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

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