95. Peter Taylor

From the law to poetry, Peter weaves magic with the rhythm and melody of his words.

Peter trained and practised as a lawyer for 40 years in total, mostly in the City (1978-2007), followed by a Masters in Law (LLM) course and random volunteering activities (2007-2010) and, by way of delightful swansong, General Counsel for the National Theatre (2010-2018). A true riches to rags adventure, he left the law voluntarily in 2018, being unable any longer to perform the role on account of his battle with Parkinson’s. And what greater failed intervention, or clumsy loss of attention, by the Devil itself to leave to its victim his pen and paper, to all that should be said? Imagine!

Poems

Just Before Sleep
Waking Up to Snow
Stepping Out
The Meaning of Birdsong
Farewell to Stromness
She Sleeps

Just Before Sleep

I close my eyes and, most times, feel
the watching dark lean over us, breathe
deeply in, blow long, slow rings of
sleep across each grateful brow, then
wrap our limbs around with silken sheets,
two cocooned souls prepared for night.

So soft the silks, so firm the threads,
I cannot say I stay abed or float
among the tops of trees; there is but
black, I cannot halt the unravelling of any
web spun overnight - those about in early light,
of dewy gossamer, while they do delight,
are of the magic of the day, like you, but
when we sleep, do we touch or turn away?

Some nights before we shut day down
we talk a little - just a little - I hear the words
but see no trace of tenderness as you will not
acquiesce in eyes unveiling - though, to be clear,
while I do not doubt your gentle voice
your eyes are as the soaring of the swallow to
the singing of the speckled lark; let neither leave,
you house them both inside your heart.

You tell me I'm too quick, too hot,
not considerate enough of differences.
And you are not convinced when I say
I am man and cannot refine or re-define
all of me; I may learn to love the
pruning of a tree but do not raise the axe or
push the saw to loose the trunk from root,
the sap from bough (that's not all of love, anyhow).

Is there time to find a few more
moments of the day or night to share
a simple, single act of deep devotion?
For each to say, despite the way
today has gone, I've shared with you
the best, the worst, the in-betweens of
all my sorrows, joys it seems I've spared you from -
till now, our time to reconcile.

I close my heavy eyes and lie, flat-backed,
upon the bed. Instead of calling sleep to do
its work, I shirk its numbing ministrations and
whisper in your ear it's time for us to learn to
love and state and celebrate this love - and, one day,
maybe dream together to the end.


< < < 

Waking Up to Snow

Woke up to snow today and was
glad I had to be up and out,
to be about before the silence broke.
I like the idea of white all round,
emerging as the night draws back,
revealing random perambulations, say,
of a fox that senses scents are dulled
beneath the snowy overlay.

My turn to tread and feel the ease
of printing paths across the land -
more clearly than a walk on sand,
earth, grass or stone; now I could
send a snow-code note to all those
watching from above. Who might they be?
I guess with snow signs you must believe
and so say something others just see.

First light snow alone, a brand new
canvas for the ice-smith, starting fresh;
man's home for a moment washed, pure
and cleansed. Lay those words end to end
and you'll get some idea of the simple
goodness in any layer of nature's white -
come my night, turn me inside out and
cover me, bathed in bright moonlight.

A score more cures, I'm bound to say,
array themselves in my tidied mind,
alongside new opportunities - though
subdued in winter's grey; a shaft of light required to
set on fire the snowflake chandelier,
to give a clearer view of works of art
that wait patiently, yet are anxious to be
freed from the shadows in our hearts.

My choice today of such treasures:
joy unmeasured, all those photographs
I've long meant my fasting soul to feast on,
of five, bright, young lights - now grown and
flown, in the sense that hugs all round
give way to softer caresses of thankful thoughts;
a touch of sorts and we are more than grateful for it -
and for the snow's good work, of course.


< < < 

Stepping Out

I stand on the edge and lean right out
towards the light, the face of one, of
so much more than someone just met;
won't forget the tingling of my skin, the
smell of hers, won't let this slip, this chance to
be unequivocal, say what must be said,
do what must be done - as the
Earth is bound to round the sun.

Still on the edge, my head tips forward;
I wait to re-consider my resolve, knowing
that, if I do step out into air, my
daring may amount to nought, as
crisis is on one side of the coin that
must be flipped. Will I shake on such a trade?
Will I play roulette or take the view that
the odds are worse than red or black?

But deep inside I know no choice;
a voice calls me on and I would not be
gone from this place in any other way.
I may depart empty-handed but
none can say I walked away, left the field.
I am ready and will end the day forever changed.
So I re-arrange my feet, prepare to give all
to gravity, one small step but a life's leap...

then I fall, more slowly than l'd thought, though
how may I know, both eyes closed? There's a
collage in my head, I see somehow, of
reds and greens, great masters' scenes, celebrations of
decisions made. A flight of fancy? Yes, but
more than that: I soar above my store of
nothings, my full baggage of inconsequentials
left behind, liberated from my non-essentials,
stripped of all that bubble wrap, I float and,
like a leaf whose time has come to
break away and gently drop, I brush the ground
right on the spot, bump just once and then....

stop...my upper lip has landed safely,
softly on her lower one, which quivers just a
little, sending shivers down my back but no
disconnection. I sense that mine may rest on
hers for a while but can't be sure, for l
feel (and she does too) that our lips have
minds of their own: my will has nothing to say;
hers has laid down to rest and said "Go
play with your friends, wake me up in the morning."

