Converge Poem by jim hogg

I

A hungering for life remains
but I'm no ripe and juicy peach,
awash in fleeting innocence;
and don't expect to sweetly grieve

for infinitely tender love,
again; the kind that frees and lets
the galaxies within us, flood
with light, and all that's dark, relent

- you know that kind of passing flame,
the swallow's flight, the gemstone glint,
the memory that calls your name,
the glance, the touch, the merest hint,

when almost every vivid thing
seems preordained to thrill just us:
that cheesy song, the golden ring;
no words that can express enough.

But, out the other side of that,
eventually, it might seem right
to write the whole thing off at last,
when all I'm packing is decline.

And so this exile, here and now.
I spend my time just making do
with movie lives, and playing out
the options that I didn't choose:

to marry young or not at all
to join the ranks or drown at sea,
to find out who I really was,
and if not me, then who I'd be?

Or, of the faces that come back,
what other steps were mine to take:
a word unsaid, a different path,
or would the end have been the same?

II

There have been moments I admit,
when might have beens meant more to me
than all that destiny might bring,
and comfort in that fantasy

immobilised me for a while;
then out of morketiden came
a forward focused appetite:
the strangest thing, in middle age.

And after several years of that
the past was gone enough to seem
a safer, less bewitching ark
of stuff that once seemed all too real:

so thickly strewn with hopes and dreams,
and flaws and biases that blind,
and arrogance, I barely gleaned
the basics of this fleeting life

that led me to these words I've wrung
from what remains. I've tried to hold
to things I've seen and things I've done,
to what I've kept and what I've sold,

although the truth is bigger than
the stories that our senses tell,
and more peculiar than I'd grant
if I was younger, I suspect.

III

So many triggers call the past,
that sanctuary of lessons learned
or things I didn't understand
back where the future first was penned,

and built upon the past that's gone,
those times I've striven to explore
by means of lines I've scattered on
the sea that washed away the shore;

the sea that dreams away my nights
that swells and sways around the bays
and ragged cliffs I left behind:
that faithful lover's harsh embrace.

Betrayal's been a part of it.
In many little ways or worse,
I failed to keep some promises.
And some things can't be reimbursed.

Yet all the while, the days click by.
The guilt accrues and weighs against
the good we've done and times we've tried;
but life is more than moral sense.

It's mountains and it's seas of thrill,
whole continents of joy and pain.
It's countries and it's wines of wit;
it's streams of art and works of rain.

It's rare and cataclysmic love
and all the failure that we need;
it's all that's gentle, all that's tough,
it's every wonder, every seed,

the light that's in a baby's eyes,
the death and torture of disease,
the precious moment of surprise,
that cute mirage that seems so real.

Too much to hold it all at once
we're winnowing unknowingly.
We learn our steps and then we dance,
the dance that solves the mystery

of who, and what, and why we are,
if only we could break the code,
that cracks the present and the past -
the key to every future road.

Yet if we could, who'd say we should
make road-kill out of wondering?
Imagine life without pursuit;
omniscience ends everything.

But here and now, we're pretty safe.
We know much less than most believe.
Between arrival and escape
we barely learn enough to see.

Life's what it is then, as it slips,
unnoticed into each new phase,
experiences where we drift,
and age, but never really change:

we gradually become ourselves;
our engines wing us to our dreams
or into shame; so much depends
on factors scattered out of reach

- and some of those are deep within,
including gods we forged to serve
as clever explanations, which,
once birthed, soon seized the reins and kept

and keep, surprisingly, great swathes
of helpless people on their knees,
though some ascend to higher states:
illusion's power can release

the very best we have to give.
And who can calculate the cost,
the balance sheet of good and ill
the breach between the real and false?

And somewhere in that mess of things
where chemicals and wishes merge
reality both breaks and builds:
sensation's where they all converge,

where love erupts, abides or falls
and gloriously shades awhile
deep into every kind of cause
and all the mysteries of life

Like loaded dice we hit the wheel
It spins a while and loads some more
until it's time to play for real
and up, or down, we hit the floor.

IV

I pictured vast arrangements in
the depths beyond this planet's sky
I saw the multitude of things
that hurtle, spin, begin and die;

an infinite parade of flames,
and frozen oceans without end,
that break imagination's frames,
and more than just one universe.

"There's no such thing as time" I said
Things happen and we play our part
upon the ever flowing edge,
this present where we always are.

I'm waiting there as if I know
exactly why I watch the sky.
A glimpse of something long ago,
a pointless truth, or crucial lie?

Or moistened lips, or ancient ship
adrift across a sea of stars;
a single ghost or well worn clip
of footage from the way things are?

