OPUS 1

"The Journey"

Frenetic lifestyle and wayward pursuits foresworn by a new presence in his life, and his life was changed to the core, not for the better not for the worse but blessed forevermore.
Anxiety hidden by bravado and swaggering posturing smiles, ah those smiles, part of this man’s wicked seducing wiles.  What a fool he was, for it was she who controlled the merry dance a while, but he could not see it only move to the rhythm set by her nature’s guile.
And so the trees in the forest were stirred and their undulations caused the leaves to fall while the mean streets of the city echoed to the vibrations of innocent love that lay with legs akimbo which in a finale applauded by the gods a new life was conceived that day.
With endearments sweet they lived and loved and fed each other titbits oh so sweet and went about their daily lives soon telling the news, the good news with family and friends to share.  So soon was forgotten, the freedoms of youth, now usurped by the need for serious contemplations, and earnest conversations about the way that life was to be.
The time came and they held the new life in their arms and they wondered at their ingenuity at creating life as if it were quite unique to them, they drank wine and celebrated toasting their passion their son and the journey now begun.
From them, through them came a mother’s son, and in an extraordinary way he left them behind and immediately began his journey quite alone while they shadowed him and guided him as he began his life story written with the pain from grazed knees and bloody noses and the first gift of roses that he gave to a girl he loved when he was just sixteen.
Frenetic lifestyle and wayward pursuits foresworn by a new presence in his life, and his life was changed to the core, not for the better not for the worse but blessed forevermore.

Edmund Forte 2008

OPUS 2

"Encounters"

`1`   The cafe was busy serving croissants and café au lait, I asked can I share your table your heart your love your life.  With your eyes cast down shyness you agreed,  I sat and spilt my coffee my name my love the beans, You laughed at me in amusement, I was shaking weak at the knees.
That chance encounter in the high street
Stopped my sentimental heart
That sudden jolt so sweet
With hammering fright did start
I said shall we talk
You said, Oh dear, yes please.

`2`  As I cycled around Exeter in the early spring of 1948 I paused to rest in the Cathedral Close. As I sat on the low wall daydreaming I noticed a family group, seemingly visitors, walking across the front of the cathedral.  The group consisted of a Mother, Father a young boy and girl and another young girl of about my own age.

The Family group were a little unusual for that time because they wore expensive clothes and they were suntanned and looked very healthy.  The children had blonde hair which was shaped and cut longer than was fashionable for that time.  The eldest girl had the most beautiful face and I gazed at her my heart stopped and I felt a sharp pain in my chest.  I stood up and she left her family group and walked across the grass and up to me and stood in front of me looking at me with her blue eyes. 

Holding my gaze, she smiled and gently said “hello”.  Hello I replied.
We stood there a moment or two just looking at each other.

It was as if we knew each other, and it had not come as a surprise to meet each other at that time and in that place.

She said, I must go now.
Goodbye I said, goodbye she replied and went back to her family who had continued walking. 

She glanced back just the once.

OPUS 3

"MOONSHINE"

Misty the vapour trails across the meadows like a bride’s diaphanous night dress do softly twirl

Nothing moves except the slavering drools on the mouths of grazing cows

The foxes screech rents the air with a yak, yak, yakking scowl

The fast flit flutter through the cold night air as a barn owl prowls his prey

The grass mutters low at the damp air settling soft upon its green

And the barn owl sudden a flutter bears a dying scuttled mouse aloft.

No lights in the farmhouse windows show to disturb the wildlife here

Only the pale and watery moonshine casts gentle shadows here and there.

My love and I cast off our clothes and lay on the sod, the soil, our bodies caked in clay

We loved and rutted free through the night until our passions energy was gone

Beneath the moonshine of the moonlit night

We lay.

OPUS 4

"My Tribute".

I am the mountains whose high peaks richly encrusted with snow gives the slow melt that nourishes the fundament, and rising springs up surprising those that find me as the source of men’s life for he cannot live without me standing here so tall and replenishing his body with my blood.

I am the water that gently trickles down a hill and forms a pond in which ducks paddle and frogs spawn, where Nymph and water striders stride and mosquito larvae propagate and on sloping banks and waterboatmen watch with silky eyes as ashore grass snakes lazily slyly slither, while natures in all its glory sheds debris which slowly withers and forms new earth to sustain in season the fauna.

I settle into the ground and feed the mighty oak the sad cypress and silver birch and I also feed the corn and the cabbages that feeds the mighty king and keeps his body clean and these riches are seen by the poor man as the gift of god, so he is told, but they are merely nature’s way of ingratiating himself with the human kind who use his  fertile soil.

I am the river that sometimes rushes quickly, swollen with rain that rose to form the clouds far away in the Azores.  Sometimes I lazily meander through fields of grazing cows and dazzling mayfly and dragonflies skitter over my shallows where I congregate, and light on lazy grass while butterflies all a twirl skitter land and with folded wings say their prayers.  Faun gaily skip through grassy glades laughing  as they brush their hairy legs and polish their little horns.

