Throwing Lights

Poems with Oliver Tate, 1997-2000. Illustrations by Laura Joy.

Nine Miles   - jh

Where the Lambourn Downs

rolled down to meet the Lambourn

and Kennet rivers,

a river of steel will now run,

clawing the very hills apart.

For you who took

the leafy heart of Snelsmore

and toppled the towering beeches of Bagnor Lane;

for you who never truly knew

Speenham Moor's moist tranquility

or the moon's kiss on Kennet camp,

are you still lapping up those easy words,

shovelling them down while casting blind eyes

to the habits of the ones who cooked them up?

Sit back, relax, there's nothing to be done.

Just crank your neck a little lower by another notch;

you'll find the world your building

fits you better if you stoop.

In ten year's time,

when Newbury's clocktower's clogged again

with the rising tide of tyres,

will they justify still

the levelling of a landscape

that took so many thousand years to form?

Closer Than Blood   - ot

i breathe in

dust and memories

i breathe out sighs

their pictures gently speak to me

as i look into the eyes of my friends

from several years ago

they look back into my soul

and remember a younger

brighter boy

that lived out in the cold

we were so closes they mistook us for lovers

we were in a way closer than brothers

bound closer than blood

and stronger than years

a fellowship born in our sweat and tears

brightened by laughter

baptised by fire

many times

we lived

and died

together

i miss the warmth of your bodies

on a cold winters night i miss your sparkling

playfulness like sunlight

the part of me that

is you is missing

the part of me that is

you is missing

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22 pages, 15 poems with woodcut illustrations.

Copyright all Text and Images J.A. Hindle 2008