Member Poem

I peered deeply into a water trickling  dyke clustered by pale blue and green peebles.
“Oh dear I sometimes dig too deep or maybe not diffidently.
Damon Deep thinker, lost in thought type.”
There is that mind of mine appearing to write my words for me.
It’s always been like this for this wayfarer.
But not for long as I symbolically dragged myself and my knapsack away.
From a heavenly hypnotising spot.
There were beguiling distractions at my feet ironically that tantalise.
The erect unwinged  stem of the figwort whose lipped structure bore maroon and green coloring, circular leafs pointy and toothlike could also emit a disagreeable odour.
Also the garlic mustard, wild flower with seedpods  on rotund stalks, heart-shaped pale green leafs with white petals.
In tandem with the wild angelica, this short-lived perennial or annual, a bearer of purple hued stems and oval umbels of tiny white or pale pink flowers in the latter part of summer.
To say the least stunning and temporary immobiliser of my feet
Up a scattered thin crystal  slope that taxes the bones but fleetingly.
Tangents of a hazy backcloth from an impactful first light as well.
I am an urban setting lover at heart but dream of importing even mentally the joys of city surrounds and outskirts
At the top of the slope I’m  facing an antiquated though charming farmhouse which in some quaint way had a town allure with modern radio  music in circulation.
Asiatic motif decorative urns did abound on close inspection.
Another sign and synonym for city life.
“Shrieks of children in the environs. And the waft of nutritious food to boot.”
I digress but only momentarily.
This is something that I the wanderer often did.
I had the liberty at this stage to explore my inner and outer world whilst wearing out all my shoe leather.
“Relationships of the deep personal kind and what was going on around me never sacrificed.”
Not in the strict sense though my imagination at times for events and things were both endearing asset and cumbersome “liability.”
My thoughts circulating like directionless traffic.
The previous love of my existence somehow uncannily disappeared at least from my circle and cycle of events.

It was a gradual fading that was just barely palpable.
So many times this had happened.
All this as I am heading towards the nearest ineffable   town of charms.
I was in the privileged position to indulge this bohemian lifestyle.
The drifter, the migrant, the wanderer who paused by doing casual work as top up.
There were full time posts too.
“Oops …. hello ?
Be careful
I saw you earlier.
Muttering I think about trenches and dykes.”
Two ladies oozing charisma and cordiality.
Imagine I hadn’t even noticed?
They both were casually wrapped to greet that morning sting one can encounter in all enchanting millieus.
They probably thought I was a clueless tourist.
A close friend once said of me I’m almost lost inside myself.
Though it never really interfered with my relationships
I revert to  these two ladies were they,  Chloe or Clementine not quite cognisant due to  inconvenient frosted gust:

“Oh please don’t worry.
I haven’t a heightened sixth sense… about the mint infused lilt here.”
There must be a compass without a point surrounding me
“Looking for directions.
The town you’re seeking is a few winding roads and rusted signposts away.”
They both beamed at me.
Something told me they seemed very familiar but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
Some light hearted banter followed
I’m used to dreaming a lot whilst on “ FOOT,”
Meter and metaphor.
The lyrical metaphor for those  feet who endure my
“pilgrimages.”
Quaint but quite symbolic of this wider something.
Often the way with what appears to be a lone drifter but who also loves company.
An hour must have passed but these ladies and their crisp morning diction seemed to emanate from a distance either of something outside of me or without somehow.
A life style of my own choice was born by these shoes I wear.
I’d say the footwear would have many’s the mind boggling narrative  to reveal.
Perhaps the old toes whose mild ache always a signal of a bizarre side to what passes as that composite of a constellation called my personality.
The care I actually shower on them.
They the feet  had perforce their parlance.
Almost as if I had this relationship with them.
They really owe me nothing in the totality of things yet I owe them everything
All these thoughts swirling round in my head.
“Hey you great  to see a stranger talking to themselves about the shoes they wear.
Huh.”
Blunt, person or what.
Seemed like a red faced moment as I kept walking so briskly
Must keep my lips sealed but somehow I might also be heard murmur.
Like a saga writing itself ahead of any action on my part.
“Was that some bus heading towards town.
Their sound interrupting sumptuous hills and sinusoidal roads whose puckered surfaces like the human face, had this history enigmatically embedded.
For eons I’ve been absorbing
myriads of ankle strain tufted trigonometric pathways that zigzag merry dances to spots deemed inchoate, shrouded in either flighty tenants whose restless drive  and elliptical engagements mythify them even more.
As I have trudge so many   roads that weep blisters in the sweltered sun, astute bewilderment makes me notice despite everything.
Each town, city, village  seems to have that magnetic pull.
It’s almost as if their features  were coalescing.
Whilst immersed in some inner spark, insight on the sole, “sou,” of the feet whose influence engross me, I suddenly snap to.

“An imposing weather gouged erosive irregular hollowed  fissure and fragment dark pepper shale alignment had been vacuously  tossed.
Waiting to be scooped for other backdrops.”
A thought occurred when in random awe of visions transient
A ruby hue twig  moiety of tree houses and ornate rocks as  ensemble were quite visible.
“They have the telltale sign of obscure pedigree etched in their features.”
Damon’s words now streaming in surreal vortices internally.
They those self same words now tumbling outside of me in audible mutters.
“Very strange but I’ll keep going.
It’s been my way of life over the past 20 years as I departed from each safe sanctuary.
At least to outward appearance “
Deep thinker roused by what seems or appears to be.
“Where am I going?
I have drifted from city to city.
Town to town.
Almost as if I’m a fugitive from something.
Driven by human frame momentum and spurred notions.
Damon at this point afraid to view his environs in the eye.
“Do you  want a lift or what?
Wake up, You could do with an alarm clock.
You look like someone kind of lost in a way.
On the way.”
A woman’s voice whose face was mysteriously covered but had a rather familiar outline.
Her rickey car had seen better days but uncannily weaved a story.
A fable, a script I’m not sure that I’m an integral part of.
“Another car zoomed by.
It appeared to stop for a second and then moved on.
Was that a designated security vehicle?”
My feet always a close ally  were began  to refashion   my intellect.
Fleet of foot, flight of mind.
Rocky roads, hillocks, even glimpses of another townscape nirvana were  assembly lines now.
Dizziness doesn’t even begin to paint on that canvass known to me and others as my imagination.
“Hey deep thinker … still peering at that ditch opposite our town school.”
Out of nowhere an airy looping question plonked at an awkward time.
“Your  next class on the power of the mind  and creativity in half an hour.
Don’t be late.
But you’ve always been a great walker n talker.”
Damon stupefied and transfixed as his left foot always his best foot saved him.
“I nearly toppled over into a stream I thought I had abandoned but did I?”
Damon to himself who just wandered has his  mind now a life of its own.
Has it self writing capacity?
Along with his “sidekicks” his feet.
“Chloe … Clem. I won’t delay.
I have been rummaging mountains of files.
Looking for another something for my class.”
The thinker again.
One wonders have I ever been to these “towns” I have referred to.
“Oh, one of your former partners was enquiring about you.
They rang me.
She said she passed on the road…. at some point!
Recently! “
Chloe, said this lady was cross I didn’t really recognise her.
“Maybe I will get to this special somewhere…. one day.
With someone
Maybe it’s always been right there AT MY FEET.”
I feel glued to an attachment in one spot but for how long?
“I’ll let the mind and feet sort that one out.”
Damon in a whisper  as Chloe beckoned!