All The Cloaks Poem by jim hogg

'Just one more turn upon the floor'

I heard you say it in my head
Or did I throw my voice instead
To speak directly to the dead
To lead where I would not be led

The foxgloves grow beneath the trees
Along the path where traffic flowed
Across the trains and through the steam
Where life has lost us one more road

I can't distinguish need from must
It's much the same with last and first
You warred between them wild and skilled
As if your glass was overfilled

With swamps and dunes and flames and frost
You overcame imperatives
But none was ever quite as lost
In polished halls, with relatives

There's no forgiving choices feigned
Though kindly made, or fondly claimed
And though we thought we meant it all
It was not us, and yet it was
…………
'Where will they find us when we're gone? '

Down by the brig between the lochs
Which we once crossed and then re-crossed
Or edging into Genoch Moss
Still reaching for a hand that's lost?

I fell between a thousand things
The cliff of dreams and rocks of truth
I flew upon a young fool's wings
And though we mock it, life is youth

It's by illusion we make sense
In swimming romance, in the dance
And in cliché and in our myths
And enigmatic songs like this

The road you chose was in the sun
And where you walked I chose to run
And where I stumbled you walked on
In dewy grass one endless dawn

And no, not there by falling moon
Or rising sun that rose too soon
Nor in reflection ‘neath the bridge
But on the waters ridge by ridge

'But all your cards are still face down'

Whose words were those I have to ask
They were not mine but in the dark
You showed your hand, I turned my back
and left behind the beaten track

And in the late September heat
You stood amongst the prideful crowd
And watched the marching, booted feet
Weave back and forth across the ground

And stop there glistening row on row
So young and cocky, coiled to throw
Ourselves upon the righteous wrongs,
Against the lure of other songs

Though love was keystone to it all
But didn't seem to count at all
despite those words we seemed to mean
across the canyon sowed between

At least that's how it seems from here
Where unlike then I want you near
As if I couldn't face love when
It meant so much to hold you then

'forget the debts that cash can pay'

Behind your house with saw in hand
I saw you cut across the land
In blocks the timber fell on sand
But back then naught seemed circumspanned

Your father walked upon the shore
Your sister carried all the rain
Within the clouds of her young soul
Towards the stars and back again

I did not know you as a friend
I saw your scar where friendship bled
Down every stream to every wall
Where good and evil equal fall

With broken hearts your folks saw sin
In their own mary magdelene
For London bound, no Joan of Arc
She burned like us on shifting sand

The ragged blade was sharp and true
your blood ran slow to purple blue
A star like scar for hearts unhealed
As sacred as the truths we shield

'Oh never leave me, never go..'

I might have walked the borderline
But such a thought was never mine
And never was I less inclined
Except to see what such might find

And found much less indifference
Than used to dog before I shared
The fear that scuttles through the fence,
And gratitude that I've been spared

In clumsy words there may be strength
In too much polish pointlessness
But affectation's not all false
However falls the call that calls

And I would river-run with you
down countless glens where heedless through
we'd crash and rush and glide and be
Until we'd over-run the sea

But here there's only minor drifts
A host of twitches slightly shifts
And all is changed and all remains
A hail of arrows make their way

'But no-one listens anymore'

Until we reach the drastic state
Where fear behoves us to create
A creature so endowed, so great
That he alone can wipe the slate

And smite fell time full on the chin
Unwind the words, the falling down
And by uncov'ring undo sin,
Restore the rootless to the ground

And yet it all depends on where
You stand to listen or to stare
At all I shouldn't laugh at yet
At all we wish for, all we get

This flowing place where weaving meets
Unweaving face to face, and greets
The stone cold universe of flames
In all the cloaks of all our games

Where we once crossed and then recrossed
Down by the brig between the lochs
Still reaching for a hand that's lost
Or edging into Genoch Moss

' now tell me: where did Adam go...? '


June 2010