Heaven Has No Fences – dedicated to the memory of the 800 migrants who died this last weekend
Posted: April 21, 2015 Filed under: Poem | Tags: birds, blue sky., democracy, Heaven, Italy, Migration, UNHCR 8 Commentsthis poem was written six years ago, but, in the light of the tragic events of this week, has a renewed resonance for me. Rest well.
Heaven Has No Fences
In our world……
The sky is blue bolted and stilled,
spring washed and not yet
summer stilted.
I lay in the garden
gazing across the Bay,
a chiff chaff summoning, bell like trilling,
unwittingly willing to add thrill to
a Sunday evening revelry.
Earlier, we walked along the Nevern,
woodlands pin pricked by wood anemones,
bolstered by wild garlic
and the first blue bells creeping skywards.
Nothing untoward until
an owl, a tawny streak,
chased by a furious blackbird
disappeared, chastened perhaps
into the green tented, splintered tree tops.
In your world……
Dawn, presumably, could not come too soon
as you fought your way to the side,
galvanized by the hope a passing cargo ship
might provide.
The Mediterranean, at one point
a moonlit, blank canvas,
the next moments, a swirling scramble,
angry abstract patterns, peopled by those
in extreme, ultimate, unimagined distress.
And beyond……
I must confess,
a shared sense of hopelessness,
the frustration that our two worlds can be
so far flung, heart strung,
devastatingly beautiful
and one almighty mess.
The awfulness of what drove you on
the headlong rush to emigrate
is likewise tough to contemplate.
In part, I too must bear the burden
for these casting votes of carelessness.
Life, the casual combination of magic and loss,
toil, sweat, leisure, excess
the daily, weekly, yearly struggle,
the explosion of the senses.
Can leave my mind muddled, confused,
my values and principles
shadowed, huddled
assaulted by the restless flow of news.
But one thing, for me,
remains as clear as morning dew :
heaven has no fences.
Mediterranean migrants
13,500
Migrants rescued 10-17 April
1,600
Feared to have died attempting the crossing so far this year
- 35,000 Migrants have arrived from North Africa in 2015
- 218,000 Estimated to have crossed the Mediterranean in 2014
- 3,500 Migrants died attempting the crossing last year
Source: UNHCR
What is this all about?
Posted: April 21, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Helen Carey, Marcism Today, Pembrokeshire, Photography, poems, Poetry, themarcistagenda, Wales 11 Comments
Welcome to the Marcist Agenda.
It’s all about –
POETRY – My latest poetry collection, Marcism Today, is available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk 
PHOTOGRAPHY – I want to share images , from day to day life, work (and other) travels, sometimes landscapes, sometimes people or animals, and also quirky little things, odd angles, that catch my eye, and might please yours? More of these can be found on our website at http://www.thestudioatpenrallt.co.uk
HELEN CAREY’S BOOKS – And finally, I want to direct you towards the work of my favourite writer, my wife Helen Carey, because, if you like what I write – you’ll LOVE what she writes! see Helen’s page here on this blog.
So, here it is, The Marcist Agenda – please read on, hope you will enjoy and be stimulated by what you see and I would very much like to hear back from you on what you read.
Faster than a herd of turtles! Cheers! Marc
Two poems, remembering Andrew (dedicated to Janet, and all the family).
Posted: December 1, 2021 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment
Andrew died a year ago today, after a long and harrowing illness. He was 43. He loved kite surfing, and was a great, green fingered gardener.
We all miss him.
These poems were written on the night of his death. And they are in honour of his memory.
A vigil (for Andrew)
In the still of midnight
As November closed the door
And moonlight silvered the new born
December night skies
I lay awake
Half listening to
Gregorian plain chant
Mesmerising
Soothing
I could only think about you
Wishing you
Willing you
Safe passage on this
your fateful journey
Knowing that
In the morning
Granted that we should see
The
Ever startling sunrise
Our being alive
Must feel
Somehow
As if it was
unjust.
Kitesurfing
“I have slipped the surly bonds of earth”
There’s a garden here
Fat with beetroot, leeks, peas and tomatoes
Dripping with the scent of sweet peas
Michaelmas daisies, wallflowers and foxgloves
Bursting skywards.
I’ve tended them well,
Worked this good earth
And loved it too
But now
Must leave.
For the winds are rising
Sending sand scurrying
Whale blowing gouts of foam
caressing Cat Rock
Surf scudding
The sea is greeting
Beckoning
The great kite sail unfurled
I’m ready
Psyched up, Adrenalin fuelled and eager
Holding steady
Gripping
Hearts eased and alive
Taken up
Fast flung skywards
The beach unfolding below
The waves unwrapping
And I’m soaring
Aloft where the gulls, oyster catchers, osprey make flight
Breath taking and beautiful
Exhilaration beyond delight.
