Sunday 29 September 2013

Don't Hate, Just Love


It’s a very short life, 
And an amazing one, 
Full of miracles and caring,
With a universe or two, or maybe more, thrown in,
All decked out with black holes and sunsets,
And yet you chose to spend it hating,
And loathing, and hitting and shouting,
And name calling and abusing. 
Whatever this is, it's a short life,
And in your hating, 
You've missed the greatest
Experience of your existence,
Don’t hate, just love.


bobby stevenson 2013

Sunday 1 September 2013

100 Years From Now

dinosaur footprint  Texas Uni.
                                                
100 years from now, nothing of this life will be remembered,
Not you, nor I, nor once that we were here,
We only stayed long enough to scratch the sand upon the beach before the
Tide took back its own.

100 years from now, no one will know my name, nor care
That here I stood and lived a life with all those
Other nameless souls,
Yet we knew each other by the joy and sorrow
Trapped inside our eyes
And each of us took that remembrance to our graves.



bobby stevenson 2013/14


Friday 30 August 2013

The Ghosts Of My Family


There was a moon that night,
That shook my comfortable existence
On this little Earth
And as I looked at the stars
I almost lost my breath
I remembered what the great men had said
That I was made from the heart of dying stars
All of me was not from here, but belonged out there
And as I closed my eyes
I realised that those twinkling lights
Were not just heavenly bodies
But like an ageing photograph
Were the ghosts of my family
Long since gone.




bobby stevenson 2013  
photo: 8track.com



Saturday 17 August 2013

In A Heartbeat


In a heartbeat,
The car turned the corner too fast, and turned over,
The last thing the mother did was scold her
Son for chewing loudly
In a heartbeat
The lonely girl bumped into the guy who was leaving
For good and she wasn’t lonely any more
“It’s funny how we met,” she told her children.
In a heartbeat
He smiled at her and talked about their next trip
And then the darkness covered the side of his face
And he slipped away from her
In a heartbeat
He scratched the lotto card
One hundred thousand it said
And that was the amount of friends he gained
In a heartbeat
He screwed up the cigarette and promised himself
That was that
And it was
In a heartbeat
The sun warmed his face and he smiled
And the blackness let him be for a few kind minutes
In a heartbeat
As she sat alone at the bar, a friend joined her and another
And another and in a heartbeat, she knew she was the lucky one.


bobby stevenson 2013

Friday 5 July 2013

People Disappear These Days


That day on the shingle beach, as the warm salty wind blew
The towel into the back of the creek,
I looked away quickly to pull it back and shake the sand from off of it.
Your cup was full of hot tea and the plate with the sandwich,
- one bite taken from it - sat beside the strawberry jam.
I thought you’d gone over that large sand dune,
To catch one last sight of that schooner that was riding high
On the back of the crackling blue waves,
But you weren’t there. 
I asked someone, but they said no one had passed by them,
The police couldn’t find a trace, not of you or of anything
That belonged to you.
They started to think that you had never existed.
People disappear these days and no one notices, nor cares.



bobby stevenson 2013

Monday 10 June 2013

Home


From where I sit,
I cannot smell the fresh sea air
Nor taste my salt encrusted lips
Or watch the swirling twisted mists
Cut through by masts of sailing ships
And headed for some outer bank to fish

From where I sit,
I cannot hear the choir of Gulls,
Who dart and shoot above my head
And screech a welcome in my ear.
“you’re home, you’re home,” they cry
“Rest well”.

From where I sit,
I cannot see the mountaintops of
Heather strewn across the rocks
Or heavy rain and waterfalls in rivers
Run beneath the bus and neon lights

From where I sit,
I cannot see my little town

- I am not there. 




bobby stevenson 2013

Sunday 9 June 2013

The Price


It is not the burnished gold when exchanged for a king’s ransom

Which holds the highest cost

Nor the glittering coal in shape of diamond that litter

Hills and valley sparkling like planted slivers of souls

Not even love itself can compare in expense and virtue

When stood against this other feast

For in the end, the dearest of all things under heaven is

The price of Freedom, itself.



bobby stevenson 2013

Sunday 12 May 2013

That Old Steam Train Has Left The Station (for D)

That old steam train has left the station for the very last time,
I didn’t even know you were going but I know it’ll be somewhere nice,
May be the sands of Morar or the pier at Mallaig.

