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poetry by lou sid linesman - on life, love & politics
Monday, November 15, 2004
The Escarpment (Three Poems)
The Escarpment
When I set out upon the course,
The false winds at my back full-force,
My upward climb was as a breeze;
The scarp-crest I did reach with ease.
The prize, gained by a path so lazy?
Views which proved unclear and hazy.
Home effaced down in The Vale,
No high-points marked the forward trail.
Descending from that pyrrhic hill,
I did not fly the flight of thrill;
The fickle gusts, now doubled round,
Were safety nets that damped my bound.
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2004. All Rights Reserved.
The Vale
Cloaked monotone in mistiness by muddied and unmotivated mind,
I strayed onto the comfort of the gently rolling mattress of The Vale.
No character nor monument was built there and so none did I there find,
Just stagnant pools and drowsy rivers weakly distributing pissy ale.
When every disused flooded pit of putrid old emotion I had plumbed
For depth, and there not one straight answer nor a stirring spring had ever found,
I faced, opaquely mirrored in the shallow pond wherein my quest succumbed,
A ghost that told my wordless future story lest I seek the higher ground.
Pursued by fear I charged the headwind, pushed into a strangely upright stance,
With urgent primal instincts calling to me from a neolithic age.
Directed now, I gasped to gain the grass-green hill-foot of my only chance
And, stumbling right across the ancient chalky fault-line, felt the storm assuage.
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2004. All Rights Reserved.
Return To The Escarpment
The slope was sharp, and though it showed no path,
Uphill I made a to and fro attack.
The cross-blast, keen and constant without wrath,
Would fight my wayward steps or pat my back.
At last I hit the ridge and turned to stride
The long-known way picked out by men before.
The whistling air from which I could not hide
Flowed free of all vegetation and higher than law.
The Beacon’s vantage swept the vista clear;
The Vale of Waste was death - but life would be
Pulsating undulations in career,
A range of links to the endless ultimate sea.
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2004. All Rights Reserved.