There was a time
when
I’d return
To all that’s best
But now
I fly,
Unfettered, uncaring
Spiralling
Corkscrewing
Splitting the sunset
Silhouetting
Pirouetting
Set loose and
Free as a bird
Migrating
Heading into the West.
Marc Mordey 1st and 2nd December 2020
Visiting Eirian and Denys
Posted: November 23, 2021 Filed under: Poem 7 Commentsa poem written to celebrate our friendship with these two, truly extraordinary people.
I called by yesterday
To deliver a batch of tomatoes
Our last crop of the year
Vermilion, golden globed jewels.
Eirian took time out from the crossword
And we talked
A little of life and it’s encumbrances
Something too of death and it’s devices,
And the precious quality of being together, today.
Your lives are so enriching
The palette you offer is fulsome , enlightening, enlivening
To eat at your table is to leave full and satisfied
Good humours, great stories, glimpses of the past
Feet firmly in the present
That’s your gift to us.
You’ve embroidered your talents into the very fabric of life.
Sculpted pathways for us to travel
Bedecked gardens with parasols and wooden waves
Touched so many people
In so very many ways.
Illustrated, truly, the ‘joy of painting’
Stitched affection into so many hearts
Made glorious artworks
To gladden the days.
Marc Mordey
5/11/2021
Two rabbits a poem on 9/11.
Posted: September 11, 2021 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Poetry, Remembrance 3 CommentsThis poem was written whilst walking above the beach at Bournemouth. Like so many others, having watched events unfold a few days before, I was filled with a sense of dread, of uncertainty and of shock. And yet, even then, a name etched in sand caught my eye, a message of love? And the rabbits carried on, unmoved. This poem is dedicated to everyone who has lost loved ones, across the world, across the great divide, as a consequence of 9/11.
Two rabbits,
oblivious to
two towers tumbling
and thousands of
subsequent oblivions.
Sometimes we forget
that telegraph poles
were once trees,
and that great civilisations,
and their emblems,
never lose their capacity to lose their dominion
and be brought,
awesomely, abruptly,
to their knees.
In the sands at Bournemouth
Someone has scraped a name –
Caitlyn.
I hope it was the work of a lover.
For we must remember,
That love’s constancy
aims to please.
Meantime,
we are all but as rabbits,
caught in the twin beams of headlights
and impending oblivion.
For Afghanistan
Posted: August 13, 2021 Filed under: Uncategorized 2 CommentsI remember
floating down in a DC10
high above your sand scarred landscape.
Bullets were flying in Kabul, even then,
and we could not stay and see
but were removed, despatched, transient.
It was 1982
when I made fleeting acquaintance with you
and I had hoped, one day,
to return. Anew.
But now, the only offering I can make
is to place an orange flower in a green, gold vase
and hope, wish, it might burn bright for you
in this time of stunting, brutal war.
And trust that
in some desert flowered future view
Afghanistan 🇦🇫 might green once more.
EMPTY SPACES. Dedicated to Dot (Dorothy) and Harry Mordey.
Posted: March 10, 2021 Filed under: Poem | Tags: Poetry 3 CommentsPOEMS OFTEN BREW WITHIN ME FOR DAYS, SOMETIMES WEEKS, AND ESPECIALLY WHEN I AM WALKING ON CARNINGLI.
THEN, SOMETIMES, THEY COME TO THE BOIL.
THIS ONE IS MADE TODAY, FOLLOWING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF AN AUNT.
COVID 19 HAS, THUS FAR, TAKEN THE LIVES OF WELL OVER 2.5 MILLION PEOPLE.
STALIN IS OFTEN QUOTED AS HAVING SAID ” 1 DEATH IS A TRAGEDY. A MILLION DEATHS IS A STATISTIC.”
THIS POEM IS FOR EVERYONE WHO HAS SUFFERED LOSS – DIRECTLY OR OTHERWISE – TO THE RAVAGES OF THE PANDEMIC… MOTHERS, FATHERS, BROTHERS, SISTERS, CHILDREN, GRANDPARENTS, UNCLES, AUNTS, FRIENDS.
please remember them
Across the world,
Empty spaces…
A silhouette no longer framed on the Savannah
In Wyoming, a horse remains unsaddled
Red dirt unbroken in a Senegalese plot
A Russian doll that won’t be dissembled
A Spanish hacienda deserted
An Italian meal untasted
In Japan a temple flag is unobserved
An ice hole, unfished
A desert tent, entrance unused
A rice field abandoned
A new crop not to be harvested
A quilt unfinished
Families, diminished.
The favoured seat in the pub abandoned now.
A classic car, unfired.
