Florescent green banners snaking
in the blue;
Polaris over my head,
such beacons of the kingdom
drawing like a magnet,
beckoning closer to ice smothered peaks
of estranged lands;
the incessant drum of the shaman,
ancestors screaming from my heart,
imploring me: “Remember this.”
Copyright Francis Barker 2020
Of course
you were always there;
I still see those dark eyes
like warm pools of love,
such intimacy poisoning
nearby attention.
And whilst jealousy
and estrangement
have enmeshed silence
around us ever since —
family is everything,
it’s all we have to
fall back on,
to stand up to those
moving to destroy us.
So mother, I honour you,
archetype in my mind,
fulcrum of my heart:
And may siblings forgive
each other.
Copyright Francis Barker 2020
It was at the Turner Exhibition.
Hutchings was a quiet lad, for a copper;
he had a passion which no one suspected — and it got him killed.
I took the call and we all piled ’round.
There he was, wrapped up in bubble wrap,
sequestered in the store room
next to ‘Snow Storm’; not one of my favourites.
Someone had taken a scalpel to him,
a right mess he was, poor lad.
When we got to his flat there were art books all over,
though not a morsel in the fridge. Evidently Hutchings —
I shall call him George — used to feed on art.
https://what3words.com/Feed.quiet.copper
Copyright Francis Barker 2020
He said his name was Jophar Vorin, that he was looking for his long lost brother. I showed him a map, though it only seemed to confuse him more. “Where was Sakria and Euplar?” he asked. The funny thing was… we truly believed him.
Finally the Berlin authorities took Jophar; we never heard of him again — except in our endless musings ever since. I have to say it, I think the most enlightening speculation was written by you, my dear friend: “We look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time.”
Copyright Francis Barker 2020
Lychgates, also sometimes called resurrection gates, are a curious English (though not exclusively) phenomenon.
The name derives from the Old English word lych, or lich, meaning body, referring to entrance to the churchyard though which the body of the deceased was carried. This was seen as the beginning of the path towards resurrection by being buried in holy ground.
In medieval times, signs and symbols carried a lot of weight as most of the population were illiterate. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to think that signs and symbols don’t carry as much weight today. We just have to read and understand them.
Ciscography 