 Heather Gatley was an English teacher for many years in International Schools. Born in Cyprus, she has travelled all her life and currently lives in Taiwan with her husband. She has two grown up children in the UK, one a philosopher and one a film maker. She has written all of her life and one day hopes a book will materialize. Poetry is her first love and her father used to read her little snippets of Shakespeare as she sat on his knee long ago. Her mother was her biggest influence, with tales of London life and dreams of travel. Her favourite writer is Joseph Conrad. Bungalow Something there is That does not love a bungalow The mournful fact of managing Only the one floor from now on The cold carpets and damp smell Of must – from never putting on the rads The sterile emptiness and long silence Of the clock-ticking front room The damp skirting boards where the bank Rolls the rainfall down towards the walls In winter, spring or fall Something there is that fills with fears At a home so squat and near the ground Like the little villages seen upon a hill in South America So beautiful, garlanded and bedecked Yet disappointing on approach Because so Lilliputian, small False as a fronted film set Empty as the mini archways, steeples and domes That reveal themselves to be so many tombs O give me always the second floor The window for the peeping sun at dawn The stairs to climb in hope Descend each morn Leave bungalows for empires and the Raj Not English villages and shrubs With tottering lonely ladies in garden gloves Who watch from windows lonely as the rain And wait to shuffle off away from pain. Dark Past Who knows why one day Swerving by chance into a lonely cul-de-sac Of sugar-cane and dried up river-bed The stomach draws down your heavy heart? Or pausing in the seraph-wind of midnight Beneath the stars behind the turquoise Eucalypts An empty rush of bats’ wings carries off your soul? Black and dark are the hills of Spain Electric burns the air Where screams were stopped in the common pits Of mass graves dug upon a whim of hate. They left their doleful sighs of despair and grief To whisper in the arid reeds While brave tight-lipped relatives agreed To move on. Now the clean soul of a new generation Scrambles its nails in the harsh dust And the remnants of ageing grandfathers Scowl bitterly as the land gives back its past Here is a place of unfledged sorrow. Only the hot vibrations of a silent day Leave you confused – make you want to run away. Hardwick WoodWe'll walk once more through Hardwick Wood Where the ice-age maid and her wight once stood Along the Mere Way by you I'll be led Surveying the bluebells that now lie abed We'll pause to a backdrop of rolling gold corn And remember our children at play on your lawn So wide is the sky as we fade slowly away And we'll talk of it all; say: back-in-the-day! The ponies will come to your handful of grass You'll tell me you laugh when you look in the glass And we shan't think of frailty and heavenly sway With a spring in our step as we walk the Mere Way. Hardwick Wood with AnneAlong the tunneled green path Long and straight as a die We chatter and stride Into the ancient ice-age wood As the Chiff Chaff sings And the bluebells lie green and dying See there on the ground Feathers ravaged by sparrowhawk Or Fox. And here is the ancient dyke Where stone-age man dwelt Through the gate and suddenly, the sky. A field of corn, ripe and fullsomely breathing Away the curves, out to the horizon Golden, elemental, undulation. Here we stand. I, strong as the day And you, shrunken and battered. But your spirit strides forward, Taking us through the space we have deserted Come, you say. Look. Breathe. Follow I will show you the riches of this flat land And her ancient byeways Let us walk tall for our remaining days And face our failing futures head-on. Though my vessel is weakened My spirit was always strong And steadfastly, I can show you The way that we can go on. Indigo Sky I like to write of indigo mornings the old castle stone-grey against the sky at the turning of the peninsula now the faithful gather to remember the church bell- tower silent and stranded, the squire's portico’d verandah empty instead I stand on the shore looking out Far and far filled with fears that I may cease, I see the air lit up in a white flash and wait the windrush on the bombed out spit of night time sortees, sinister search lights, Moments of terror Fused by cowardice We are the runway to their greed and plans. My mind is seething, full of scorpions and will not settle, for I see the past All deserted and alone, testament To good thoughts, crumbled by dark treachery Old radios silent. Don't turn them on Curl you aching bones away from it all Sink down to the shore, the indigo sky Try, and float to another dimension. 13/11/2016 remembrance Sunday Woke to Nigel Farage shaking Trump's hand Pantoun 2016 The myst’ry hides out in the bay
A bell tolls underneath the sand An ancient figure turns away The falcon cries in distant lands A bell tolls underneath the sand The blackened wreck sinks to the shore The falcon cries in distant lands The island sails forever more The blackened wreck sinks to the shore You cannot see beneath the waves The island sails forever more This is the thing your dead soul craves You cannot see beneath the waves An ancient figure turns away This is the thing your dead soul craves The myst’ry lies out in the bay. 23/05/2016 Walking in the sweet May time, the tide far far away
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