Say it   -  "Kayleigh"

~ An upward flight of sound ~

"Kayleigh"

Somehow, chiming free,
And aligning
With dawn fields, seen from this train,
Rumbling towards duller syllables.

'What syllables?
Oh Yes, I get it now
-We're off to London?'

Yes, and - go on - say that too:  

Lon-don.

We are descending stone steps to a dungeon
We are definitely London 'bound'! -

(I know - too obvious a play on words of course
But hey - let's keep it light -
We're just bouncing around, right?)

So - let's bounce back, bound up!
Steps two at a time in a rush to light,
Out of breath, but still thinking of you at the top,
And realise with a little shock:
You can't say ‘Kayleigh’ sadly
Or leave lips pursed or shut!

'Kayleigh' opens!
'Kayleigh' smiles!
Kayleigh is Out There..
That's it - of course! - I see it now!
That name's already on the stage.    
'Kayleigh' looks the fog of doubt away.
So - you see? You see?!
You can see for miles.  

But now, for me, I stare at the ground.
London is the word.
Grey light.
And people, and long platforms.
A shadowed crowd,
Converging on a barrier.
A symbolism almost too obvious  - too trite.  

But, I whisper,
You don't know what power I have inside.
- I can hot wire your dreams -
And now - to confide this just to you -
Years have given me the means.

~ To see and speak the Other's Grand Adventure -
(that superpower only comes with age) -
Of honesty and risk and more -
The truth as far as we can know it, each to each:
The bright flash of contact with the other,
Face to face or on the page, that starts the upward flow.
And so more of me and, as I know
It shall be, more of you.
So, let's dream you, climb you, storm-wind-elate you
To the heights

Of soul ambition
Of your name  

Kayleigh

Let's Go

________


But our little walk together
Now is done.
This is as far as we go.
For we are colleagues, yes?
Nothing more
Nor less
(I would not want it to be less).

It's time.
Enough to be a fellow traveller for the day.  
A chat or two, perhaps, along the way
To confess - I do think we rhyme.  

This is my path,  I turn off here -
The way along the hillside, then the wood
Over the style.
So now, shake hands, maybe a little hug.
I can awkwardly say -
“Thank you for the inspiration of your name.”
“Please accept this gift.”
And turn away.
It was good to know you, Kayleigh.

For a while.  



Postscript


The words won't do what I want them to
They never do.

~ Actually, not true.
Sometimes - out of somewhere, nowhere,  
The little lines align to tell a truth.

Maybe.

At least for now.
At least for you.

I want to rub you up the right way
I want to put a shot across your stern.
I'll wait until it rains and then make hay,
My bridges all are steel and shall not burn.

These inverted phrases weave a past intent -
To look back in blessing of our yet to be:
You'll see me like Impatience on a Monument,
To set my sight beyond the wood - to see one special tree.

Then delve in sky to find your roots  
To make your fallen leaves breathe green anew.
And know: untasted are the finest fruits -
And only words that make no sense, are true.

And so I end begin this pointless noteless song;
I have objectives to unmeet, things not to do.
I have lost all sense of right and left and wrong.
There is only one truth I know, Love.
And that is always…

You

This is a laughter love my dear!  
One would not be so much
Without the other.

Please take that to your heart
Or not, in any way you want,
For there are many ways to be a lover.

And the little wistful word of ‘just’
Is always there to help;
We have just a chat, a cuppa - just a natter.

Nor are you ever to be addressed as ‘my’
In these modern, lonely days;
May the lie in self reliance never shatter!

So just to walk with you a pace or two
Is allowed for now I hope,
Before our light-together days
Just scatter.

Don't try

I'm everything you know
And do not know

Don't try.

Now throw the ball

It's a curiosity.  When I, full of purpose, square up
To the yawning, waiting sheet  - and indeed write frowningly
Perhaps, some ‘not bad’ words.  Which, although
Laboriously born, are as true as earnest slog
Can make them - up the unforgiving path of prose
Aspiring to be something other than the stubborn clay it is...

I stop.  

And listen.

Then know

That all the time another poem was writing itself
Alone, some faint wraith, left hanging in the air
Of that spell you cast, unknowingly. Unknown.

I sometimes sensed it padding lightly past,
Or in an upstairs room. Maybe glimpsed it drifting
Near my window, whispering to the words

To crystal

So they, so you
Are clear lattice

Seeking nothing for themselves
Just light.

And your slow dance

If I can see and sing it,

Balanced in the air

Just so.

Had I a hollowed out word I would give it to you.  
An empty vessel, a waiting truth
Hovering to be told.
But for now, intention only
Bloodless, Lonely.

Cold.

You would see what it could be - love it to become.
Warm it to the brim with unique worth - elating it
To rise and reach through all the lettered strata that
We ride our work - our lives - upon:
To join our everyday and sacred company

Of speech.  



-  Our beautiful inheritance of polished tools
Waiting to transform the world -

Roses are grey
Violets are grey
When you look at them in a certain way

It's true.


All the things I did - and could not - say
Now put aside by time, I will say now.

I finally see the multicolours of your life

Of you.