I am the sea gathering my waters from rivers large and small and give up my vapour to the skies where it gives up its charge as the rain that drops from heaven and blesses the faces of man who tills the land, and waits expectantly for the miracle of seedlings to emerge as the crops that feed his young grow like them tall and healthy.

Again I am the sea that carries the man upon my back tossing him about at my merry whim, sometimes asking for tribute I bring him down to pay tribute to me and kiss my feet but he often does not survive these encounters and gurgles for mercy as I pull him down demanding obedience and his mortal being to feed my fish.

Let all nature pay tribute to me for I am Thor on thunderous nights and I am Cornucopia when the full harvest is in and I am Pan who leads all a merry dance and I am the rainbow which blends the true colours of water and air and I am me and you are you but you all must pay tribute to the earth who is king and the universe who is the mystical emperor of all.

OPUS 5

"A PIECE OF CAKE"

When you were sad and cried did I not comfort you on sunny days and cold winter nights?  When you wanted love did I not love you with an innocent passion that drove you mad yet made you hunger for a more arrogant selfish desire that would use and abuse you without cause.  Even then you were leaving me, confused and unable to understand in my youthful innocence, what a fool I was.

What a merry dance was made as you called the tune and I a servile wretch made everything right for your childlike fantasy, to become as real as could be made, and I thought that this was all I had to do forever more.  And as long as I flitted in your ephemeral shadow and allowed you to shine the brightest I would always be wanted by you and you would favour me, and with your love adore.

You wanted to go and sit on Wolf Tor so I took you in your light summer dress and the air was clean and the view unending.  You sat there with the summer breeze wafting your hair about your head and the sun blessed your lovely face and I loved you then.

Let’s go and pick flowers you said, and we walked among the bluebells where the country road runs crooked. We went there where the trees touched overhead providing an avenue of dappled sunshine and at that time, in that space, it was ours, and our hearts spoke clearly with one voice, that borrowed time and when faced with the long unending carpet of colour at our feet we did not have the heart to pick them, just to linger, breathe their perfume and rejoice.

What was your name was it Esme’ or Danae perhaps Leda?  No, it was not the name of an ancient goddess but more contemporary like `Nike` swift and true. To your master you came bringing me water to quench my thirst and satisfy my hungry mind, as I sought to drown in the heavenly bliss of your kisses and keep my mind, while the world about me was all a blur and nothing was defined.

You made me laugh, not because of anything funny that you said, but your laugh made mine spontaneous and so I laughed with you.  I never knew anyone so happy at her place in the world and you chose me to spend your time, to share your secret desires, your fears and your love, but perhaps I was so easy to try out your wiles for the true love yet to come which would be even more sublime.

When we were hungry I fed you ambrosia and nectar from Lady’s Bedstraw and Red valerian and White Campion and wild honey from the heather of Devon’s moors, and I fed myself licking from your sticky fingertips and gave you fruit cake and I picked the crumbs from your lap, for never was a young girl so completely adored and never a young man so entranced.

I found myself ensnared by your lips by a love sweet and true, how could I foretell all that would ensue.  As lovingly, endearingly, we melded as one transported by the power of Psyche as I Metamorphosed into a slave of passionate senses, fit only as a fit for your loving ring for you had become greedy for love and you only feed me those crumbs left over from your insatiable feast.

Dear friends I have told you my tale of young love, of the adventure as step by step I ventured with my girl into that tremulous, hesitant place where only the young go, for nature ordains that we shall suffer the pains of the choking gall.  My heart was truly pierced with loves arrows and I was held hostage to her love for I could not count my good fortune to have held her in my arms and tasted her kisses and rejoiced in her gaze which I shall remember all of my life long days.

AEF 2008

OPUS 6

"SALAD DAYS"

Salad days were those days of childhood deceptions when alone or together with friends there was the freedom to stretch and explore the fresh air of life’s daily offerings with naive innocence and ingenuity.

The innocence and resourcefulness that we shared is that which we had not experienced before but we knew was yet to come.  Each of us on the threshold of a wide eyed personal intellectual and sexual awakening, where there were adventures and chances to play an equal game.

Whether in tough boy, rough boy rowdying, or with our girl friends shy and often demure demeanour, we should chance to touch or challenge each other and in turn by either refusing or accepting the challenges to take us a step further on the breathtaking journey into a day in the life of: us.

The subtleties of what we said and the way that we parlayed and physically moved from one friend to another, seeking to influence by posture or argument to get the attention of that friend and therein bond ourselves tighter in an invisible blanket of security, which often hid our more transparent insecurities.

Each day was different and each day the same, with the same band of players moving and extending the play along, and in the writing and rewriting of the memory of our young searching minds we became intellectually more mature.

Our limbs grew sturdier and our confidence greater and we dared to take chances, to venture new ideas which when accepted advanced those of us willing to accept the challenge of them up the pecking order within the group.  Those brave enough in daring the new ideas as we tried putting them on for size and then slowly, into practice received secret admiration for our bravery.