A surfer on that moving wave
I might have scribbled on some wall
or, flickering vague within some cave,
I might have heard a seabird call:

tomorrow's song, or yesterday's?
I find I can't quite work out which,
within this stream of changing shapes:
the things I used to fear were fixed.

The future and the past, at last,
begin suspiciously to look
too much alike; too ruined, dark
and worlds away from every book

I ever read when I was keen
to master all the arts of life.
Like vague and inconclusive scenes
in photos shot on moonless nights

there's nothing to be seen except
the very things we choose to see
beyond the outlines starlight left
of aging faces and the sea.

V

And in the shadows, many worlds
that might have been, or still might be
each moment ripe with stones to turn
and options that remain unseen.

With hints of chaos threatening,
unknowns surround our every move,
and so we've fashioned shapely things
to keep the night from breaking through

from elsewhere in this universe.
but maybe most of all from deep
within the loaded mind that tends
to keep its secrets out of reach.

No comet lights that alien night,
no streaking solitary dance,
of silver sparks and blazing ice.
On mescaline I might advance

deep into cavernous concerns
through unseen furniture of mind
and exit stuffed with things I've learned:
of light that hints at signs of sight!

But there's no mirror that reveals
beyond the mocking work of age
and even madness cannot see
the sleight of mind behind the veil.

The architecture of the self
lies crouched within the laws of chance
and out we spring, both code and flesh.
I guess I must have wanted once

to be much more than fate would grant,
but not for long I'd argue now.
Ecclesiastes ended that,
and pledges that endured somehow

(or so my vanity suggests.
Temptation preys on history
I constantly remind myself,
but still I'm taking liberties)

and questions I should answer here.
Unravelling takes a lot of lines,
and maybe I should start with me:
the trickiest of all the mines

I'll have to make my way back down,
through bottles smashed against the bricks,
across from Maggie Gibson's house,
to test my moral reasoning;

and through a neighbour's weekly rounds;
the Finlay girl who crossed the street
to bring me all the comic books
and latest issue' magazines

that opened up a wealth of worlds,
although I hadn't looks to suit,
or tendency to overturn
the rock hard rules I couldn't brook:

the expectations of the time.
Plus, there was always work to do.
It kept me from the uncrossed line,
or shaping forces that shape who

or even what, or still more, why,
though many paths seemed mine to take;
the world invades us on the fly,
and genes parade us if they dare,

against the trends that rule the age.
I shaped myself to fit the grooves,
as if those moves were mine to make,
and slayed the lives I couldn't choose.

The quandaries of who we are,
remain for millions everywhere.
The bravest step across the bar;
while legions never make the break.

VI

My father was a complex man,
a stranger mostly to his kids;
though those who knew him least, expand
the most on what he was and did;

and I was there through most of it,
and some was bad, and some was good
I heard the words, I saw the slips;
I saw him age, and leave too soon.

Like most of us he tried his best,
and slowly left the worst behind.
But honesty and ruthlessness,
ensured he paid a living price

for all the failings he embraced;
a stoic strength I loved him for,
a strength I've tried to emulate,
although free will is still at war.

I have a million memories,
so many stills and movie clips,
but all those long dead witnesses
to scenes they shared, and played, or snipped,

could once have filled the picture out,
for no-one ever really knows
the inner life, its deeps and doubt,
of even those we think as close.

There are no formulas, nor maps
to guide us through life's challenges.
Though half a lifetime has elapsed,
I still don't see him distantly:

I carry both the best and worst
of all he was within me yet,
and age and life have slowly burned
the phasic anger I once felt.

His compliments were very rare
- although I always gave my best.
I still remember what and where:
the rock beneath the Raven's nest

for boatmanship that got us through,
the bottom of the Stair Street stairs:
"they couldnae harrow where you've ploo'ed",
and this, "you could go all the way"

when ringside back at number four,
he stood and watched me sparring with
the sturdy guy who lived next door.
Aird Crescent brings back many things.

Besides first love and childhood spills,
there was that massive pot of soup
he made from hare just freshly killed,
and no, you've guessed: it wasn't good!

And lifted hands, and thund'rous moods,
the work that never seemed to end,
the orders I could not refuse,
but there were good times even then.

There was a warmth that spread at times
through everything we did as one,
out working in the freezing tide,
or at the table, having fun

to stories from another world;
his memories of friends he'd lost,
or buttered toast he'd lightly burned
when wielding yon long handled fork.

And later, when they'd settled in
that house amongst the trees and stars
I came to see how sensitive
he was, behind that calmed facade.

I'm thankful I still have him near,
in all I am and all he was;
and hold my mother just as dear
as much in mem'ry as in loss.

