wound down. I had just supped a large latte from Costa Coffee and all was well with the world.

Except for one thing: I started to analyse my mood.

Why was I feeling happy?

And the answer came just as quickly-nostalgia. Even though I'd never heard the song, memories of grainy, sunny American landscapes were flooding my head and I wondered why, and perhaps even more importantly, why did this seem comforting?

I've never been to the USA. All of the information about the place, is filtered through the various media of films, TV shows, radio, internet and the actual face-to-face encounters with a few Americans I've met.

So why did I have a warm, fuzzy nostalgic moment based on a song I'd never previously heard?

The best I can come up with is that somewhere inside, a version of America is in-built into my psyche. It's an America that I control from afar, that exists intertwined with my childhood and somehow negates any danger that I've seen or heard into a controllable, compartmentalised past.

For example, I remember having family friends staying with us (on one of the few occasions that they did), on the day John Lennon was shot in New York. I was seven at the time, and the memory of hearing and watching the news, is filtered by the good memories of that visit and other times together.

The past, it seems, is one thing that we can attempt to keep under our control. We can manipulate it in our minds and it can seem to become whatever we want it to be. Others may argue that this subconscious editing is evidence that the past actually controls us.

What do you think? Do you control your past our does your past control you?

Man Up/Man Down

Your serotonin levels slip.

Even through the sun, you blink in only darkness.

A voice inside screams "get up, get out of bed," but no muscles move.

Your legs and arms are immobile.

The numb feeling inside your head makes no attempt to advance, jammed inside like sea-fog, stuck for the day on the coastline.

You want to enter the day, but it seems like a closed sign has been hung on every door.

You can't disengage from this or shake it off.

You need help.

You can't man up.

You are truly brave.






(posted in response to recent events underestimating the seriousness of depression)

groundbreaker

Soul soil,
earthy and earthly,
willing for water,
voracious for fruit:
feed up the fallow,
ecstatic the clay again,
love joy
peace patience,
reseeded for good;
loam of the Spirit
unseen in mystery
sifting the wilting,
poised for the rush,
shooting through darkness,
planting the afterlife,
grounded in ashes,
waking the dust.

mind games

turmoil tumble-dries driftwood
inside this minecraft mind,
set on satisfaction;
thoughts like deviating chinese whispers
swirl this snowstorm,
brewing a broken brouhaha of
flotsam and jetsam,
turning symphony cacophonous,
a scream in a beautiful dream,
for all the world
a storm in a handle-less teacup,
no pick-me-up,
hanging in the balance,
unseen.

Naysayer

Naysayer
(once a trailblazer)
sentences falling
with every word afrost the faces,
deluding peace of mind,
subconscious settling on defeat,
just saying,
rewind,
repeat,
rewind,
repeat...

Viral Spiral

If you knew
the friends
who knew
the friends
who knew
the friends
who knew
the friends
who knew
the friends
who knew
the friends
of you,
what would
you tell
the world?

Voices from beyond control

...on these streets i once belonged:
make these feet move
one by one...

...in this car I thought I owned:
take the wheel Lord
drive me home...

...in this body: blood and bones,
fused and mingled,
breath on loan...

...in this garden, in this home:
when I've watered
you have grown...

...i sail this mind of overload,
beyond control,
these memories roll...

ghost churches/new haunts

Ghost churches,
where somehow some forgot their place,
and lost and sold the plot
(the Spirit shown the door,
still pain creaking in their stoic joists)
retreat, rebrand and resurrect:
your carpet warehouse,
your local Indian restaurant,
a night out at the theatre,
or the perfect home
among the graves,
a place to lay your weary head.

Unsuspecting,
souls stop to sip this new communion,
with gone
generations mingling in the ether,
their trapped psalms jammed into the brick-work,
their spoken blessings looping onto shoppers,
diners, leisure lovers
in these gifted buildings,
sent to the wind,
to be transformed again,
when Spirit, once more welcome,
settles in.

catch them while you can...

bright ideas
lurk
in darkest thickets,
prone to prowling,
focusing their prey,
their sinews itching but
biding their time,
staring you out...

Pouncing,

headlong into your psyche,
letting you deflect them
or forcing you to face them down,
devour them whole or
consume a fleshy bite,
in this fight or flight,
for the right,
to feed afresh

from the dying carcass of your mind.



Shared with poets united

On waking today at Crieff Hydro I called out in my mind...

...men of my age
careering forward
dig your heels into the mountain
disconnect from avalanche
(for just a minute)
lie back
(the sky awaits your eyes)
and dream
(don't scream).

God sends talk.

alone in our thoughts
and out of our minds
we are found to be beside ourselves.