It’s been a dry spell of late; these past few months the words have eked out slowly. Perhaps that has something to do with me having to purchase some new notebooks and writing pads – the ones I have are full. Strange thing though, much of what is written on those pages will never be published. Not every morsel of inspiration needs to see the light of day, or be exposed to another mind’s pair of eyes. Be that as it may, I have been filling other pages, not in the realm of fiction. There’s been a deeper preoccupation, one arising from heart and mind and feet and hands and tongue. When I realize again that I’m the pen and life is the page… it’s the art of relearning some ancient truths. Much has been said and written about pens and swords, and truth … and spirit and mouth and where our real life battlefields actually lie. We are living these stories, travailing against death… and we fool ourselves if we think that the battle is in flesh... 'A Plea from the other side' Poem by Steven Benjamin Eyes of the serpent I saw Curl of the back, weight on my chest Torment me no more further than this there’s no return Gaze turned to the beyond and what came before Look deeper than my blood and my skin standing not under decree nor law Just the blood of another Of a name that quakes your core To strip you from this marrow and bone. It was the light that tore And then still you fought Now to the edge of the abyss you claw The darkness closes Now the torment is no more The absence lay in wait for you It is not my strength that strikes your jaw Nor my foot that presses your head That crushes your teeth and silences your moaning roar. Only the one you turned from. The dying body quivers on the wooden shore As the snake is pulled from the spine The breath blows away the dust I wore The hole in the dark does murmur to me My crippled gaze flickers to the dawn calling the end to the war. The bloody mess of it is naught as the way opens A narrow corridor Into a promise of Evermore But to the creature from which the wail of endless torment bellows, For you, there is no morn, Only the endless dark for you A desperate cry echoing from outside of time, as the son takes you to a place where there is no one not one creature, only you, a shadow in the dark, the long, the last, the lost *** Stories of travail of this sort will seem foolish to some ears, and my mastery of it will always be in the vein of a child… but the truth always seems like folly to a fools deceived ears. Just as it is written:
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Poem: "The Mountain Kites" by Steven Benjamin To the quietude I was led, To my knees I sank In the deep I drank In the grit my nails scratched A roar from my lungs found escape in the dark I saw a face, in their eyes the night sky flickering Into those pools my gaze did reach Each crest mine or not to take To breathe until I break To wait for my chest to quake By a figure behind the lace and in that dark, a familiar face The twitching of my heart. Softly the mountain spoke Quietly dying in my path Not mine to take As the peak sank from sight The trail lost to unknown fate Forever knocking at my mind Like a taunting dancing distant kite. Not mine to hold Nor to summit A path held from me By arcane hands And a sleight voice whispering Some paths are not meant to be took Keep climbing, from your knees Beholding my familiar face In our quiet dark home go where I go Keep going, till you’re gone *** [Image credit: from PoemHunter.com]
Poem: * "My bones in the road" by Steven Benjamin 'Thousands of years of rolling and crashing, smoothed the stones', I heard him say. Buildings still abound, much older than I will ever be. When did I gain this voice When did it fade Young we are to the elements, and will always be Blooming flowers to nature we are, and will always be, and then gone What is this effort? To catch my voice in a jar? I hum, clear my throat, and when my lips part, sounds come out, a head inclines and then I turn the page and see some figures on that paper, lines that came from me. I held a pen and moved it. Rearranged some letters, with fingers and breath, whispers and tones. My heart beats; I know. My red blood I’ve seen, and my veins. Shared some space I did, and thought some thoughts, and then quietened my mind. Beating is my heart, and not much more is happening. . . Hushed Until another hour, when again the voice quakes, and a sound, as inspiration steers. the blood pumps on, ink shall be laid, lips to be parted Bones shall move and a faint echo will let loose in this, our dying maze of time. Let the bones of my ribs rise and fall a cage, the jar for my voice holding it like a gloved claw, keeping some air in, until it slips out, and is no more. Just long enough for that breath that it holds, that small voice within that cage, to nudge the blood, to itch the muscle, to crinkle the flesh, to move the