Chaos

The Daily Post prompt suits my mood today.

So hard to bear the jangling noise

That beats the drum inside the head

And takes away balance and poise.

So hard to bear the jangling noise,

That jumbles thoughts like babies’ toys

And meshes them like tangled thread.

So hard to bear the jangling noise,

The flashing lights, the taste of dread,

The chaos in sweet order’s stead.

Losing the north

Painting by Robert Delaunay

Hawk hanging in the blustery air
Battles the breeze
That buffets back and forth,
Abandoning the small prey
When the wind howls too high.
While gulls squabble
Over refuse tossed,
And the crow cries death
To who will listen.
Time and tides flow
In uneasy balance,
The wild geese lose their compass,
Their arrows fail to find the north,
And the over arching rainbow,
The everlasting bridge is broken,
Because we could not hold
The tender bird of love
In our uncouth hands.

She looks for calm in a chaos of words

Words flow from mind pictures to static forms black on white
And only I know what they really mean
the picture they paint inside my head
but they stream out regardless bright and noisy
and smelling of damp earth or dog or roses or even the sea when the wind’s in the west.
Starlight splinters and waves break
and still the words pour an unending chatter.
The beat falters, a momentary silence falls
and the world fills with the song of a blackbird.
Such beauty is impossible to catch in a handful of dry words
like the wind in the leaves, the murmur of running water
or all the shades of fragrant colour in the cupped petal of a rose.
Only when I link my words to you
and the deep-night moon-gazing stillness at your centre
that draws me and cradles me in its calm waters
does the chaos of this fleeting life have any sense.