#ibizapoets

My Dear Friends

Birch leaves flutter, now the summer swelter Shows its back, and I remember It was a time of frenzy The great return to school To meet old friends, to make some new But nowadays it's not as gay as that

A woman lies stripped, bloodied, bruised On a jail cell floor, her name? Iran. She's hopeless as The ticking of the prison clock From forty years of horror and shock And I am not that child, anymore

Pooya shifts his glass, says we have one chance To avenge the crime, his great hope? Trump, maybe he'll invade (Sad hopes, forlorn. How, now Young folk can hope for war?) And nothing I can say will change his mind

Of arguments I find myself all too short Apart from all of this, we're fine

Your friend

M

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Copyright (c) “M” and Robert Hale 2020.

(Image: People of Iran by Hamed Saber / CC BY [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0] from Wikimedia Commons)

In the streets of Paris where the clochard makes his rounds The iron tower is the new man's Notre Dame Around the world where the horizon meets the sky on the ice They canned the air of Alaska for the blind The stuffed white bear with the glass and teary eyes looks quite alive I am leaving in the morning of my life I kept her in my heart but she moved along with change I believe the Weaver's calling is so pure and strange Dusty bible blue downtown Tokyo grey Buddha smiles a Nara sunny day Father Brown plays the accordion with a smile before the graves Sister Marian is crying for my fate Compassion serves the sake as the monks of Kyoto play The mind has many riddles come my way She never said she would wait forever but she did for a long long time How could I forget her? …She was just one of a kind American tramp in Delhi laughing takes my hand Spent the night with the junkies in the heights Angels came to save me when I broke down and cried Sent me down to Keinchi in the light ...

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The strong one, she is gone The young one, she is gone The energetic dancer The music maker The flute player The mother The friend The sister Gone

So early it came So fast and hard So short-lived it turned out to be Suddenly, unbelievably, life quickly ebbed away Try as you may there was no stopping it Fighting to heal while fighting to save The most modern of sciences Couldn’t sustain That heart

So the tears and the candles and the prayers Serve to support the final act of the body As the spirit glides toward the ethereal light Easily forgetting the trials of the day We can only imagine Where How When What

Left with the memories Filling our mind and heart Unaccustomed to this empty space We now feel in our being We know we must sing and dance And remember the lessons she taught us The smile, the beauty Of our departed friend, Toshi.

Laughing in the dark she smacks your skin alert Then throws her pearls out wide across the universe While in the spaces between rocks and pines she hides It is a game, and from the tops of waves she flies Then dives To free the nightbirds from their silver trap A dozen ghostly forms lift off against the black Quick to rise and quick to fade For the moon is lost on the other side And her breath now gathers dense as life Thick as a memory of her smile She knows you know It’s time for some to live and some to die In the beauty of her darkest night

Copyright © Robert Hale 2021.

From lands of green and plenty You travelled north to meet me I thought you would have loved me Your road was long and hard, and you did not give up But you came and saw, and love me you did not Your thoughts and prayers were only for your lover lost And for all that I am holy Your black-clad priests did only fear me

With your words I'm falsely named In sayings, proverbs, thoughts and songs In poems, myths and sagas I'm defamed Rejected, I am the cradle of the damned In hymns and prayers I shall be refused Because I hide the snarling thing unchained The thing reflected in your dreams But look well, it is only you

Few know how I am really blessed Few see in me what others missed I come in peace, I am Your softest bed of rest And the one for whom your eyes are made Was my lover first Who travelling through me Led you to the gleaming forest glade As I watched from the space between the trees Between the stars, where in the depths of mystery I stood and shed my tears

No, I am the cradle of all that lives And dies This nobody sees Your eyes For me are blind

Copyright © Robert Hale 2021.

Images that come and come again Like ghosts Never can they be held

A path weaves bleak across a shallow grassy rise Large boulders here and there about the land Then, a saddle wide across to the greater climb There the way goes up and round the mountain's pleated skirts On an outer bend a way station, a little tea shop stop Though high, we are but on a lower slope And up the trail, an unremembered wilderness I want so much once more to travel on To where I travelled on another day But always time runs out, the image fades Before I make the way

I know the river bend lies beyond the wood and over hill Descend the cliff and there, a spot of rarest beauty Wide and deep the river runs with rocky islands off the bend And then, downstream the shallows ripple in delight Warm is the sun in the dying afternoon Oh, to dive and swim under waters clear and sweet To hunt like an otter, breathe like the trout But always darkness falls, the air comes cold Before I make the river bank

By the sea there's a beach that stretches away beyond sight or thought A place I know so well and yet again know not at all The way there etched rough and deep into my bone So many times I've joined the waves in play Each time I sorely yearn to play again But summer quickly turns to chill and dark And as I run the sun's last rays are fading fast And as I run I lose the way so well I know And always winter's curtain falls Before I make the shore

Images that come and come again Like phantoms Never to be held

Copyright © Robert Hale 2018, 2021.

Part 1 – The Garden

Rainbow sunshine beams Through the leaves Of bushes and trees A child of dreams It is all he sees The coloured fish and frogs Under the flowers in the pond And the beautiful marble lady That never speaks Behind the garden walls Sounds of the great beyond Where children weep themselves to sleep

Part 2 – The Paper Room

Through the window see, The cherry tree blossoms Casting petals in the wind Inside the paper room The sounds of strings The holy father sweetly dies Behind the screens And the accordion sings Of a love that is lost And yet.. born again No prayers, no sign of the cross The marble lady weeps by the train The guitar has fallen into tune My words to you are all the same Like the snow- capped mountain And the flaming moon Life knows not of any name

Part 3 – Broken Glass

The marble lady takes my hand And leads me through narrow streets The shining stones of the holy land

There is nothing but gold and sorrow Maybe only the dust remains There is no today only tomorrow

The straw has frozen into stone The shining star is broken glass The empty past is cold and gone

He who walks alone in the chill of night From the shadows hears a whispered lie Deep in sleep recalls the days of light

Across the wasteland, robes and gowns The spirit left long, long ago The candles bleed on faceless clowns

Copyright (c) Pere Vergès Coma 2021.

Sleeping by the waterfall Darling little one The river singing for you softly Its forever song

You had hardly lived Before you had to go But the world showed you secrets Only made for you

Dreams floating by like jewels Sweet shadowed memories Do you see the flowers In those mystery hills of green?

Remember the mist after rain? The darting of the swifts? And Gecko on the ceiling Going chik-chik-chik-chik-chik?

Asleep by the waterfall You precious little one Butterflies dance above your brow A journey just begun

Can you hear the call of the doo-doo-doo bird? Insects whistling out of sight? The laughter of the evening frogs And the thousand sounds of night?

Sunlight patterns through the leaves A leaf floats to your chest Carried like you, our little one On fragrant air of East

You had hardly lived at all Before you had to go But the world showed you secrets Only made for you

You saw it all with priceless eyes Left magic dust on Earth Now carry your jewels with open hands Across the universe

Sleeping by the waterfall Darling little one The river singing for you softly Its forever song

Copyright © Robert Hale 2019.

(Image: Background photo of waterfall by the author. Superimposed photo of girl sleeping from Maxpixels.net, reproduced according to Creative Commons licence CC0 1.0.)