Fran's Windmill, or Flowering or Flouring?

My one and only piece from my fourth year of uni...and a bizarre title, deserving of explanation! A uni friend of mine once told me about an ancestral windmill her family had owned somewhere in Silesia. Meanwhile, another friend and I had grown accustomed to studying a certain kind of academic unit with vague, philosophical titles, sometimes featuring weak wordplay and usually concerned with the nature of cultural memory and identity. We used to poke good-natured fun at these titles, making up our own occasionally.

As our undergrad days started to draw to a close, I thought it would be amusing to write a poem for my friends, tying in the memory of the windmill to a self-consciously waffling narrative about friendship. But the tongue-in-cheek origins of the piece kind of backfired on me, because what eventually resulted actually sounded pretty good. It ended up providing a gentle, bittersweet tone to those last few weeks, before we went our separate ways. The title's really the only vestige of a joke left in it, I think!

I notice I used Sting's Fortress Around Your Heart once again here...and it wouldn't be the last time either. :P

FRAN'S WINDMILL, or FLOWERING OR FLOURING?

'In European allegory, to tilt at a windmill [...] is a sure sign of madness.'                                     (Sandra Forty, Symbols)

Still the pool in silence sits

Halfway across the field

Tranquillity unsealed

Thinly as the water slips.

And slowly as the seasons yield

To many a harvest dance

Captured in a second glance

There a grey image floats revealed.

Caught as in a mire of trance

It bears aloft its sails

Wavering, never fails

What led you here was no chance.

Within your mother's many tales

The message you did not heed

The image your fair eyes need

Now to face amidst the dark bales.

Arising from the pale weed

Your apprehensive gaze

Falls back on bygone days

With a dream becoming deed.

The yearly winds have sudden ways

To return you to the morn

Of memories once born

Where the breeze around the mind plays.

And realisation's dawn

Approaches, soon to break

Across the pearly lake

On companionship's bright lawn.

Decisions you are still to make

Fall back before the new past

Their armistice will not last

A fleeting step you now must take.

Nail no colours to the mast

Pause, reflect, though you swear

The time in which you care

Will ever be fading fast.

Symbolic in your passing stare

The structure stands forever

Time's wind and human weather

Majestic it withstands them there.

Defending that which never

Should be allowed to fade

Friendship's time-bound parade

Turning our dreams together.

Before you turn to leave, remember

That the pool in silence sits still

The field, memory's fortress

Think of good times never less

When at last you find the windmill.

Dedicated to final-year friends!

Thanks to: Sting for Fortress Around Your Heart and Tears For Fears for Laid So Low (Tears Roll Down).

Reflections for Котейка

This one, the last from the year abroad, was born out of distress at having to say goodbye to someone, as I stayed in Strasbourg for another six weeks after they went home. Our story would in fact continue for another two years, but the end of this phase was pretty painful, and for all I knew it was already the end. What I had left was the city, which, though beautiful, could no longer fully compensate.

REFLECTIONS FOR КОТЕЙКА

We're stirring in our sleep

The dream will soon be ended

By the curse of circumstances

We're waiting to awaken

To the grey of the aftermath's deep.

Every corner, every street

Seems a landmark lit by love

A pane in a stained-glass window

With a glimpse of another future

A reminder of your heartbeat.

We're echoing the dawn's chime

When the best thing to have happened

Will inevitably vanish

From the world of our today

But linger in our minds.

Every place you took me

In travel or in romance

Was new to my experience

The memory's eternal

That you gave to set me free.

We've shared the same few months past

The frosts and thaws are over

And the sun has come to shine

It was not always certain

But now we're singing to the last.

Every time I faltered

With an error in my planning

I would hesitate to follow

But I would not turn away

Though the season can't be altered.

We watch the calendar roll

It won't bring back that winter

When all was just beginning

And we didn't have to battle

With the summer and its toll.

Every day spent with you

Has changed me for the better

I have to let you realise

It has to be said clearly

Though the verses do not want to.

We've forged a living legend

From memories and passion

From journeys and adventure

And quieter acts of kindness

That will last beyond the end.

Every year before me ran

When I'm sure I will recall it

The too few months spent with you

The days in which it ended

And the joy as it began.

When our time has turned away

The dream's warm heart will live on

From a kiss that spanned a frontier

A meeting at a crossing

And the wealth of words to say.

My reflections almost done

I turn back from the window

To walk this empty city

My spirit aches without you

And I always will remember

That I loved you, little one.

Thanks to: Queen for Who Wants To Live Forever and White Queen (As It Began), Men Without Hats for I Sing Last (Not For Tears), and Sting for Ghost Story.

   

Thunder's Chase

This is another heavily metaphorical one, inspired by being caught in a thunderstorm and sheltering in Strasbourg cathedral in the spring of my year abroad. From that admittedly quite fun experience I derived an idea of racing against the relentless pace of life's twists and turns, sometimes in fear, sometimes in exhilaration, but always with an enforced sense of urgency. I tried to make this one more fast-paced than my usual fare, accordingly.