fingers. Just long enough for the echo to spill and dent the page and fill the dents with ink. Just long enough it holds, until it is no more. Good intentions are all I am, and all we are, then let the road be paved with me, that narrow path Home to us all that road will be, in the maze of time. And that road - where shall it lead? until time closes, lost, to the red place but for the tether a pinch from that place without time to make the way straight to make the bones move, and that which placed within those bones that air, that breath, that voice it speaks, it moves, it saves and makes the bones live again without time, this time * [Image credit: photo by Frank Robert --- Video credit: Music by Max Richter ( From the Art of Mirrors) Filmed, directed and produced by Montserrat Rubio Sound effects by Romain Olivieri] Poem: 'When the sand hits the wood' -Soul and the sand- by Steven Benjamin * When music fades with faltering voices through blurred vision When the grip slackens on the cold metal and feet stumble around on the wet soil When the breath stutters - words fail What remains abide Grasping the dimness What remains is time a slow beat A stare A wave The falling and - hammering grains The shaking breath With trembling hands The grip The failing heart The quiet tears When the sand hits the wood When the soul unfastens its hold The remains pour Prying open the hands of time Falling between its fingers To let loose another * The Fall of man - 'Moving in the darkness' - Poem by Steven Benjamin The darkness covers us all the same
Rich and poor Strong and weak Good and evil. All existing in this same place Distant Removed. living and dying, we share it all, until One Or a few of us, reaches out to where we came from Before we walked Before we breathed Before we saw, and heard, and tasted and felt This world. To act here, in this place of darkness and absence exiled We exist and are forever lost. Until a heart reaches for the light. The light to illuminate our life, our path, our flaws. But we are still painted by the same brush, Moving in the darkness The same abandon that many love to bathe in, That some question, Searching the dim depths, for tenor, to whisper faint philosophy Reasoning in anonymity, As this shade, hides our actions, bolstering confidence, Justifying ignorance, for the lesser mind. All of it, echoes in obscurity. Without the gift of light - to shine on us, until then, once ignited, to shine from within – without this light what are we? shadows, playing, pretending on the dark stage, until the absent curtain falls, ... and time swallows the memory of us. It is the light that colors us, illuminating purpose and path. But in the darkness, all meaning is forsaken. Light needs only light to be… for darkness is merely the absence of it. For we only know what darkness is, because of light. We know the light, we recognize it, the form of our shadows, A hint, We recognize it because we came from it, We were made to reflect it. Once, In a distant memory, half forgotten, a remnant in us, of a garden and a past, swept away. We came from it. Before we learned what darkness was. Before we fell, Before we walked, Before we breathed Before we were born… Once there was a time when it breathed in us, there was a time when we were painted with light. ***** Evolution and decay Poem by Steven Benjamin Walking through the infield, I hear the whistling trees The howling wind, and the rustling reeds. Listen to the silence. As the sun dawn’s, over the lonely racetrack Secretly. There was a time when championships were run here, Emotions too. The track is clear now, the crowd long silent, passed on even. I still hear their roar, or is it the engines An echo of memories, or imagined. Here, the earth moved once, The chequered flag was there, raised, waiting… breaths were held heroes were made and lives were claimed. With weeds glancing my shins I stride through the beautiful decay, A monument to past untamed passion. Abandoned, ever waiting Whispers of her past on the backs of leaves tumbling down the embankment over cracked tarmac. A past of danger, and of glory. She dared men. A different time, a different world. And in the minds of a brave few, long gone This patch of brokenness, was a frightening and daunting giant of chance. The world evolved around her. She remained, now Half claimed by time Waiting for death, or an odd few wanderers Willing to linger, and listen, to her soft whisper, that was once an old taunting song of vigor, once vibrant and wild, now just a cold, distant hum *** The original host of the 1950's French Grand Prix at Riems, the circuit is abandoned, but the main pit straight with Grand stand opposite, is part of a main road. Authorities have left it as a monument - tourists are free to roam and investigate, but asked to respect the place, hence no graffiti or demolition. I would’ve brought this post to you yesterday