Thoughts in the middle watch

The devil's in the wind tonight,
hell is in my mind;
demons of the grief I gave
the girl I left behind.

For once,
just once,
in the grinding port of aching toil and din
I paid to weep my pain in a woman's
gentle arms, and didn't think it sin.

But God...!
Dear God...!
Why did you hide your virus
in those mother-loving charms?

Now the girl who once adored me
lies gaunt upon the sheet –
stricken by my loving –
with lips that once were sweet
drawn back upon her teeth.

A thousand miles away,
my lovely waits for death;
and a bitter prayer she murmurs
with every ebbing breath;
and the bitter prayer she murmurs,
soulful eyes repeat;
“I'll curse you out of heaven
if our paths should ever meet.”

Charlie Gregory
at sea

Samaritan days.
This kid called me every shift for four years
then disappeared off the radar.

Anorexic Girl

Sometimes she whispers in my ear,
a tapestry of pain and fear
whose warp and weft weave haunted days
and nightmare dreams, through woeful sobs
and blooded screams; till phantoms from
a private hell enshroud me in
a chilling spell.

                       I’m on a tour
within her mind, where those outside
are breaking in and every thought
accuses sin in saddest voice
man ever heard.

                         Midst grief, defying
spoken word, she can only run
and hide, cringe ever deeper down
inside, avoiding some imagined
threat from friend... or foe she’s never
met.

I know more of her than of
my own, my wasted waif who walks
alone. I want to ride inside
her head and sweep it clean of all
its dread, but will not know her when
we meet; walk past her, crying in
the street.

                 But, till she finds the strength
to lay the horrors of the past
and scream, “I’m me! I’m running free!”
There’ll be no woman sweet asleep,
but just the child who I hear weep.

Charlie Gregory

                  Mirror-world

A life ago; my father said, “I saw
your plane pass overhead; stood alone in
wind and rain and watched you go.” I shrugged and
went upon my way; “Choose the way you waste
your day. I've hay to make and seed to sow.”

Then; amid the hours of feeding pets and
tending flowers, I saw the vapour-trail
bisect the sky; a tear spilt by the bluest
eye, as you went out to set-about a
world I'd left undone – to sing the songs I
couldn't hum; and all my love was on the
wing, in tender wistful thoughts of you that
day. My father must have felt this too, but
couldn't say; and I, the one with life to
find, wouldn't pause to read his mind. I know
it's much the same for you; just doing what
you have to do; but if we never say
or show, how can the other ever know?

The one is always unaware, as at
the other's heart they tear. My sorrow as
you speed away, is full of what we did-
not say. Maybe, one-day you'll feel this yearning
too... in the mirror-world of me and you.

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

Natasha

Russia at the Collapse of the Communist Era

Hotel Saint-Petersburg

Natasha

She descends from en-suite and the balcony-shops;
sways down the stairway, leather-mini concealing,
sometimes revealing, lace stocking-tops;
carries her bruises where nobody sees.

In the hub of the foyer the faces are probing,
sharp as the glare of the night-patrol's lamps,
some fantasizing, others disrobing;
”Where has she been? What has she seen?”
Edge ever nearer; want her but fear her.

From the shelters and hides of their devalued lives
the other girls know what she carries inside;
science-degree; career that tumbled
when the shaky foundations of Motherland crumbled.

The Westerner sits and weighs up the scene,
wealthy vibrations of pleasure and ease.
''Are you looking for fun?'' almost a prayer,
crouching before him, hands on his knees;
smouldering eyes hide the pleading inside;
bleak deserts of poverty stretching before her,
murk of the tenement, queuing and crying,
pauper-line selling, pauper-line buying.

''How much?'' he demands. Heart skips a beat;
will he be the one to be swept off his feet?
Will he whisk her away? New York maybe?
Somewhere… D.C.?

''Two-hundred,'' she blurts, ''American-bills...''
She suddenly chills. Pitiless tips of cruel icebergs
drift-in from the Muscovite mist to rip-off the fees
she must squeeze from the floating-unfaithful
who crawl through her knees.

''Too dear,'' he waves her away.
It's me! She's crying inside.
It's me – every-man's bride.
"What am I worth?" she wonders aloud.
"Seventy-five," he replies, "one of the crowd."

She rises before him, standing head bowed,
defeated – not cowed.
The girls turn away, back to their chat.
At the bar, double Scotch-on-the-rocks
is served to a rat.

Charlie Gregory
St Petersburg
1990’s

Aurora…………………………………KGB HQ
                                     Pitiless Tips of Cold Icebergs
W

Only we know...

The stranger did not start the fight today.
New man in town, come looking for a job,
he prayed for God to take the gang away.

He’d find some digs, a place to plan and stay,
but found himself confronted by the mob.
The stranger did not start the fight today.

Demanding cash and cards, they barred his way.
When blows were thrown by devil-snarling yob
he prayed for God to take the gang away.

They classed him as a thing that they could slay
in mindless hate, a cur to beat and rob.
The stranger did not start the fight today.

Their feet and fists flew frenzied in the fray.
In fear he fought and felled a drunken slob.
He prayed for God to take the gang away.

