It’s been a long time since I wrote a blog post, I used to love writing, I loved the feel of the words slipping from my hands onto the keyboard. I would imagine you laughing as you read them. That is one of my motivations; in my minds eye I see you laughing out loud at the words I have written for you. Or I see a word lifting the corner of your mouth in amusement. I see your intrigue and I love it.

I know I can’t make everyone laugh and I don’t mind.

Some people will find my writing ridiculous, and maybe they will read on all the same, a bit like when you see something grotesque but just can’t help looking, part of you is screaming at you to look away but somehow your eyes won’t leave the page. While others will leave the page in disgust! “What is this nonsense?” “Life is too short!”

Writing, I tell my self, is a communication, an opportunity to let you know who I am, or who I am not, all the exciting and daft things I have done. I can say whatever I want to say to you, or tell you how I am feeling; today I won’t do that. I will offer you this poem instead.  It is not funny. Or maybe it is, perhaps I just can’t see the funny side of it.

I write a lot of poetry, it is more openly serious than the songs that I write; its’ probably easier to tell what is on the inside of this troubled mind. I tell myself that we all have troubled minds, that yours is just as bizarre as mine, you just hide it better. You look so happy, I suppose we all do when we are out having fun, singing songs and laughing together.

I rarely share my poetry, probably because it is far more revealing than my songs.

That is one of the things that I love about writing folk songs, I can put my heart and soul into a song by writing a story about someone who I am not. I can sing to you about the ocean, and I like to think that you think I am singing about the crashing waves and not the wildness raging beneath the surface of my serious laughing face.

I sing about the love between the Selkie and her human lover and I hope that you will believe it is about wild mythical creatures and not an expression of my incurable romantic heart.

When I sing about the brave girl running away to sea for a life of freedom on the waves I hope that you will think it is a traditional story and not an inner longing for the deafening silence of the briny ocean.

I sing about the highwayman and I’m sure you just hear an ancient tale of justice for the wickedness of robbers and thieves, and of course not my romantic heart again.

When I sing about trees I am actually singing about how much I love trees, no metaphors there, now I am laughing out loud. Of course my own jokes are the funniest.

And perhaps you can’t distinguish the words at all, my mumbled pronunciation, you forgot your hearing aid, you’re not actually listening anyway, you are looking at a bus timetable, or answering a text from your real live love, not some imaginary being from the stars. The chair is digging into your back and you are dying to get away back to your comfortable arm chair at home and your slippers and your mug of hot chocolate so that you can listen to some folk music on the radio.

 

Winter Words

 

I have lost my words,

They went away from me with the freedom of the wild,

I am bound in a box far from the trees,

My box is warm and white, its edges are soft, Its limits are small, confining.

Every body is so happy that I am in my box,

Phew I hear them all say, we can relax; you are where we think you ought to be.

In a box with your winter words snapping at your heels and under your feet.

You are where we can see you, where we can imagine you, where the mind doesn’t boggle.

But

The words are snapping at my feet and tearing at my heart

I am trapped and alone.

 

I long for the cold nipping at my heart as I watch the stars alone at night.

I long for the necessity of night-time visits to the stars.

I long for the spade and the earth, for the sticks and the axe.

I long for the wide horizon, the leaves stuck around my shoes.

The running and laughing in from the cold.

The heat of the fire stinging my face as I watch the dancing flames, mesmerised.

 

The delicate white shards frosting the trees,

The patterns of magical nights, and the crunch under our feet in the morning air.

The wind lashing at my hair as I fight the padlock to open the door cursing.

The stinging rain in my eyes, or is that my tears?

 

Perhaps this cold will bring back my words,

Break the dam within me,

Open the window and let the love shine back in with the sun.

The blessing of the delicate winter sun and the rainbow sky.

The sky is always different you know.

A continuously changing vista for us to see and know for only a moment.