Nomadness , livre ebook

About the Author
David Waterhouse was raised during his early years in Portsmouth, UK, and attended Southern Grammar School for Boys. On leaving school, he attended Highbury Catering College, graduating with City and Guilds to start his career in catering and hospitality.
He joined large catering companies, eventually rising to the position of area catering manager, and eventually becoming operations director.
He moved to Wales in 1994 settling in Aberdare before eventually moving to Carmarthen in order to run a small inn in a village called Caio.
He is currently living in Cyprus, having moved there from Carmarthenshire in 2019.


David Waterhouse
Nomadness




Copyright © David Waterhouse 2022
The right of David Waterhouse to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781398420038 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781398420045 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First published 2022
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®
1 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E 14 5 AA


For Harry (Henry Guy Grainge)


Age
Age
I see the beauty in you
Whose steady gaze looks out through deeper folds
and holds more answers now than questions.
Transfixed by you, I am held to my full account.
What horrors leap into the depths of these sad orbs?
And creep about as shadows in the dimming light.
What murky memories swim in darkness
Schooling just beneath this day’s incoming light?
What bright hopes crept to the edge?
Were brilliant, then oh so quickly died?
These eyes reflect the crowd that rushes by
to save some enhungered human fate.
But miss the beauty, that beauty of
the golden treasury of man.
But I see them, their teary stares
and ever blinking truth.
They speak to me of sweeter days
when love was stolen, mined from golden veins.
And the world had yet to yield its mysteries
Age I see you,
You are beautiful to me.
Age
I see the beauty in you
Your limbs are bent and bowed, your back is folding
with the burden of this overbearing load.
Was it gravity, or expectation that stole
the sinew and the muscle, surrendered to a Master’s cause?
Did you carry more than just your own
upon those broad and trusted shoulders?
These bones bleached white and hollow
your marrow fed the march of progress
And fumbling hands reached out for strands
of innocence that trailed beyond your hopeless grasp.
And, on these shoulders sit twin sisters, guilt and shame
then bow towards the Saviour’s Holy Gate.
All bones caught in the steady march of time
surrender to the greedy tongue of evil fate.
But they remember midnight dances
and timeless walks in summer grasses.
They remember youth, that fleeting phantasm
of bright hope and breathless ambition
and the thief of many brighter futures.
Age I see you
You are beautiful to me.
Age
I see the beauty in you
Your skin the roadmap of your exiled past
and the chart of all your gathering years.
Each fold and crease a valley
filled with desperation and despair.
And every darkening blotch a triumph
over harsh and puritan demands.
How many times your canvas stained
with scarlet red and livid blue?
With scars that tell the tale and stand
as scruffy reference to your oft remembered pain.
How many lovers willing hands caressed your wide expanse?
And sent delicious shivers racing to your grateful soul?
Then through the gathering years your skin will
keep the memory of those gentle soothing hands.
To bring again to mind through bitter winter days
and pleasant summer nights among the vines.
And aide you through life’s vale of tears.
Age I see you
So beautiful to me.
Age
I see the beauty in you
Your hands of paper dance from trembling arms
that steal the air
And knotty bony fingers describe the
shape of the world that you constructed.
These hands that reached for loved ones dear
And grasped them as the beast drew near.
These hands that held the nursling babe
and others held the hammer and the scythe.
And were the ceaseless engines that
described the clamour of the reaching world.
How many times ago did these hands
ball into a fist or deftly smooth a troubled brow?
Then hold a pen to write sweet words of love
or maybe leave a message for the waiting world.
Calloused hands the affirmation of your lifetimes toil
each knot and gnarl a grim and sad reminder.
And shaky fingers drum the record
of each pain and pleasure, so like antennas.
And tenderly describe the tale of our forgotten history.
Age, I see you
So beautiful to me.
Age
I see the beauty in you
Your voice that sang so many lullabies
told so many tales, and spoke so many lies.
So rich in middle years with timbre
and such depth, but now I catch the falter.
This voice so full of pure emotion
its humble tones depressed by service of devotion.
The prayers upon your lips, the pleas inside your heart
your voice described them to a heartless God.
And now your voice so thin, still asks the question why
this God has left you all alone to die.
Yet is your voice less loosely strung when cast across
the failing of your weakening lung?
Still rising into laughter when memories call
of foolishness when life was oh so young.
Then joyfulness as dreams recalled
the heady drug of new beginning love.
Oh voice you sang so sweetly then
but now you carry only dust and phlegm
and never reach the ears of younger men.
Age I see you
You are beautiful to me.
Age
I see the beauty in you
I see the hope that weary brow enjoys
against a changing world that moves away.
I feel the weight of it that hangs about you
now like old and withered leaves
Each day a shallow victory over life’s great audit
and each night, a journey into darker fears
Yes hope, you breathe it in like oxygen
as fate decrees a stay of execution once again.
And hope, the fuel that drives the soul
to dare to dream and fool the quickening brain.
Dress ambition up with hope and take it
where it would fain go, and courage take it further.
The debt is paid now, you are free
make hope the author of your works and keep them closer.
For let bright hope inflate and swallow darkness
and hope become the master of its bold prophecy.
Then dream your dreams, shrinking them
to fit your shrinking world and sigh once more at truth.
And balance then your life, with life’s atrocity.
Age I see you
You are beautiful to me
Age
I see the beauty in you.
I am your witness true, I hold your years
within the pages of my ledger.
I made your eyes to see, your ears to hear
your heart to break and your soul to yearn.
The love I gave was yours to squander
or to cherish and burn to cinders in eternal fire.
I was there when your jagged cries pierced the air
whilst loving arms welcomed you into a world of care.
My proud eyes watched as you grew to Manhood
and then beyond as your waters trickled down.
Now you have aged and you wear your life
like an old coat, you know its twisted seams.
And its familiar scent as it settles around your shoulder
Warming your bones as your sun wanes colder.
You, the witness then of many longer, darker days
and of laughter echoed down through salty years.
A silent witness who could only watch on in despair
as the world was sucked into man’s greedy plan.
And cling to sweeter memories burnished bright with age.
Age I see you
More beautiful to me than ever.
Age
I see the beauty in you
Time, the thief comes a-plundering to your golden vault
and steals the sunlight from your future days.
As you walk slowly down a darkening lane
and the faces of old loves come haunting in the night.
The inexorable march of time carries you aloft a tidal wave
as you stare into the void and see yourself reflected.
Time, the precious currency that trickles from your treasury
you are a salmon that swims upstream against the rush of memory.
And then out to sea to swim toward some bold eternity.
I have seen your beauty oh my handsome friend
time has loved you and will love you to the end.
For you have played the game and played it well
given more, and taken less, the story of your great account.