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poetry by lou sid linesman - on life, love & politics
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Simple Things
When you did that thing for me,
Enabled me to feel and see,
Your giving came so naturally,
So freely easily and gladly.
Didn’t have to try repay you,
Didn’t even have to thank you...
Just had to put my arm ’round you
And do those things a Man should do,
But I was scared to...
Now I want to
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Sorrow
It’s still in there...
That small but living sorrow for the list of years
It’s taken to turn round and face my fears...
I need to grieve for our lost time and our missed happiness...
This disrespect I’ve shown for such a one-off gift, our Love,
Just makes me feel...
So sorry...
For the hurt I’ve caused you through my own self-harm...
And today it counts because I’m under no attack,
Not down and desperate like that day before
When I so needed you right here with me...
But today I have no reason to feel bad...
Yet in some awful and uneasy way I do...
And I’m taking full account and feeling the totality...
And I’m sorry...
That I did not find the courage to grow up
And start to make it good for you and me
When we were young...
Though not sorry that I laid on you the stringent truth,
But that I made a present of it
Wrapped in poison-painted paper
Fresh-recycled from the bible of my own self-hatred...
So you were scared to check inside
And gained no good from all your solitary suffering...
Even in these last few days...
But I dearly hope I’ve hit the right note here
And you can hear a melody that’s bittersweet and clear
Without my raucous negativity
Which always brought you extra fear...
I feel sorry...
Because
I value what we had
And now it’s gone...
And today I know
This sorrow is essential...
If I’m ever to move on...
To soften the position of my heart
So it can make that gentle shift...
Adjust in time, in mood...
To match the stepping of another...
And look into a pair of lovely
Sad and solemn sultry pear-drop eyes...
Like yours...
And melt...
Into
One
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
No Jurisdiction
Remember, Baby,
Don’t go getting double angry...
Because,
I talk of you I talk of me
Now see...
Last night a small tear watered in my eye...
The first that’s not for me,
But for your life-defining fear...
The one which feeds your only fire,
Your perfect pitch of self-delusion...
The one that’s so transparently unnecessary...
That reckons it bears guilt
For what you think you’ve done to me,
When that was never your responsibility...
But mine...
Why not just concentrate on turning-down self-harm
And check that guilty urge to blast it out against those
Desperate mutual souls who also lack this life’s love-charm...
Especially me!...
I wish you could forgive yourself your faults...
But only you can do it...
That’s down to each of us...alone...
Our key...
When I chose back there to care
Then mine the burden was to bear,
Though then, daresay,
I did not consider it so fair...
Look at those sick people walking
Manacled to History, to crimes
Of ancestors, by never talking
With desire to change the times
Which long since ceased to ring new chimes...
Worried what the world would say
About the two of us together?
Worried what our love would state?
Well...that world don’t care about us two
And never has and never will...
Why d’you think we made the big connect?...
That world it has no jurisdiction over you and me,
Not after we stand up, declare we’re free...
I’ve made my world, I’m living here quite happily
And choose those in it very carefully...
So set up your soul’s sanctuary...
Draw the border to your cultural design,
Create that breathing-space where spirits, minds,
And bodies and we yone
Can take their liberty,
And most important,
Fill it with reality
(Which hopefully could maybe include me!)
Yeah man...
But to ghettoize your soul, your one true self within
Is quite another class of thing...
I’ve tried that, dear,
And it don’t work...
It don’t come even fucking near
To some humanity in some reality...
That G it stands for Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo,
The Great Repression...
Everyday you wear that painstaking Disguise
And keep your self locked-down and deep inside...
So far from that young you I knew
Who clothed herself in words
Which proved so loose and so see-through!...
Whose big emotions stood out loud and clear and proud!...
So you’ve got to let the genuine come out,
Come good, come bad...
To surface, and if needed, let it go...
That living-glow,
That you
Has got to rub against the truth of actuality
Lie down with your reality
To dance real close
To get turned on
To feel it real
To flow
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Love
So back to the nursery-bed where I lied
And all my words fell when they quavered and died
And settled as dust...
In which I can now write,
As soft dirt...
Where my finger can gently push into moist earth...
And form a sweet hole for the seed of my mind
To re-find the one, the only true place for its kind...
Then brush with a tip to recover the berth,
And then leave...
To the wind and the rain and the frost and the sun
Or whatever may come...
And to do its own thing...
In the hazard of Spring
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Woman-Child
Woman-child, woman-child, snatched up unfair
From her sweet childhood meadows to sheer mountain side,
No freedom to seek, no small place to hide,
So so young with no way but to rise-up to care.
