Creative and reflective writing
THE APPLE TREE
It falls
It grows
goes round and round
it throws
a cycle
abandoned by all
no tree, no fall
so be it seems
to outward go
beyond the trees
nobody knows
here I rush
I call I see
the splendour of the apple tree
J Raworth 2000
I SEARCH MY SOUL
I search my soul too find my heart
Deep in jungle too play the song
I fell
Come out your hole , too be a chance.
You chase .
I keep too part
I embrace, catch me, I fall.
Here my soul I foul upon
Come with me too ponder your heart
Your star light I glow
Too be me I see I scare I fear I care.
My doubt of size to be me.
Here I told I see no more to be.
I sense a fear I calm
Close this thing
Beauty warn me too capture
I go too sleep and me
Capture, enclose, encompass.
Help me you told a fear
I fear summerly enlights the music
play too caress.
J Raworth 2000
VALLEY OF LIFE
Lines rush down the hills
meeting at the hay bails
Roads leading to anywhere
your imagination wants to go.
Which way to go?
The path we see safely around the bottom,
or up the hill into the confusion of trees
or zig zag in and out a line of obstacles that leads to the main road
security
adventure
or ambition?
J Raworth 1999
TAKE THIS HEART
Take this heart
Constant cycle
I feel so pain
and told I saw
to hold and thaw
Be hear withhold
I search I hold
no time no pace
of sewing good grace
beseech this man
and take one hand
and test and bold
alike the soul
Take this heart
oh gentle soul
forever green
I sold for me.
J Raworth 2000
SHARING
My space, my house, my territory, my zone.
You invade with force, all with honour and grace
but you attempt to calim it as your own.
I have the strength of strategy to exert more power
to win the battle.
But the battle is tiresome and so I retreat.
I find a zone that no-one will invade and claim…..
or will they?
J Raworth 2006
CONTENTMENT
Why do we search?
What for?
Are we all doing it?
Or is it just me?
Are those who seem content really so?
Can I maybe act the part of contentment?
If we all kept looking and searching would nothing ever get achieved?
Would we all just keep moving on?
So we need contented people to maintain stability?
J Raworth 2002
WOODS
Woods are so magical
There’s something so mysterious
A fairytale
The start of magical childhood fantasies
Infinity of wildlife, colours, patterns
A maze of paths.
Noises, children playing invisibly
Twigs cracking in the wind
Leaves whispering
Which way to go
Which journey to take
J Raworth 1997
AFRICA HOME
I’ve been back home for much too long
while still there where I belong
that place that took my heart away
that I call home now
The purple sunsets on the plain
and inbetween there comes the rains
the clouds stretched out it cannot reach
to eternity
See the bright birds fly
bright blue in the sky
In a place where my heart has been found
The faces clack but filled with light
The eyes and teeth they shine so white
With intrigue bursting from the frown
of the young boy
They dance so hard, they leave the ground
with every muscle they have found
to greet us as we drive on by
down the dusty road
Drive into the night
stars are shining bright
in the sky where my heart has been found
The pale green grass, a midtone shrub
a dark green bonsai, winds swept top
a small bright orange bird sits elegantly
Red petals glow like fire in dark
soft focus headed plants
grow in the swamp below the mountains
See the space stretch on
to the mountain far beyond
In the plains where my heart has been
The rushing of the river
the cracking of the fire
the energetic, mellow sounds that make the orchestra
Voice so versatile
low sounds echo under high
wrapped in red he plays the heart & soul
of Africa my hearts here.
J Raworth 1997
THE BENCH
It sees life, we see a small fragment.
Silently waiting for the next train,
still, brown, content with the gentle
rumbles and breezes in the distance
not scared by the ghostly noises.
What’s coming?, what’s ahead?
It doesn’t matter to it, it’s warm polished gleam.
As I rush down in a panic it’s there waiting
for me to stop still, to rest for a second,
the calm below the bustle above.
The silver teeth brought me here to you.
I gather my thoughts, assess the station, empty.
Assess the peace, assess the map..
shit I’m on the wrong platform. I jump up
and run back up the silver teeth.
It stays there, still and calm, solid and sure of itself
waiting fir it’s next stay.
Back out again, I arrive with the anticipation
of a London New Years eve.
Excitement, fear, happy, with my friends.
It shares the company of fellow celebrators.
What do they wish for in the New Year.
Better than this year or celebrating a fine achievement.
Giggly and blurry I share a second with it.
Central to the festivities even though
they don’t acknowledge it.
Resting their drunken legs ready for the manic procession
at the other end.
They share a song or two with you
Will you get any peace tonight?
Sorry I didn’t come back last night to see you.
In fear of my life I walked home.
Today, blurry from exhaustion,
you are still alone but for one solemn soul.
I daren’t take rest, I fear I may never rise again.
The trains now empty but for the tired, content few
mad enough brave the streets again,
in the promise of fulfilling an ambition of festivities.
Good morrow you regal seat,
who has wethered the tides.
You remain still and strong hiding many a story,
with a gentle smirk to yourself.
J Raworth 2006
CLOUDS
The space, the softness
Every moment different
Grandiose sun beams through tiny gaps of dark, heavy, monstrous clouds.
Turmoil between black and white, fighting for the space.
They merge and still, so flat grey and heavy.
But I know behind every cloud lies infinite vastness of the universe.