That old steam train has left the station with only the driver onboard,
The one who looks like Robert Newton from Treasure Island,
As you toot your whistle, you’ll be filling in another crossword,
I betcha!

That old steam train has left the station for the very last time today,
And we were all the better for having been passengers on it,
Thanks for the ride pal, rest well.



bobby s.

Wednesday 8 May 2013

100 word Postcards From The Past (1899)


 
Sailed from England and spent Christmas day on the high seas. Here we are in New York. Tonight we are all going to Times Square to say good riddance to 1899 and to welcome in the glorious 1900. We have all been guessing what the world might be like in the year 2000. Sally says we shall all be living under the sea and James thinks that man will travel to the stars. I reckon that we will be done with all that war nonsense, and everyone will be enjoying a peaceful world. Have a very Happy New Year. Spencer.






bobby stevenson

Wednesday 1 May 2013

The Eye Of The Needle


He’s gone now, the old me,
And not with some big great goodbye
But with a whimper,
Somewhere out there in the wilderness.

To write seemed such an innocent idea
To discard the old and move on smiling with a dream
But there was a cost to it all,
And it cost everything,
And it took everything,
And the only parts of me that I can salvage from my yesterdays
Are those things which will fit through the eye of a needle.



bobby stevenson 2013

Wednesday 13 March 2013

We Walked A Path Once




We walked a path once,
You and I,
And shared some gentle time while basking in the sun,
We walked a road once,
You and I,
Fighting with the storms that blew upon our way,
We walked a highway once,
You and I,
And dealt with all the loss and hurt that fell before us,
We walked the Earth once,
You and I,
And broke with everything that Heaven threw in our direction,
But now the time has come for the parting of the ways,
And you will take one path and I will hold the other,
And we will walk the Universe,
You and I,
But with other souls as company.

bobby stevenson 2013

Tuesday 5 March 2013

1948 (in 100 words)






From that little room in the cold-water apartment you could smell Harlem. The top window being stuck open with the paint that was probably put on around the time of Pearl Harbour. Cooking smells danced in along with thumps and arguments from far off places.
I decided that I needed fresh air and I headed down to 8Th avenue where the folks were drinking canned-heat and digging the sex and the sax. In the dark corner of one coffee shop was Ginsberg and Kerouac talking ‘bout this and that and not seeing anything of the outside world; God bless 1948.


bobby stevenson 2013

Friday 1 March 2013

Waiting



There’s a little place,
Not too far out of town,
Where I’ll go when I leave this place,
You’ll always find a log fire burning there,
And a light in the window to find your way,
When you eventually stumble over the top of the ridge.

You can sit among friends,
By then you’ll be deserving of a seat by the warmth,
You’ll have done your bit,
Struggled bravely along the path,
You’ll have cried your tears,
And fought your battles,
So come rest a while,
We’ll be waiting.



bobby stevenson 2013

Wednesday 27 February 2013

The Dust Road




As they drove the last few miles, the wind grew warmer
And he closed his eyes, fixing his mind on that evening
When they celebrated with a party
Everyone was there that night, alive and well
Taking joy in each others' company
Never thinking that things would change so much
That fixed point in his head was where he ran to
When the days were cold and bare
Perhaps he repainted the colours every time he visited
But it was his to do as he wished,
For there he was truly, truly happy,
That one perfect night before his world crumbled
And turned to dust.



bobby stevenson 2013

Tuesday 26 February 2013

Farewells





The only thing that used to crack was the excitement and the possibilities that hung in the air
But that was long before the clouds came down
Before the hard rains fell
Before life stopped forgiving


Now I chip and scratch at every turn 

And keeping hold of everything is hard enough -
The thoughts inside my head and
The hearts of other people –

The arrogant way that yesterdays keep slipping
Through my fingers without one single kind farewell
And the cold, cold future that must be faced
Where only chaos and decay
Have gained the upper hand,
Why must the endings be so cruel?


bobby stevenson 2013