A paddle board beached.
Knitting unravelled.
A tractor untended.
A camera shuttered.
A guitar untuned.
A song unsung.
A bed unmade.
A bycicle rusting.
A dog forlorn.
A doll abandoned.
A spinning wheel, not turning.
A pen no longer picked up.
A spade, rusting in a cobwebbed greenhouse.
A boat, sails stowed, bobs alone on the estuary.
Clothes are folded away, no longer needed.
Books, never to be read
Dreams unfulfilled
Puzzles that no longer perplex
Letters never sent
An empty seat in a synagogue
An empty pew in the Chapel
A prayer mat in the mosque stays folded
The graveyards fat with memories.
Grass grows untended
A tweed jacket hangs forlorn
Flowers fail
Broken items that would have been mended
A driving lesson not given
A telephone call no longer to be expected
Empty beds
Empty sofas
Empty rooms
Empty wardrobes
Empty chairs
Loved ones lost
To everyone
Everywhere
“I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there’s no room for the present at all.” (Brideshead Revisited)
My Columbine Valentine. For H B-C-M
Posted: February 14, 2021 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentTwo years ago now, we were at sea! The sentiments expressed here though are before, contemporary and beyond. It’s all for you. Thank you. From the heart.
My seaside Valentine
If I could choose
Just one
Moment in time
To take ahead with me
Into unfathomable eternity
Governed by uncertain deity
Then
It would be
Standing Forward
Bedecked by you
( and, in my mind’s eye,
two ghost dogs
standing by)
On our voyage sublime
Watching the watery world slide by
The Pacific, painted by
Glacial blues
Awake
Gelato cream confusion
Melting into the black mirrored swell
As scimitar shaped birds
Slice the crested waves
Balletic marine fencers
Weaving, careening and
En Garde!
Hunting
The ocean’s ceaselessly hungering mouth
Restless, inscrutable, immutable
Breathing, deep water scheming
Its owners have
But scant regard
for our lumbering vessel –
Man made iron muscle –
Outflanked and bested
By shearwater and petrel
Undone by dolphin and iridescent Dorado.
It is as though we were
Tipping over the Equator
Outstripping day and date
Adventuring, ever southwards
Our ship in full spate
Speed baffling knots
Nautical miles
Our beating hearts rate.
Yes!
This would be the moment I’d choose to take.
With
You
and I
Yours and mine
Atlantic,
Caribbean
Pacific
To be specific
My salt spray adored
My seaside companion
My maritime best friend
My own worlds end
My sweetwater , Columbine
Valentine
13/2/19
Looking for a great read? Hurry along to http://helencareybooks.co.uk
Cam ceilog – on “the quickening of the year”
Posted: February 5, 2021 Filed under: Photo, Poem | Tags: Candlemas, Carningli Dairy, Imbolc, Milk, NHS, Vaccines 4 CommentsDylan delivers our milk,
Rich, creamy, butter yellow white
Blessed by mountain angels and Swiss cows
Each mouthful, pure delight.
It is 5:15 pm when he pulls into the yard
And Dinas Head still shimmers with duskling light
Dog days of January,
Murky, misty Saturday night.
“It’s as if the year is taking chicken steps” he says
The longer days are creeping into being.
Cam ceilog.
And he drove on
Much more for him to do.
This week gifted us Candlemas,
“Imbolc” as the Celts would have it.
Crocus, snowdrops, wild primrose
All peeping through the coming grass
Finca scrambling the old stone walls
And two daffodils crowning the cairn
On a windswept, frosted Carningli,
Bracken brown dejected.
Meanwhile,
Others also work long days,
On into the darkness
Injecting fresh hope
Raising possibilities of renewal.
Diminishing at least a portion
Of year long
Gloom and fear.
Salutations to our NHS
Raise a glass to
The milk of human kindness
Toast
Cam ceilog
And the quickening of the year.
Somewhere, there’s hope…
Posted: December 21, 2020 Filed under: Photo, Poem | Tags: optimism 3 CommentsTo all friends who are generous enough to follow this blog, THANK YOU.
I have created a few (though nothing like as many as in previous times) poems during 2020, but, being honest, the creative impulse has been subdued, and what I have written is, well, just too dark for now at least. But, awake at 4 a.m. today (the shortest day of the year) these thoughts, this offering, came to mind. As with all my poetry, I don’t lay great claims to it, but…it’s from the heart, and it is my gift for you.
Take care out there, stay safe and well. And here’s to better days ahead, for our world, for us all, in 2021.
Greetings and good fortune. Yours Aye!
Marc
A young writer sits at home
The first novel just a glimpse in the mind’s eye
The pen, flourished.
The paper, anticipating
A Jane Austen for today
Ready and waiting.
