A message perchance

A message perchance

Reaching out to touch what may not be there

A mind believing yet also seemingly deceiving

Imagining the vision that tells how much you care

Reflected back yet in the air dissolving

Such mysteries that torture taunt yet still titillate

Mysteries that attract only because they are unsolved

Continuing in my mind entrapped because they fascinate

Two pictures of the same scene become involved

A reality of our uncertainty determining if we share

The beauty of the meeting as secrets begin to unfold

Thoughts expressed in words exploring if we care

Can this be passion seeking or does the love run cold

What if we were to meet would truth then be unkind

Souls lost in some ethereal world created by the quill

Strange feelings emerging as we seek perchance to bind

A coalescence of the wandering can now be still

Take me if you so wish into the caverns of your mind

Imprisoned and entrapped to satisfy your exploration

Chapters crafted by the pen and intricately designed

Now flow from those lips without any hesitation

The only nightmares remaining are those that we create

Is this love created by exploration now becoming real

If the future has arrived we can no longer contemplate

A union created by the setting of the molten seal

David Hopcroft June 2022

Thoughts by a recumbent stone

Thoughts by a recumbent stone

The sinking sun dropping like a shining ball of gold

A twinkling of heaven’s smile removing tears

The rising of the moon and the surfacing of the old

Customs that had been cherished over countless years

A night that would be remembered a tale that would unfold

With meaning revealed as the lunar moment nears

When the heat of smouldering passion melts away the cold

Nocturnal flashes across the sky were seen dispersing fears

The pathway to the circle of the stones revealed by the rising moon

A firmness in her step of confidence upon such a starry night

Ahead the leading of the piper summoning by tune

A solstice call with her heartbeat strong her cheeks rosy bright

Past the Pictish standing stone with a message held in rune

Where the notch of Satan’s hand had once brought fright

To a wandering maiden seeking beyond a crescent lune

Her slender neck almost blemished with a first love bite

Around the circle hand by hand the evening had begun

Young and old are bound by the common celebration

Memories in stones surface at the setting of the sun

To each a meaning would be revealed by invitation

A binding that marked a passing and a future now begun

Blushing as she danced with such hope and expectation

Her life that would change before the night was done

A story to live on forever capturing our fascination

Midsummer’s evening bringing a surfacing of latent lust

Diana’s moment as the orb rolled across the recumbent stone

Love’s awakening with a sprinkling of cosmic dust

A touch upon her shoulder and a tingling of bone

This was not Satan’s hand but the one that she could trust

Gwenllian and Rhiannon now bound by blessing of the crone

Whist young men’s hopes were dashed and elders muttered in disgust

Two lovers had begun a future so they could no longer be alone

Copyright: David Hopcroft June 2022

A strange perception

A strange perception

Heavy black smoke rising from the rubbled ruins

An acrid smell hangs in the air from smouldering beams

Corpses lie on streets rotting as dogs roam for breakfast

Of the mangled remains of their owners

At the head of a long polished table far away

An old man in delusion proclaims victory

Or perhaps there is defeat in his eyes

In another city someone else declares the victory

Over a land ravaged by a festering madness

That we dare to call primate intelligence

As if culture can be extinguished

As if love could be trodden down by hate

As if peace could be measured by destruction

The old are trapped

Tired of living in cellared uncertainty

In a darkness

Half-starved and dying of thirst

Listening to incoming missiles

Lifetimes crushed by addiction for power

Though the human soul cannot be owned

Nor can the land be truly owned

She stands in a field

Looking at the garden where she buried her parents

There are flowers growing on the earthen mounds

White daisies signal new life

A bee crawls up the simple wooden cross

Resting from the daily task

Of pollen collection

One moment of crazed madness

Her life changed forever

What was the purpose

A small farm in the hills

Destroyed

The night the bombers came

Somehow there has to be a future

Life that needs to be rebuilt

But the memories will always haunt

Returning on the long nights

Awakening in a sweat

Was that the sound of bombs falling?

Nightmares etched in the brain

The radio said there was peace

What is peace

When all that you had is lost

What is peace

When you know war will come again

What is victory

When there is nothing left to win

She knows the madness survived

That the horrors may come again

Yet the land of hell

Is still home

This land of dance and dress

The land of music and legend

This land still holds a spirit

Beneath the charred earth

A spirit that lives

And will rise again

She looks again at the earthen mounds

As a tear rolls down her cheek

Yet in her breast

She feels there is still hope

Hope that suppresses the fear and doubt

Hope that believes

The time for old men drunk with war

Will go away forever

She feels the kick

The infant in her belly

Her husband buried in some distant unmarked grave

But that kick is hope

That kick is the future

She knows

That her future must not repeat

The insanity of the past

Copyright: David Hopcroft June 2022

Reality

Reality

Reality was in the dream held by the mind

Fantasy imagined by psychiatry was unkind

A future reeled in like bait upon the line

Past memory folded neatly in time

Onlookers searched in vain for what was real

Peering without seeing what the lens cannot reveal

Desire and hate blurred at times

The lie that is the truth deceived in lines

Written as if they were a Janus view

Hope trumps despair

The love affair

Begins anew

Can such a course be one that is shared

Two journeys superimposed yet undeclared

Mock if you wish or if you must

Yet both see vision imprinted in the dust

Walking hand in hand with the inner self

The reaching out that releases new wealth

Feelings no longer disguised with stealth

Prised open the chests we have kept locked

The secrecy of lives unburdened and shocked

A struggle that cannot be compromise

The mirror can still distort

Hiding what we seek reveals nought

Lest reality unburdens the lies

One set of prints that marks out two paths

Tears intermingled now with laughs

Discoveries that exist to redefine our lives

Amongst uncertainty we fear reality survives

Hope and fear simultaneously exist

Are we cursed or are we now to be kissed

Darkness may comfort as dies the flickering light

Though still we seek to illuminate

As if there is reality in shared fate

Hasten and do not close the gate

Else life lost cannot be life in sight

Copyright: David Hopcroft June 2022