Between sleep and play there were the demands of parents and school where we tested and shared new ideas.  Both the young and old influenced us and by observing the behaviour and mannerisms of them we tried them on ourselves, like new suits of clothes to see how well they might fit, and if they did fit we would try to make them part of our growing repertoire of adult mannerisms. 

Our parents tried to enforce moral codes which were obstacles only waiting to be broken, usually, just because of their reasoning, we surely needed to test it for its veracity and partly to show each other how fiercely independent we had become.

As we might saunter singly lost in childish daydreams or raucously in small groups, nature played its part in formulating within us the daring do’s to withstand future life as an adult.  The childish daydreams tested the minutiae of the private fears that we carried within us as we privately developed strategies to cope with them.  The jostling group plays allowed for a conformity of spirit and gung-ho behaviour which was both empowering in its might and comforting in its mass.

These were the salad days of our youth, never forgotten except in ancient age when all those childhood sins could be denied.  These were the days when our parents and teachers met all our needs:  They provided every test except those that challenged us to take risks of a purely physical nature through chancing personal injury that quickened the pulse resulting in a private internal victory and exulting in the admiration reflected in the eyes of our friends. 

These were the days of forbidden fruits, all the better for the gratuitous taste and the sweet smell of other young bodies, the twisting of tongues and the mixing of spittle and the feel of young girls budding breasts in the park on late afternoons as the cold of dusk began to fall.  More, lest I omit it because of your sobriety, the oh so sweet after, the parting, the pining, the excitement, the secrets, the sharing, the joy, the dreams.

I rejoice in the ability to remember how it was, and how those experiences are still true today.         

AEF 2008

OPUS 7

"BUILDINGS"

Stone upon stone placed.  Placed with attention to the plan to make a pile which when arranged with thought and care becomes a human mans new lair.  Progressing slow through time we arrive at a place where numbers for safety in caves and leafy bivouacs do mate and dwell, exchanging ideas, spiritually as needs dictate we are driven to congregate by a general consent in a primitive age.

And in the midst of these new congregations mans need to make his life anew, prosper and profligate across the lands in masses, and wild nomad bands shun isolation preferring to make their peace with the land and nature through the hard cruel epiphanies of life, selling, bartering and stealing to make the most of opportunities in the cruel sandy deserts that span this earth. Stopping with setting sun to rest and nourish their body and souls they set up tented encampments and each knowing each go about their ritual tasks ordained by sex, status and time enabling their extended family to flourish and prosper.

Others congregate en mass where water is plentiful and here build more permanent dwellings of wood or stone and once again apply ritual tasks ordained by ancients with the wisdom of time.  Crowding close by each other competing to stay close by the water until they are usurped by the power wealth and greed of more powerful men and are banished to an outer place more fitting their status.

The earth upon which we live is lent to us temporarily during our lifetime the dwellings that we inhabit cost money to buy and money to maintain as do the people who live within them.  The earth with a shrug can cast off all edifices built upon it and sometimes leave no sign of human life except a pile of rubble that will with time reduce down level with all earth once again as if human life had never been.

Buildings may be simple dwellings as a cottage or house.  Perhaps an apartment, one of hundreds within a complex, or a stately home or palace, they may be pretty to the eye or an ugly edifice not deserving of praise for its design or construction.  Whatever building it is that modern man chooses to live in it has no soul no spirit although some have iconic merit.  It is the inhabitants that give a house its life.

As lesser mortals in the tally of greatness in this green and pleasant land we revere buildings that have been established through history as having some merit, such as Buckingham Palace, the houses of parliament or such like edifices.  Whereas we privately choose to live in houses that are bland to the eye of the beholder and we secretly adorn the interiors to the highest standards.

A poem in praise of nature’s bounty has some value to satisfy our hearts, and also for expressing our soulful need to communicate our feelings about matters sublime.  I cast doubt upon the value of any poem expressing the beauty of a building.  One could praise its symmetry or likeness to an architectural edifice from a bygone age, but that is all, for a building is not for all time, it does not renew itself with the seasons.  As soon as it is built it begins to decay and is a burden to the man who lives in it.  However:

Lightening struck the man from Exeter as he beheld the young girl who walked with gracious ease carrying a pitcher of water upon her head.  Seeking out his cousin he asked for the name of the girl and being told that she was Antonia Fusciardi daughter of Antonio Fusciardi from the village of SanAndrea he asked his cousin to intercede with the father of the girl on his behalf and seek permission to walk and talk with her.  And here and then a real building began.  One like the buildings that had gone before them as men and women had come together through the ages and built families, these are long lasting buildings based upon love, patient, enduring the travails of life that are the mortar of any worthwhile relationship.

all stories on this website are the property of Anthony Edmund Forte and may not be re published without permission of the owner  
 
copyright A E Forte 2008