THUNDER'S CHASE

Run.

Dream of the thunder's chase.

Run into a forest of time

Where every tree is someone else's dream

Time to dive and experience

Don't climb

The storm is coming

And danger rides the wind on high.

With a pounding acceleration

The forest is made to vanish

Welcome to the urban market of fate

Look back

And regret that you didn't buy or sell

The weather's not waiting for you.

Flashes of fire and water fly

No time for thought or word

To shelter you must turn

Get away

To save the day for yourself

By finding the rose spire of strength.

Safe and dry without a sound

Beyond the crash of heaven's battle

No further need to choose your camp

Wake up

And realise what it was

A race in someone else's dream...

Taste the rain on the stone

Washing away the fear

Laughing across the cobbled square

But beware

The dream's not dead

This race is real

And coming to catch you.

Run.

Thanks to: Queen for Ride The Wild Wind and Tears For Fears for Mothers Talk.

Histoire et mémoire en Europe

This one was written on the last night of a trip to Burgundy with my parents during my year abroad, and takes its title from one of the units I was studying at Sciences Po. The main theme is the weight of history, changing perceptions as decades and centuries pass, and the continuity of humanity through the ages. I recall it came out a lot more abstract than I'd originally intended, but looking back, the turn of 2012 seems to have been something of a watershed for my work. From here on in, things generally get noticeably more complex. Never really noticed before I revisited these for the blog!

The main inspiration for the poem came from the Parc Noisot above the village of Fixin south of Dijon, which we visited briefly. Claude Noisot (1787-1861) – a former bodyguard to Napoleon Bonaparte – is buried there, in the midst of a landscaped park unabashedly dedicated to the Emperor's glory. France's complex relationship with that particular legacy set me musing on 'history and memory', and bingo: the unit title was a perfect fit. I do hope it's not copyright. ;)

HISTOIRE ET MÉMOIRE EN EUROPE

Looking down at the plain

Shape of the land from a forested hillside

The scene was set

For another little glimpse

Another little flash

(Call it inspiration

Call it what you feel).

I said "you're history

And I can be memory"

Back again for another look

At the silent signs

And frozen faces

Of twisting places

And prior times.

So questioning the fact of where we were

And are

And what we were meant to think of each other

I stared into the face

Of a man I'd never met

Awakening in mineral form while down below

His body slept.

Halfway to death or maybe

Seems to me that's how it is

For anyone at any given moment

No exception made for

The eternal emperor

Or the timeless tyrant

We can't even agree on him any more.

To lose the reckless romance

And search for some consistency

Is a challenge so beyond

And out of sight

That we can't hope to accept it

Try as we might

Therein lies pure vertigo.

What of the forgotten men

Watching over the more glorious dead?

This one's guarding still

What's his rhythm, did he clock

That someone new had stepped over his path?

Or more likely, is he past

All care for his lands of pride?

Over his shoulder on the hill and on the plain

And for miles in all directions

In space and time the many millions

Had prepared new lives

Wings for their children though their own fell to pieces

But how far did they fly

And how far have we followed?

Are we lost in posterity

Or are we forgetful

Or free

To try and grasp

The memory of the meaning

Of that thing we call

Eternity?

Questions without answers?

Too true

But on reflection a lot of the time

That's history for you

Get some compassion and memory

Remember the past's humanity

And we should get through.

Can't stay too long

In a forest of wandering and wondering like this

Confusion is all too common

For all of us, forever

It can only be a glimpse

A flash

Of inspiration, or whatever.

Thanks to: Jefferson Starship for Ai Garimasu (There Is Love), Malicorne for Quand Le Cyprès, Seth Lakeman for Stepping Over You, and Men Without Hats for Rhythm Of Youth.

Flicker

My time in Strasbourg was a striking experience in more than one way.

This poem was written during a long, rather monotonous Sciences Po lecture, and was finished by the end of those two hours. It was the icy February of 2012, when we non-natives were rapidly learning what 'cold' truly meant. The air was like iron, especially at night, and some of that temperature seeped into the verses I scribbled down that day.

But there was warmth too. I'd recently met someone who would become very special to me (an understatement there). I was concerned that I might not be communicating as well as I could, and that this was the source of misunderstandings between us. So this piece is really expressing a fierce resolve to make things work. Unlike the majority of my stuff, it was also intended as a message specifically for one person: the poem itself had to help the communication process between us.

This was the first time I'd ever worked French lines into a poem, and I was pleased to be able to get both my beloved double meanings (!) and a decent rhyme scheme out of them, as well as the rest. 

Hastily jotted in a busy lecture hall, and yet it works. It's one of the pieces I'm most proud of, and to this day I'm not sure it's not my best poem. It's up there, anyway.

FLICKER

Two towers in the night

Overlooking icy concrete

And here and there a light

To make an urban scene complete.

That's me and that's you, out there

And if we carry a torch for each other

I do not know, so unaware

I hold it high and murmur –

See this lover.

But to flicker its light is leaning

And I can't guarantee

Full safety or semblance of meaning

In light that comes from me.

