My Creative Alter-Ego's Other Half

Approaching the stop, we get up
And lurch to the front of the bus.
 Alighting, we part,
 I wave through the dark,
And cannon the pole with a clang!

Composition begun in the afternoon of Thursday, 18th December, 2008, and completed, after many revisions, just over two weeks later during the evening of Friday, 2nd January, 2009, while listening to Sibelius' Symphony No. 1.

With Honesty we find ourselves
in clarity of mind and thought,
enabled so to share our heart
entire, complete and truthfully.

Respect ensures we think and meet
in open, fair equality,
not undermine nor idolise,
just celebrate our qualities.

And last, with Trust we are as safe
in each other's hands as we are
in our own, without need to shy
away from anything at all.

These qualities combined amount
in varying degrees to form
the seedlings of relationships:
with Honesty, Respect and Trust, we Love.

Composed sporadically over a number of months, after the initial inspiration came while walking home from Hazel Grove Railway Station one very rainy and windy night, during which the first stanza was begat. Completed in the early hours (3:00) of Friday, 17th October, 2008. (Revised 12 hours later)

There's something quite calmly hypnotic about
This lamp-lit pavement shining gold
As I walk along it in the rain
And wind and dark

This glowing plane of golden stars
Afloat amidst a sea of space
With planetary soakened leaves
And pools in bends of time and space

Which recedes beneath me as I move
Like a magic carpet under me
Never stopping short to throw me off
Merely gliding under as a gust

Of wind propels
Me on

Composed between the 23rd-29th September 2008, after reading Great Expectations, Volume I, Chapter IX

I wonder if, that day those years ago,
A sudden storm had burst upon the town,
Or 'deadly' poorliness had struck me down,
Preventing me from leaving my abode.

But, no, alas! that storm or poorliness
Was not to come, and out I went to catch
A bus as every other day; and half
An hour later I was walking, when,

Approaching college round the back, it came:
A wave of misery and dread did rush
Upon my person, purge the breath of life
Right out of me; and happiness was gone.

Would it simply have struck another day,
Or may I now be blessed a different way?

It tells me how I ought to be, or rather not,

With voiceless words, nor writ, allowing no response.

It locks the throat and blinds the eye and deafs the ear

With throbbing light, incessant sound and iron grip.

It's hardly large enough to hold a beating heart,

Yet here am I, in my entirety, in it.

He sailed away and I was left alone
To suffer and to think of him by night.
By day as well I was disposed to moan,
'My Love, why did you have to go and fight?'

'For fighter you are not, my Love, you hear?
Your heart is much too delicate for that.
Come, sit and play your music for me here,
This view! how could you go, forsaking that?'

'That deep horizon beckons me, my darling.
It pulls me on and on across the sea
To where I can be questing, not be idling.
Alyria is where I need to be.'

Thus here I am to see my Love again,
To see if what we had does still remain.