Now, left alone with corpse as cold as clay,
a figure kneels, still choking on a sob.
The stranger did not start the fight today.
He prayed for God to take the gang away.

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

AW

The Singer

Where black rocks bare their fangs and roar
and sea shouts angry at the shore;
when rain comes sweeping wet-walled night
and lamps are pools of yellow light,
the singer stirs from out the deep
where phantoms of his memory sleep.

He trudges by the lighted inn
as jest and laughter ring within.
“Blood is the bond,” he thinks, “of brother love,
roots fit others for the glove.
Solo is a finite role,
no mirror for the choirs deep soul.
My lonely strain was not a theme
that bound the past to future dream.
I played my part. I sang it strong
but feel no call for further song.”

He wanders on along his way
where seas shed tears of spume and spray.
Now cries the wind as rain comes down
to draw a curtain o’er the town.
Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

The Shadows of the Night

Do they frighten you like they frighten me?
these downcast sons of low-caste mobs.
As you lock them away and lose the key,
their parents sweat in low-paid jobs.

These downcast sons of low-caste mobs
mime rebellious-dreams in drugs and beer.
Their parents sweat in low-paid jobs.
They chant coded-prayers in a football-jeer.

Mime rebellious-dreams in drugs and beer
to ease the day-long searing-pain.
They chant coded-prayers in a football-jeer
in the gloom of a dark-slum-lane.

To ease the day-long searing-pain,
as you claim the dues for their squalid-lets
in the gloom of a dark-slum-lane,
pale parents wail and rail against the debts.

As you claim the dues for their squalid-lets,
children scream of cruel-oppression.
Pale parents wail and rail against the debts
as they spiral through depression.

Children scream of cruel-oppression,
trapped on a treadmill-track from womb to grave
as they spiral through depression,
training for the life of a low-wage slave.

Trapped on a treadmill-track from womb to grave,
youth stolen by forsaken-school,
training for the life of a low-wage slave
in lawless-class where bullies rule.

Youth stolen by forsaken-school;
dull-eyed masters screaming at sullen-mobs
in lawless-class where bullies rule;
churning-out fodder for the low-grade jobs.

Dull-eyed masters screaming at sullen-mobs
whose minds are brutalised by stress;
churning-out fodder for the low-grade jobs.
Dream-escape is a drug's caress.

Whose minds are brutalised by stress,
seek false-pity from none, nor spare a friend.
Dream-escape is a drug's caress,
For there is no prize at this journey's end.

Seek false-pity from none, nor spare a friend,
where honest-labour will not pay;
for there is no prize at this journey's end,
and brute-frustration rules the day.

Where honest-labour will not pay,
the deprived will study the plumper-breeds;
and brute-frustration rules the day,
when the fat-one flaunts what the lean-one needs.

The deprived will study the plumper-breeds.
The game is called accumulate.
When the fat-one flaunts what the lean-one needs,
cruel-rules are there to contemplate.

The game is called accumulate,
where they dirty-deal for the master-share.
Cruel-rules are there to contemplate;
when the winner takes-all, none will play fair.

Where they dirty-deal for the master-share,
beware the shadows-of-the-night.
When the winner takes-all, none will play fair;
paupers leap-out to snatch their right.

Beware the shadows-of-the-night,
as you lock them away and lose the key.
Paupers leap-out to snatch their right.
Do they frighten you like they frighten me?

Charlie Gregory
Cardiff

AW

Gifts For
Elizabeth

Look into the sky tonight and travel
back in time, where diamonds light forever-
up beyond the Milky Way; if you know
the stars by name you'll never be alone.

See Lunar, queen of all the nights, a-glide
with silver smiles; lingers while the morning
mist shimmers all with dew, then hides among
the vapour-screens to watch her lover rise.

How mighty rides the Sun King, Midas of
the dawn, transforming leaden sea and sky
to sheets of dazzling gold; red carpets lie
on cloud-scapes of plains and mountain passes.

Purple anvils, forging hailstorms; thunder
clapping; lightning flashing; Buddhas billow
then dissolve in peaceful islands floating
high ... Now yellow skies of driven rain-squalls.

Flooding fields send swollen rivers rushing
to the sea, where they boil and steam in the
tropic-tides, then leap on the wind and flee –
to return in tears to their native hills.

Such glory is the earthly engine – where
sylph-rainbows float on fields of flowers that
mirror back their subtle hues; while starry-
fish flash in inky seas of ever-night.

Deep forests whisper secrets to the fields
and jungle-hedgerows where busy insects
drone. Fisher folk of spiders spin beauty
into webs that find jewels in the frost.

Savours of the planet are bound into
a whole by the pulsing of the hours in
the rhythm of the days, that circle in
the seasons of the spiral of the years.

There's a presence and a theme in the beat
of the never-ending dancing of the
ocean on the shore – where a gypsy wind
croons love songs to the birds that pipe and soar.

To melt into this music is to blend
into the motion, and form again the
beauty of our truth; where minds are laughing
ripples on a stream that runs forever.

Find succour in the knowledge that all of
us are one, and the substance of all things
is the universal essence of the
stars ... and see strife as but a passing phase.

Charlie Gregory
Prifddinas
Cymru

AW