Elsewhere, a teenager moodily lifts the guitar,
Strums newly acquired chords,
Maps out phrases, tinkers with words
And a new ‘Blue’ emerges
Blowing the critics away.
As scales are lifted from blinkered eyes
Fresh minted, eager new leaders
(they’ve life experience of climate change)
No longer question
No longer deny
And radical policies
Practical actions
Arise.
In a home some place
A 100 year old man
Father, grandfather and much more besides
Breathes out, smiles, gently sighs
Reviewing a long life
Well lived, hard won
And, despite great age,
Not yet done.
In a laboratory far away
A new graduate scientist explores
The microbe kaleidoscoped,
Micro-scoped miracles of life,
Her imagination slides, breaks free
Then, a pause
Before the new formula,
The world beating solution
Is born.
In one country
A child reels and spins a home-made hoop
Around a sand dusted yard.
In another
One young man, cocooned
Navigating his kayaked world,
With snow, ice, cold cracking floes
Seal whirled and polar beared
For both
Life is fun
Though life is hard.
In my dreamed of world
Zealots lay down the gun, the sword
Share faith, philosophy, thought
With believer and non-believer alike
Arguing
Yes
Hating
No
Accepting that seeing life differently
Ought not be seen
As something unacceptable
Untoward.
In a year gone by
We all shared
So much sadness
Such awful pain
Collective madness
Greed, disdain.
Who cared?
Who really cared?
How does one cope?
In a room
Nearby
A sometime poet
Wrote
Somewhere there’s hope
Somewhere
There’s hope…
A poem for Remembrance Sunday
Posted: November 11, 2020 Filed under: Poem | Tags: Army, civilians, Navy, Poppies, Poppy Day, Poppy Day Remembrance Army Navy RAF WW1 WW2 WW11, Remembrance Sunday, WW1, WW2 1 CommentThis is an older poem, but the sentiment, for me, remains the same. I hope it is worthy…
Remembrance Sunday.
What would you have had us remember?
As you mustered in the trenches,
Around the gun emplacements.
As you hopped into the cockpit
And flung yourself skywards,
Or plumbed the depths
Submerged and submarined?
Should we remember your bravery?
Your mockery? Your cynicism in the face of duty?
Your gut wrenching anxiety,
Your fear, your mortal pain,
As you were killed and wounded,
Again and again and again?
Do the flags, the parades,
The preachers, the cavalcades,
Act as sufficient homage?
Or would peace, justice, equality
Be more deserving of your patronage?
But whichever,
It is true.
We must continue,
To remember you.
Always Rosemary
Posted: September 21, 2020 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: World Alzheimer's Day 10 CommentsThe 21st September is World Alzheimer’s Day. This poem, written five years ago, is dedicated to my mother in law, Rosemary, who lived alongside of Alzheimer’s for a number of years.
Sleeping now.
May your blanket be woven of spring time threads,
and flamespun from the azalea outside your window,
wild garlic fattening the woodland paths,
your fields, bested by bluebells,
Welsh oak, wild cherry, the rising sound
of saplings, keening in the breeze.
The crushed camelia heads that cushion the verge
below the trees
that you loved to see
as we were Fishguard, ferry bound.
Red petals gracing too, the secret garden,
where, a few snatched weeks ago,
we picked for you
Derek’s daffodils,
lingering strong and plump,
golden on your windowsill.
Sea thrift and campion binding the two Heads,
Dinas and Morfa dipping Westwards,
unwittingly majestic and yet, now, forlorn.
No longer held in your view.
Yet you loved to look out over these landmarks,
contemplating, ruminating,
reflecting perhaps,
on kinder, gentler days,
as you stared across the Bay
sometime sea shimmered,
at others, murk misted
and
“Can’t see Dinas Head’, you’d say.
But cliffs and headlands prevail,
rock steady,
as you well knew,
through older age and illness,
stoically surviving,
cup of tea reviving,
discomfort, trauma,
bravely borne.
Ages slipped by, unwittingly,
as such they do,
and gradually,
and I am sure,
unwillingly
you gathered your very self in,
breathed deep,
withdrew.
Harder to distinguish then
your hopes, your fears,
the altered state
the change of mind.
Some things are, it seems,
beyond the ken
of us, the ones to remain behind.
Left, bereft,
to nurse your memory,
there must be laughter,
there will be tears.
But for all that changed,
across these widowed years,
you remained
a smile,
a crossword clue determined
a flash of will.
And of this I am,
ever certain,
always Rosemary,
somewhere,
it might seem to be
adrift,
yet fixed,
blossoming still.
Resting now,
sure enough and
ready to greet us
from
behind the ethereal, floating curtain.
themarcistagenda 