I hear girlish laughter beyond the bagged onions.
Imagine her swimming naked among green ripples.
Her white arms are lily stems, hips as sleek as an otter
flow in a neon moonlight.
A sound system promotes discount cookies.
Visions of idealized females fill the dairy product section.
A courtly love of grapes spreads to the potatoes.
In the toy aisle, Avalon, Camelot, and Tintagel
appear in plastic miniature together with rainbow painted ponies.
Between the crisp covers of Guns & Ammo and Cosmo,
Annales Cambriae, Historia Brittornum,
and the writings of Gildas shimmer in periodic reality.
I should turn the old legends off, but the Kimble audio
keeps me walking with Malory and Tennyson.
In toiletries and cosmetics, I find her.
A teenager shyly laughing as she texts a boy.
My imagination reaches for the forbidden,
a fruit that was fresh this morning –
a thousand years ago.
Categories:
tintagel, poetry,
Form: Free verse
As I walk along the wooden boards
Flanked by firm railings,
I wonder how they used to cross
From mainland to castle,
Back when the bridge was
Stone and roughly-hewn wood.
The waves crash upon the rocks below,
Tide eddying into Merlin’s Cave.
Did they risk wind and raging storm
To get across with a message for the king?
Did they shelter on the main land,
Waiting for calmness to invite them in?
Tintagel… the remains tell only a tiny,
Practical part of the story.
What of the myth, the rumours, the history?
What of the dealings in the western outpost
For trade and travellers from afar?
We can never know the legend’s truth.
The mystery draws
Crowds to this centre
With magical depths and history.
I cross the sturdy bridge,
Wanting more than quotidien reality
To live on in the rocks beneath my feet.
The romance of this mythical place
Stirs my heart to feel
A yearning, a longing,
To become more than just
A person, a visitor, a tourist-
To be one with the myth.
To dissolve my life of
Petty daily needs and wants,
To emerge, a warrior, a maiden,
A minstrel, a foreign trader,
Or a simple visitor to the
Court of King Arthur.
Categories:
tintagel, culture, england, imagery, introspection,
Form: Free verse
I hear girlish laughter beyond the bagged onions.
Imagine her swimming naked among green ripples.
Her white arms are lily stems, hips as sleek as an otter
flow in a neon moonlight.
A sound system promotes discount cookies.
Visions of idealized females fill the dairy product section.
A courtly love of grapes spreads to the potatoes.
In the toy aisle, Avalon, Camelot, and Tintagel
appear in plastic miniature together with rainbow painted ponies.
Between the crisp covers of Guns & Ammo and Cosmo,
Annales Cambriae, Historia Brittornum,
and the writings of Gildas shimmer in periodic reality.
I should turn the old legends off, but the Kimble audio
keeps me walking with Malory and Tennyson.
In toiletries and cosmetics, I find her.
A teenager shyly laughing as she texts a boy.
My imagination reaches for the forbidden,
a fruit that was fresh this morning –
a thousand years ago.
Categories:
tintagel, poetry,
Form: Blank verse
A Shadorma
Arthur’s lot
memory of myth
it’s never
been proven
legend, myth, reality
will we ever know?
The truth lay
buried but not at
Tintagel
perhaps it’s
elsewhere or perhaps he was
not really a king...
Maybe a
farmer or trader?
Tin miner,
a genius,
great mind within his own time?
it may be...
A king can
be numerous things
even a
scientist;
king of industry or a
prognosticator?
Perhaps he
was really Merlin?
A nickname
of Arthur...
nobility's not always
simply a ruler...
Sometimes we
must look carefully
to define
many words
what if Arthur was just a
common nobleman?
We look for
those whom are wiser
than ourselves.
What if king,
was a reference to his
bright, bold character?
Categories:
tintagel, appreciation, character, hero, myth,
Form: Shadorma
A hot wind blew that day
as I gazed down from the
hills of Tintagel
to the emerald sea and white foam below
that crashed against ancient rocks
and marvelled at ruins
that once was Camelot...
Categories:
tintagel, history
Form: Narrative