Woman-child, woman-child, remember me?
The son on safe low-lying green plains confined,
And made to fear heights for a false peace of mind,
The boy who was never a man meant to be.
Woman-child, woman-child, reached out to me,
Pulled me up high where the world I did see,
Showed me life’s beauty, what really could be,
We held hands with our liberty in destiny’s majesty.
Woman-child, woman-child, wanted to fall,
Wanted to rest in those pastures below,
Grasped as I swayed, though her balance would go,
But first kissed me and passed on her vision of All.
Woman-child, woman-child, climb up with me,
And that child you’re protecting still now you’re full-grown
Leave back down in those fields, to be with my own
And to run, sing and play...and be glad...to be free.
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
No Strings
Oh Baby,
Don’t feel guilty...
Don’t feel angry with yourself, through me...
I’m not mad, I’m not hurt...not now...
These days I’ve learnt to regain balance...
Release that dense emotion almost instantly...
I just called to check you, Baby...
Just want to know that you’re all right...
Just want to help you slip back in the groove,
Just want to make you laugh and break the spell that’s petrified your heart,
Just want to hold you...but never stop you being free...
I wasn’t scared to make that contact...could you tell?
I wasn’t scared to fail,
I wasn’t even scared of you!...no more...at...all!
And I’m basically a mere and little shrew!...
But don’t worry, Baby...I’m not calling you again,
I won’t be fuelling-up your bitterness with any opportunity,
I’m not going to let you get your kicks from cutting me...
From cutting yourself off from care,
So later you can bathe in your self-suffering indulgent and self-agonising pain...
Or am I simply caught in one of your most wicked-minded schemes?!...
I wish, but I don’t think so...
Your buoyant humour’s gone and you’ve sunk deep...
Engulfed in that too dreadful fissure...that knightmare verse...of trouble...
So prove me wrong!...
Remember your prerogative your front your brass?!...
Your funky power’s gone...in real life you’re too afraid to crack your shell!
Your poetry’s your final mind of refuge...sad...all that currently remains...of you!
Your conformity’s the only shocking thing about you now!...
And I’ve shed that guilt which always used to leave me so unwell...
And do you wonder why?...
Because I’ve really been so happy...
To seek to make it good...to make you up...to try...
To send a message which does not demand that you reply...
No problem, Baby...especially when it’s you...
And here’s the why...
Five sick years’ recovering from that first arrest of Love,
Five hard years’ of being Human, being bad,
When I chose... when I turned my back on Love...just as you with conscience had,
Five more years’ it took to climb that convoluting strange ravine back up to Love,
Which I guess you had already struggled to ascend, but slipped when you met me...
And now I’m standing right there in that soft-upholstered room, at that cliff’s edge
Where we once kissed that first-last time...
Where we let each other go, lost touch, lost grip and fell...
But now I’m there by right, not through that glimpsing Eye of chance true Love,
And this time round I’m faced away from that sheer precipice
And headed to explore the higher plain,
And I want to go there linking arms with you...
Wow I’d be so proud...
If only you could pop that memory, that map to get back up here too...
I know you’d storm it with your stunning and electrifying style,
You’ve got to see...
You’ve gone right into my old world and been hard-frozen just like you found me
And I’ve gone into yours and been warmed up engaged by physical reality...
I’m astonished you’ve forgotten how it felt to be that girl you were...
(Your still no woman...not until you prove it!)
And that’s why I’m here and acting as your personal reminder...
Although I can’t afford to wait about!...
But I’ll leave a special trail...each day I’ll breathe the softest sigh for you alone to hear,
In case you find your way and gather that small courage to draw near...
Because you, you are the One,
You were...the most beautiful...the only...
Day...in my...life...without sun...
You showed me fiery flare, ambience and purity of vision, blazing light...
It’s guided me through deepest darkest night...
And you did it all glad-hearted, on that lovely mischievous whim...expecting no return...
Which I could never understand...
And which tormented every rigid and ungiving bone of mine...
Until today...
When finally I’ve got it...from your spoken word...that’s so well-turned...and so...full-on...so bad!...
(Shame it’s just pseudonymous big talk!)
And it’s as if the magic of Twelfth Night is ever lingering,
When you blew the dust from out my sorry soul but I could not respond...for fear...and I felt shrunk and small beside you...
Today...
When it’s nothing to gift back to you...but pleasure...
What you back then so playfully and with such joy entrusted me...
This...
The Truth...
Of...our...
Love!