So I want you to know I apologise

Turning my collar to the functional frost

It's not worth our time to eulogise

For the dead souls of sense that have just been lost.

And will it flicker out, or on?

On. On. Don't ask me again

There are good things in life and this plays its part

And don't remember the end

So this will stay as treatment for the tired heart.

This light's no clearer in the writing

I cannot tell if you can understand

The cold will pull me back to lighting

My message-lamp to flicker, never fail

At my hand.

Et maintenant, il faut tirer au clair pour toi

Dans une autre langue mes vers – au moins puis-je faire ça.

Nous sommes les tours

Les lumières sont nos mots d'amour

Béton, gel, et confusion

Égalent à peu près

La même chose

Les uns viennent en blocs, les autres en ondes

Mais dans ce poème ils se correspondent.

 

Et alors j'abandonne

Un peu les rimes

Pour te dire que nos lumières vont continuer

À briller

Pendant tout le temps qu'il nous faut

Pour vaincre ces vacillements

Ce qui va arriver –

Petit chat

Faut pas t'inquiéter

Sur ça.

Thanks to: Laura Marling for Flicker And Fail, Simon & Garfunkel for The Sound Of Silence, and Jacques Prévert for Rappelle-Toi Barbara.

    

River of Autumn

And so we enter my third year of uni, when I went abroad for very nearly a whole year on the Erasmus programme. Destination: Strasbourg. My time there produced a select few poems, of which this is the only one from the first semester. Primarily inspired by the picturesque Ill river that flows through the heart of this wonderful historic city, and tied in with another theme that I'd explore further in later poems: the changing seasons.

I was consciously trying to write a more 'song-like' poem this time, hence the slightly different rhyme scheme. I think I had North American folk-rock in mind...James Taylor, Neil Young, that kind of thing. Yet neither of those seem to be in my little 'thanks to' list at the end. Hm. Well anyway, I've never been musically gifted, so I wonder how well this would actually work as a song? As a poem, it's probably OK.

RIVER OF AUTUMN

All the time we have to go

And walk along this busy road

Just because we tell ourselves so

And no-one knows where.

People and places are speeding by

Road's a-rolling under leaden skies

It's only natural that we wonder why

We have to move at all.

It's the river of autumn

And it slows down for all

It's the river of autumn

And it glides through the fall

Of the brazen leaves that whisper down with the breeze

It's the river of autumn, you can think what you please.

Yes there's a river by the side of the road

All through the past and the present it flows

As for the future well it doesn't know

And nor does it care.

You know the highway won't wait for you

Could well be hanging on your whole life through

And never get there so it's sad but true

But to the river you can go.

Cos when the highway won't wait for me

The little river's on its way to the sea

And you could come and keep me company

And we'd watch the season flow.

Well the river of autumn

It's got to come and then go

The river of autumn

A little peace it can show

In the misty reflections on the surface of the stream

Here today and gone tomorrow, but you can see the dream.

It's on the river that I like to go

Gradually drift on the gentle flow

Whenever time and place permit me so

But of the time I'm aware.

For now the time and tide they never wait

And now the calendar is getting late

The river's just an aisle in the cathedral of fate

And the weeks are moving on.

And so we walk towards another year

Another season's magic, hope, and fear

River of autumn you can still be near

In the lines of a simple song.

Now as the river to the cold it kneels

I can head into the icy fields

For memories until the water yields

To the warmth of the spring.

Thanks to: Kate & Anna McGarrigle for Arbre, Francis Cabrel for Octobre, Dire Straits for Telegraph Road, and Sting for Fortress Around Your Heart.

On Amy

This had an interesting genesis. Amy Winehouse had just died at the tragically young (and all too common) age of 27. I heard the news on a glorious summer's day at a reunion with college friends at a pub in Exeter. Thing is, I had never been a fan of hers...in fact I was privately inclined to look down on her and her music, a viewpoint I now regretted.

People suddenly clamouring of their admiration for the recently deceased is nothing new, of course, and perhaps there's something very cynical about the whole thing. But I felt I wanted to jot down a few thoughts on this particular occasion, since my change of heart was so abrupt it took me aback. Call it a psychological exercise of sorts.

ON AMY

So I ask myself:

Why the hell

Should I write this?

What am I doing?

I didn't know you

I didn't love you
I didn't like you
Never.

But life is strange
And death is cruelly kind
Suddenly we see the power and the beauty that it gives us
But we pay a heavy price.

I never liked you
I'd always laugh
As I watched you struggle through life
'All her own fault', I thought I knew it all.

But that afternoon
Something shocked me into silence and shame
And I saw you for what you were
A human woman, somebody's precious child.

Is it a good thing or not
That there's a relic behind this cynic
A relic of humanity
Always revealed too late?

But that's part of life's mystery
We're not meant to understand
Why we suddenly feel like crying
So all I can say now is:

Amy
I'm sorry.

(Dedicated to Amy Winehouse)

Thanks to: Brian May for Just One Life and KT Tunstall for Suddenly I See.