VII

Like many of that era gone,
she didn't have a lot of say,
and mainly she was swept along:
to Innermessan's moonlit bay

to gather whelks on frosty nights,
to tattie picking at Kirr'nrae,
in conversations ranging wide,
through politics to setting snares,

from shooting tins nailed to a tree,
from cooking meals and washing clothes,
to struggling just to make ends meet,
to darning socks and scrubbing floors,

to raising half a dozen kids.
She worked a miracle for years.
I stand in awe of all she did,
and very rarely saw the tears

she must have had the urge to shed,
a thousand times or maybe more,
and all that gratitude we felt,
when we'd grown old enough to know,

was felt too late, and left unshown.
The trivia of life betrays.
Of course we thanked her now and then,
but didn't really turn and face

in depth, the hardships she endured.
But never did she say a word
about her kids' ingratitude
- regret's not punishment enough.

I'm grateful most of all for friends
who made her struggle bearable;
when they had time alone to spend,
freed from the stress her life entailed,

when she could laugh and shed the load,
that never-ending duty brings.
If there had been some way to know
would she have swerved the vows and rings?

Her end, at best, was merciless,
like penance for her suffering;
week after week of living hell,
relieved by killing sedatives.

A life so harsh just thrown aside.
What kind of deity would ask
beloved subjects to abide,
such misery before they pass?

The very notion is absurd,
and yet that madness stalks the earth,
as if some greatness is at work,
to sift and steer to "worthiness",

to trade redemption for our sin,
to loose the righteous on the world;
and billions have been taken in
by myths that flood their lives like blood.

And so it's over and she's gone.
She had so little of her own,
except for chores and some sad songs
until she found herself alone.

Unable to begin again
she lived her life through all of us,
and though we'd visit now and then,
we simply didn't give enough.

And now she's scattered far and wide,
a meagre tribute meant to link
the lonely furrow of her life,
to hard earned meaning that persists,

though only just, while some can catch
a glimpse of who their mother was.
But even that fades all too fast:
the ground she tilled will soon be lost.

VIII

There's no such thing as randomness
amongst the universe's deeds.
We can't escape cause and effect,
but all the interlinking feeds

that weave the future from our past,
are too involved for us to trace..
It's mainly groping in the dark;
the here and now and yesterday

make Joyce's epic trivial.
And all our kids must somehow forge
from almost naught some kind of path
from mystery and inner urge,

the apparatus of the age,
and extricate themselves from all
the daft ideas and mistakes,
with which we flawed our own new dawn.

And yet, we gained experience,
we learned some lessons here and there,
those costly little sparks of sense
that help sometimes to light the way.

But that far river where we learn,
is one that only they can reach.
We dare not help by carrying;
some lessons only life can teach.

IX

It makes a fine excuse for sure,
but youth is sunlight, youth is verve.
Life's obstacles were only tools
for demonstrating endless strength.

Or so it seemed for quite a while,
as I was hunting whale like dreams,
though even then that harpoon line
was whizzing through the air for me.

There was no glory crouched in wait,
nor any I'd have valued then.
The simplest learning comes so late.
Those dreams were nebulous at best.

And hopes, I must have had a few.
But not for wealth or privilege,
or even means to raise the view.
I think I lacked a cutting edge.

My elbows weren't hard enough
to put myself before the crowd -
the boomers who went hustling up,
in tune with all they'd disavowed,

and found out who they really were.
But being poor was no defeat,
until my children needed help.
The game had changed and my ideals

were suddenly a handicap.
Though all the same I should have known.
The sixties were a false alarm.
The right was always headed home:

the signs were ominous for years;
since Wilson couldn't hold the line.
Divide and rule still wins the field.
The centre keeps on drifting right.

And yes, I should have been prepared,
no matter how the runes are read.
Instead of making do today.
I should have planned ahead instead.

And now it's done. I got it wrong,
and welcome guilt won't pay the bills.
Nor are there answers in remorse,
or crying over milk that's spilled.

The rains and reins of poverty
teach many lessons as they lash.
The old discover empathy;
the young the kind of shame that lasts.

X

Between the work and vain ideals
there was a little envy too.
Those guys who seemed to know no fear
of girls: I envied what they knew,

and envied most their confidence.
Their snogging skills and chat up lines
were mysteries beyond my ken.
A mutual crush in sixty nine

resulted in a crushing thrill;
we must have eyed each other up
a thousand times to no avail.
I never could get close enough

to say a single loving word
because I made a run for it,
each time our longing eyes were locked
in pointless, gorgeous agony.

That storm of ecstasy and hell
blew over all too soon, and took
the pressure off for quite a spell,
and so I turned to reading books

until the spring of seventy one,
when all at once a pencilled note
quite stopped me in my bookish tracks.
It seems I floated some girl's boat.