In clearness the flat, serene, cobalt blue serenely no details no texture
A subtle graduation from the suns brightness.
This moment is clear.
Winds may come again, causing new turmoil.
But the clouds keep moving and changing
Clearing a space for the suns rays.
And I know, even when the murky grey puts mist over the vision,
Behind it, in the next moment, the space behind the wall will find it’s view again.
J Raworth 2014
THE UNDERGROUND
The only way to travel where the
transition of the journey does not exist.
I leave an old victorian station,
with drunks outside and hustling shoppers eager for a bargain.
I arise suddenly into a land of punks
of bright, surreal, gothic clothes.
Maybe I should go back down-find another safer world.
after braving the creatively stimulating streets and markets.
I pop into the Victorian times again but this time the people more regal,
riding the carousel and supping mulled wine,
whilst the juggler braves the cold for his audience.
I return to my station for rest before braving
a new exciting world, of drunken celebration.
A war zone of fireworks, kisses from strangers, all sharing the New Year.
Feeling safer in the crowds above than below.
I transition on foot-suddenly I locate my journey,
trace the tunnels I travelled in darkness.
The morrow finds grandeur, traditions, regality
in my last sudden adventure into a new world.
J Raworth 2006
RIPPLES IN THE FRAME
This lake holds my life
My bereavements, my losses and separations.
My angst when I go to my dark place.
My depression and exhaustion when I’m ill
It takes my anxieties and calms them still.
The birds innocently get on with their lives,
no stress, calmly looking for food,
Gliding and floating on the gentle ripples.
The water ripples and splashes gently,
rippling all my pains into something softer, gentler, more manageable.
The circle contains my emotions as it gently massages
and softens my angst.
It gently takes in the breeze
glides into the ripples and tends to them
gently, smoothly, warmly.
All the movement, the chaos under the ripples
is held and contained by the solid, circular frame.
It sits with my exhaustion, tending to it.
The water moves sideways while the ground stands still.
I’ve cried into this lake, it absorbs my tears.
It calms my anxieties.
It rids me off all the stuff that is muddling the view,
leave’s me the stuff that’s important.
I give it my energy as I circle the lake.
Keep moving.
I sit still, take in the peace, calming me down.
Do I really see it, or does it just exist?
I see it with different eye’s everytime I come.
J Raworth 2010
I SEEK A MAN
I seek a man who’s kind and warm,
who’ll hold and hug me in a storm.
A man who talks about the world
but see’s me as his special girl.
He’ll laugh and joke to cheer me up
But will also know when to give it up.
He’ll share his woes but not depend
on me to always fix and mend.
He must have strength to go alone
But always want to come back home.
I know he’s there beyond the trees
and one day soon he will find me.
J Raworth 2002
STUDY
Research, cognition, complexity
I reach out and call
No-one answers
Suffer in silence
Anticipation of the fall
Will I?
My guts rot, oh it’s churning
& turning in my head.
Meaningful, reluctant I’m not
Suicidal? No
Excited? Yes, oh so, I have my wedding day
Immerse myself so abstractly
The world merges, blurs and bobbles.
Intoxicating, adrenalin, addiction & withdrawal
What next? What for?
The likes of me, to honour my parents, my family
Have I? Do they respect, do they understand?
Making something of myself, what’s it all for?
Am I missing something, am I finding something?
Is that gaping hole filled? What with?
No answers but I think I’m content
The world is exciting, I investigate, research.
Think, ponder, never truly finding the answers
If I find the answer then what next?
I like this life I think
J Raworth 2014
WHERE ARE YOU BABY?
Where is the man?
Where is the father?
To hold my tears, to share my fears
To take this ride on the rollercoaster with me.
I catch a glimpse
Of what could be
A few days pass
And I fear to see
My babies eyes and heart in me.
But yet again it evades
That crimson flow
that throws the pain in my face
waking me at night
to tell me I am not ‘good enough’.
“You do not deserve this,
You should be a partner
You should not have left it so late”
And my baby listens......
....No wonder she won’t come
J Raworth 2014
THE PAIN OF LIFE IS BROKEN
I sleep, I find
some peace of mind
Until the demons rare their anxious head!
But peace I find
When I breathe my mind
And tell them it’s ok.
But come again
those demons try
with snakes and cries
and hills so wide
my shoulders carry fear and fright
and pull my insides hard and tight
Another breathe, another moment
I close my eyes
the peace is there.
But soon the rocks
of doom they glare
My body hears.
It listens hard
the truths of old
turns warmth to cold
And breathe I do.
Compassion too
And soon the body weakens
A blissful night
A cloud so white
Oh how I cannot waken
To stay here now
To never move
So calm
So smooth
If I wake outside this dream
The pain of life is broken.
Is this me changing things, waking and breaking the pain of life?
Or
The pain of life.....is broken...life is broken.
J Raworth 2015
TIME
Time can be so varied
One day it flies
Another you count the moments wishing it to end.
Even in some situations.
Time can feel so different
by how you feel at that time.
Wherever I am time can just feel painful
every moment I wish away until
the ease settles
only found in sleep that is so short
But when I feel good
It flies, time is fun, it swiftly
drifts away into an oblivious past.
Wishing for more of it.
It is not what I am doing but how I am in that time
how I relate to time.
Time never changes
but my perception varies
every moment
differently.
J Raworth 2015