Oh, joy! Our mouths explore a corner of this
dazzling world, the sweetest kind of human touch -
and really not so hard to find, after all, if
you learn to step off lovers' cliffs. 


< < < 

The Meaning of Birdsong

Warm May morning, pink azaleas alight,
never been so bright before, so
fiery so soon after winter's wake
(quite late this year). I toast my feet beneath
a dodging sun, soaking up essential D, and
settle on a garden seat to listen to what I
cannot see: a tree-top high cacophony
of birdsong, every note unique.

I speculate as to the true translation
but know their secrets pass with species.
One thing that strikes me, though, is that
every melody is sung in a major key.
Does that mean anything? I think on this
while birds continue to give no clue.
Does a minor key mean sad, unhappy?
There's a question that takes us deep.

A sudden rush of revelation gets me
heaping piles of poignancy: a lover's laughter for
a lover lost; Viola "smiling at grief' for a
hopeless love - where we mix on canvas
colours that are forever bright with others
condemned to eternal night: she is dead but
so loved me; l love him but he can't
love the person he has made me.

Sweet melancholy haunts the space between
light and dark: a love that was, now is no longer;
a love given that can't be taken. A minor key
may begin a piece but, wait, move just one finger,
the clouds shift and linger long enough to cue in
light and love waiting patiently in the wings.
I know them now to be the same thing; and
wait for that, quietly, to sink in.

Meanwhile, the birds still sing away -
I wonder if they've seen the play or ever wear
attractive lockets (l've heard that magpies
pick our pockets). I'll never know for certain.
But just before we drop the curtain, listen
closely, try to guess what they are saying.
guarantee you'll find a major key - beyond that,
your guess will be as good as mine.



< < < 

Farewell to Stromness

Opens with the pulse of his beloved Orkneys,
in major key, steady, strong, steadfast, lasting,
each leaving a moment when the islands must
nod farewell yet confirm their own longevity,
the simple, slow flow of a living land and a
breathing sea, their separation from
you and me, yet leaving all doors open
to those looking for a return tide.

If the piece is measured against a day,
each day the major key announces
thankfulness for the light that, anxious to please,
reveals bright green early summer pasture,
deep blue lagoons or, arriving late in winter,
a reminder of life's continuum, the comfort that
familiar things remain in place, notwithstanding
hasty weather - the calm will come.

Then the careful composition in the minor key
of the inner lament, the sharp torment, of the leaving,
the loss of links between man and mountain,
between humanity and hearth, the tread of
feet upon fertile earth, the thread of kinship
between all men and all they use and touch,
little ever said of such yet revered inside; they go,
each brow furrowed, each eye tear-lined.

The minor key drifts swiftly over the islands:
a few brief bars of brooding sky and leaping waves.
Unlike the heaviness of heart of those departing,
the bout with nature soon passes, the ending allowing
the next beginning, the triumph of exaltation,
for none can sway the bridges to the heavens,
the stronger bond; and no god will cease to
nurture them and ensure their beauty.

This assured confirmation of the islands'
daily renewal, of the supremacy of the quiet,
the strong, captured in the piano's slow rise in pitch,
taking bold, confident steps from isle to isle,
across the seas between, their watery playgrounds.
The music plays hopscotch, staunch watchful friend,
eyes sweeping over farms, each teeming sea, blowing
come-back melodies to those all set to go.

........
The title is from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies for his piece written originally for Piano 

< < < 

She Sleeps

I wake up early most morning times
to fret about this and that inside my head,
accumulating tiredness while she lies
serene, a dream playing with her eyelids
and now and then a corner of her mouth.
In moments of doubt, I shake her wrist
or touch her lips and she wakes,
in a riot of eyelashes, flashing
the loss of connection to the
night story, her hair a honey glory
of curls swirling across the pillow,
perfectly placed so her face rises
right in the middle, where she left it last night.

There is a moment, just a moment,
moving from one world to the other,
when she seems unsure of whether
she should push through to the new day,
play a ray of light to help the sun along;
or slip back into the soft folds of the
old night's incantations which have
enchanted and cleansed her. She
usually decides, nearly arrived, to stay,
ready to be provider, adviser, a shoulder,
a foot soldier in each day's denial
of the negative, the grey, the single file.
She is a shepherdess of human hearts.

And when she's weary after each allotted
task is done, and the sand of a day has
long plunged down the narrow gap through which
acts that come from love alone
should be allowed to pass, l
ask myself whether it is right to
burden her when sleep calls. Sometimes
I stare at two dark walls or across
the room to a lowered blind, find
peace of mind in knowing she has
prayed for me, in her own way, and so
join her in her journeys through riddles we've set
in waking hours, by leaving much unsaid.

Which leads to thoughts of bed, the night-time
chessboard, each game played in pairs, where
combinations of pieces, awake and sleeping,
guess and out-guess the others, then themselves.
They dig and delve into a shifting void of
untold, un-dared desires and requirements that
litter the emptiness, unsure as to where to go,
what to try, whether to fall or fly, whom to seek out.

Such are my thoughts, somewhere between the
night's black and white. I think I am there alone.
most of the time; and as the sun begins to buy the day
I see the peace in the new lines in the new face
and know who won at chess in just one move.

< < < 

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