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Life
The endless cloth inverted,
Chaotically threaded with a seething mass of mistakes,
A corner peeled back,
A marvellous matrix of embroidery brought face to the light,
So many individual figures of design,
Each one a culture, the craft of unsung hands,
Needlepoint of a happy couple’s interplay,
Every fine stitch a step transcended from the underworld,
The anchor for the ship,
The dark rock of foundation for the high cathedral,
One cannot be without the other,
Every Evil a mould for Good,
Every failure a definition of success
But in an unfamiliar language,
Styles spread abroad, some wane,
There an unfilled space, an opportunity not taken,
Where I want to create such blossom together with my Love,
Her Art will enhance mine, and mine hers,
I am coming wordless to admit my Wrong,
To submit my Wrong
By reaching an arm around the full beauty of Right.
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Care
Your care...
That golden weight...
One tight embrace I found impossible to bear...
And what a bond...
What a trust so true and fond...
One I must no more abuse
With any self-destructive, pity-seeking, life-defeating ruse,
For that’s what hurts...
Both you, my Dove, my Brother and my Mother,
What subverts...
The only One which holds a care
And keeps a care
And feels a care
And knows a care
A care beyond all other...
But now I’ve sprung myself,
Seeking freedom from my compound immaturity
And overcome that gravity
Which once made care so heavy in my heart...
And now I’m ready...
And want to take the part...
Ready to take care...
Of your vision...
Of
Love
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Got It
Don’t worry Baby,
When I see you...
When I meet you...
When I hold you...
And when I look you in the...
Eye
I’ll feel something...
Special
And the only thing I’ll feel...
Is
You
Because
Now I know.
You’re only you
And I’m only me.
And when I feel you
I can feel me
And when you feel me
You can feel you
And together,
We can both feel...
Something...
Special
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Time
Ohh...ohh...no...
For that was not a true reply...
To you...my Dove...from I...
But spoken to another you...
My timing as usual all awry...
No way, no way a Dove to address,
Whom words will not, cannot caress,
Although I did so madly try...
And ohh...you always knew
what lyrics could never, never do...
And just one...touch...could synchronize
that unspoken promise
we once beheld
in each other’s eyes...
Then still and calm,
now maturing to balm
in a stroke-upon-stroking stream of warm desire
And I want to draw that silent statement
from your lips
And taste the honeyed language of your
deepest deep response
Ohh...ohh...yes
Please make it time...
and let’s go feel the full flow of those lucid lines of love.
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Timing
Finally, I took a break from fighting my own fear,
And spent the weekend deep in peace,
I guess you did the same, my dear.
My thoughts, they circled back to you,
But there was still no sign, no clue,
So every poem in my sight became a verse to me from you,
And one I responded to.
I’m absolutely sure I’m right!
You must have felt the self-same need,
For when I posted mine I saw
That yours had come on there, so sweet, so soft, so bare,
So straight-to-the-point and devil-may-care,
And I had just sent to you a right-rare scolding,
With my usual immaculate desperate timing.
I’ll meet you half-way down the oldest Love Lane,
In the heart of the City, you know the one?
Just give me the timing, I’ll wait for you there,
You can turn, turn again, you can stand-off and stare,
Or pass me right by, leave me with not a care.
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Contradiction
Who painted out the interest in the prone and living detail of your natural face?
Not I.
Who told you not to fill the space, to take the place
Which vacant will be claimed by those who say they’ve won
some virtual race that human-kind has never run?
Not I.
And who emulsified the magic mural of your life
with perfect gloss, devoid of any personal design?
And chose the regulated climate set to suit the serving ones
who fear the wild embrace of seasonal rebuff?
And bought that frayed old line secured by trust
in those who’ve never climbed, who’ve never slipped,
who’ve never learned to tie a vital knot?
Who made you marry your unhappiness (not mine)
and take this twenty years’ remuneration
for the role of bitter beaten wife?
Not I, who couldn’t help but show myself
in truly pitiful and warning light
and begged your every cruel and angry push
and sought the misery which I deservedly then duly got.
Not I, who could not harm you with my too transparent lie,
though I did try.
Not I, who only could delude and hurt myself,
whilst your deceptions were but drifting words,
but haze which dissipated in as many soft and simple sighs.
So who’ll now take the burning blame
for your sad solemn sultry pear-drop eyes?
Not I - when I now know the how to love you - no, not I...
...although I’d kiss them by-and-by when you would cry
and tender my own tears in confluence,
until yours finally might dry.
© Lou Sid Linesman, 2006. All Rights Reserved.