And so I did what I was told,
and met her face to face next day,
when she adroitly used a hold
that drove my lips towards her face,

and less adroitly did we kiss,
for I was inexperienced.
I might have blown it, might have missed,
but still remember where and when

my lips first kissed a young girl's lips.
Yet after merely four short weeks
it seems she thought it fit to quit,
a guy so shy he couldn't speak!

Or, not with verve enough to spark
the kind of thrill she wanted then.
But in the Kinema we danced
and many times we seemed to spend

the sweetest moments arm in arm
and underneath the late May sun
we lay stretched out on new mown grass
although I wasn't up to snuff!

Yes, I was disappointed, but
the offers started coming through,
and bit by bit I made the cut,
though even yet, amongst the few

I think of fondly from the past,
that certain girl who kissed me first,
and held me tight, and took my hand,
still holds a place where flames still burn.

XI

And life was good those next few years.
We cut down trees and chopped up logs,
we went to sea and hauled up creels,
and several girls had come and gone.

I did the things that young men do,
but for the most part stayed too shy
to ever make a daring move,
thus many chances passed me by.

Though shyness breeds regret, I'd guess,
it sometimes over compensates,
and makes the odd expensive mess.
And though there's more I'd like to say

about that complicated time,
I've covered most of it elsewhere.
The next big thing I left behind
was home, a kind of great escape.

I didn't plan it by myself.
Though there were many reasons why
I should have made that crucial step,
the shifting sands of life contrived

to set me off towards career,
towards the building of a home,
and from the sea I loved so dear,
until I shrugged and hit the road.

Yet once again it looks as if
events were more in charge than me,
though in those moments, I admit,
I thought that I was really free.

And that was quite a backward move.
I'd let myself be taken in
by arguments quite far from proved,
and blindness that emotion brings.

For ideology invades
and occupies the mind by stealth.
It binds emotion to its frames,
and makes of us a partial lens.

We turn our eyes from all that jars
with our new prism on this life,
and go to war with those who can't
see why they're wrong, and why we're right!

And out there in the world we've made,
there seems to be some kind of slide,
towards intolerance that hates,
because we're loath to see both sides.

We're loath to think we might be wrong,
because emotion holds us to
that creed to which our mind belongs,
that's colonised us through and through.

Subconsciously we're in its thrall.
We need to find ourselves a fix:
inoculation that explains
just how it works, to save our kids

from all the pain division brews.
But now I'm running out of lines,
it's time to mention how time flew:
so fast, and yet it seems a while

XII

since I remember picking up,
that tartan knife beside the road,
when I was very, very young
- when I was only three years old,

and never thought to look beyond
the very moment I was in.
Though sixty years have come and gone
a living thread binds all of it,

connected to a web of threads
that weave together all of us,
across this frantic sea of ends,
this teeming edge of what's to come:

too many things to comprehend,
but some will rise and some will fall,
and some will build and some will rend
and some forget and some recall.

Though soon or late we all will stand
and think of all the boats we've burned
and cast a rueful glance at last
beyond the tide that never turns

Yet all of it is aftermath;
to choice of sorts or accident.
As parents seed new parents and
we rarely think about consent

But all the same I have to ask:
what if we chose to quit the wheel?
Imagine our lot was the last
to laugh, to cry, to think, to feel,

behold the stars, the breaking waves
the falling leaves, or feel the breeze;
to fall in love and meet the gaze
of love returned, or bittersweet?

The childhood taken by disease
The mind that's gone, the drawn out death?
Or broken bodies on the fields
of war that never seems to end

Yet even venting such a view
is asking for an avalanche
of outrage, pity and abuse
across the instinct strengthened fence.

XIII

I still have hopes for happiness,
for both my kids and those they love
- though that's not something I expect
I haven't fully given up.

She's out there somewhere, and she's free,
and I'll be walking by the sea.
The sun will set behind the hill,
and once, she would have said "I will",

but now it's likely that she'll say
"I'm sorry but I'd like to know
whatever happened to your hair?
It's vanishing like melting snow! "

It's not that I'm not envious,
of older guys with bushy manes.
It couldn't be more obvious:
my hair grows rare and I'm still vain.

This second dose of envy comes
nostalgically with memories,
of plumes of hair too thick to brush,
and fond mirage of yesterdays.

Those yesterdays when I last rowed
a rowing boat around the Mull
from Portankil along the shore
beneath the cliff, beneath the gulls.

And hauled the creels from end to end
when I was less than seventeen.
It's maybe time to start again
with just a rowing boat and sweeps

without regrets and worldly cares
in this new world that's forming now
- this everlasting present where
the past and future take a bow -

and, sans ambition, leave the stage,
to maybe kindness, maybe love;
a gradual turning of the page;
at last I might have said enough.

090518 (revised version - 080320)