but it took me a while to actually look for the original poem in uh, shall we call it my ‘personal archives’. The thing is that the original version of this poem is one of the first I ever wrote – I was around 14 at the time and it was for a school project… so I wrote about something that I loved, but with a slight twist. The original had to do specifically with the first Formula 1 race in 1950, entitled ‘Evolution’, and I wrote it as though I was actually there, living the experience through the ‘memories’ and pictures of others – a fabricated memory so to speak. I went looking for it again because I was reminded of it after watching the film ‘Rush’. I reviewed it last year for ‘In The Kan’, and I recently bought the DVD… I highly recommend it. The feelings of nostalgia I felt prompted me to have another look at this piece. The changes I made (call it the 'decay' portion) were simply to reflect a lifelong desire of mine to visit some of the old racetracks of the world – something I imagine only aficionado’s dream about. You see, the old tracks weren’t governed by how many spectators could be seated in the stands (some didn’t even have stands) or which corners could best be captured on TV to cater for the massive audience and commercial rights… no, the best tracks were carved or laid out on unforgiving landscapes – a niche sport that was half banished to rural back countrysides, mountains and forests, well outside city limits (barring Monte Carlo of course, the first anomaly and part of what made it the jewel in the F1 crown, because it was and still is – 100 years on – the center stage filled with glitz, glamour and not to mention royalty - the first street circuit). Tracks like the old Nurburgring around the Medieval castle from where it got its name, the old Monza Oval, Spa Francorchamps – the original was a 15km monster track in a rough triangle connecting 3 towns, the original Osterreichring in the Styrian Mountains, the beautiful Charade Circuit in central France – and those are just the famous ones… there are so many that lay forgotten, overrun with weeds, half demolished, like forgotten cities of yore. Just like the Roman Colosseum and other such ruins, these tracks are ruins with less age but a folklore all their own. It says something about time – something like the automobile, that has captured the hearts of so many men, yet as it has evolved and outgrown eras and arenas, so we can see how fleeting it all is, just like the moment when one of those cars speeds past – it’s all recorded by time… one race after another, trying to beat the next man or just the clock, and that, as it turns out, is ultimately what always wins. --- Here's a short story I wrote with similar nostalgia "Black Velvet Ring"... Days of Glory [Image credits: silodrome.com, tumblr, pinterest, basementgeographer.com, wikipedia.org, retrorides.proboards.com] Story of remoteness, 8. Voice in the Distance Poem by David Martinez Romero I always return from the far land to where I always head for. And each time, my hands, delicately hardened by time, quiver just with the presence of the sparse memory of a past that never was, that only happened because we dreamed, and inside our dreams the lies also disappear, already lost the right to cling onto what we know is not true. That’s why I speak from remoteness, because lying down here, beside you, I prefer to remain in silence, I choose not to take the floor, but your hands in mine. I choose to die in the quietness and to be reborn in the sense of touch, into the inhospitable region of the very lamenting creatures which sinuously crawl into the chrysalis, the future, the enormous wall, made of sky and music, that descends over the sea and generates horizons, frontiers, distances. The remoteness amongst one and another man: behold the Eternity. Read more at David Martinez Romero's blogspot... "I brought you another poem by David Martinez Romero, included here because despite its humble length, he and I did wrestle a bit with it, such that it may have taken on new or added meaning in the translation from Spanish to English. But, such is the nature of poetry and writing, when even the poet himself sees that his creation may speak its own language. Personally, I see it as quite a vague piece, that communicates the same message as reflected in the title, because it feels wispy, faint and subtle, even in the actions, which are sleight; the voice, a voice, the echoes of small gestures. Ultimately, I also needed something a little lighter compared to heavy content I've shared recently, so in effect it feels rather relevant that the poem communicates a soft message of purity, something which one needs to remember, especially in these chaotic times..." [Image credits: devpolicy.org, photosof.org, dejavouz.files.wordpress.org, deviantart.net, media.massal.net] |
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