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Friday 27 September 2019

the trouble with packing


so here I am again
a strange town
a different place a new home
pack and unpack is what I do
you might almost say
i have a degree in moving
a masters in mulling over memories
brought back to mind
in the sorting of the past
which to let go
which to hold close
wrap it up
held safe in tissue and bubble wrap
boxed transported
then unwrapped again
each new place is different
each memory is the same
others settle and grow roots
my life is motion
new faces new experiences
to incorporate
in all the places of yesterday
do I wish a life more stable
more the same
do I long for friends so far away
for family and familiar faces
I always have I always will
but I am only me
because the road of life
has always called my name
Copyright © 2018 by Eryll Oellermann

Monday 4 September 2017

who ...

who are you
for me you are ...
sunlight and shade
the first song
of nature's awakening
the rush of winter wind
which steals my breath away
white sands, blue seas
dolphins surfing translucent waves
you bring me
the magic of our incredible world
the sound of your voice
familiar poetry
the love in your eyes 
my heart's desire
no beginning, no end
the gods of love
bring priceless offerings
unexpected joys
the unforgettable experience
of loving you
welcome home
my anam cara 


Copyright ©  Eryll Oellermann 2017

Tuesday 11 July 2017

in the summer time ...

and i'm watching Wimbledon! I don't watch tennis, well, i never used to but obviously my increasing years have changed me and now I do... sometimes.

summertime in Scotland, long, long days of light, short nights, the darkness hardly arrived before banishment and the return of light. I stress light because summer time in Scotland does not necessarily mean sunshine!

The rain still falls, warmer, gentler and not every single day. the grass fields grow green and tall and tractors work through the long light nights harvesting . The wheat turns gold and massive combine harvesters take in the crop, followed by a posse of sea gulls flown inland for the feast of the killing fields. Those giant blades take their toll on the small creatures who have chosen to make their lives amidst the living growing world of the wheat fields.


Tuesday 11 April 2017

a long goodbye


i am in heaven but also in hell
don't know you at all yet i know you so well
we are together and yet i am quite alone
you only wake up to my voice on the phone
you say “oh my love i was thinking of you,
when are you coming are you missing me too”
is it wrong, is it cruel to reach across time
and remind you once more that your heart is mine
is using the magic of “remember when we ...”
a cruel waste of time which is damaging me
questions repeated, no knowledge retained
that magnificent memory now gradually drained
this awful progression eroding your mind
as the weeks pass us by you are harder to find
i know in my heart that i should stay away
but the light of your love so brightens my day
so i guess i'll keep calling till one day you don't know
the voice on the phone and who still loves you so


Copyright © 2017 by Eryll Oellermann

Monday 13 June 2016

writer's write

so i guess, you are a writer if you write.

i never considered myself a writer because in happiness i am a word desert.
cut me, make me bleed and the force of my misery opens wide the floodgates of the word.

am i miserable at the moment? hell yeah!
what or who caused this anxt, this unease, this painful sense of loss?
why who else but me, myself!

five years ago i met the one who should have been my future and my happily ever after.
i stress should have ...
i, myself was so busy dragging around left over luggage from my previous excursion into a relationship that i completely neglected the present in which i found myself.

i think too much. often times i think too much of me, myself and not enough of those delightful, delicate and occasionally difficult souls who have chosen to share their life's journey with me!

an interesting concept ...
but as i am attempting to write instead of over thinking i will move on.

so there i was, loaded down with relationship luggage, a thoroughly confused, arrogant and let's admit it - oft' times selfish human being.

being human is our reason for existence, we are born unknowing and therefore innocent. our journey begins, skills are achieved, facts are learned and emotions experienced. we acquire knowledge but not necessarily wisdom.
wisdom takes time.
the lessons of life, the pain of failure, of loss, the heady draft of success, the joy of loving and being loved. the realization of one's own mortality.
the confusion caused when one comes to understand that being wrong is a human condition and that sincere apologies will not always right the wrong we have caused.
these are the basics, only the beginning of the path to wisdom.

so, it appears, i have been a little side tracked and wandered into the realm of ... waxing philosophical.

back to me, myself and the unfolding enigma of my life.

the animal doctor and i spent the next five years co-habiting and sometimes not. we were different in so many ways and i often felt an urge, a desire to be free of the chains of intimacy and co existence - i am an idiot.
now i am not attempting to give the impression that the animal doctor was perfect in every way. hell no! definitely not perfect but pretty damned patient and, in love with me, myself.

until one day i left, again, quite sure that i was so neglected and ignored, convinced that the animal doctor was totally self absorbed and quite unworthy of me, myself.  that was the last time i would haul my self righteous arse out of our mutual home! the animal doctor did not want me back. the desire for self preservation had evidently kicked in.

too late i am come to realize that what we had, had value beyond pride, beyond self interest. what we had was a little magic. a coming together of two souls in a lonely world. we had forever and i fucked it up.

there is always hope. hope of forgiveness, hope of friendship, even hope that love will triumph one last time.

hope is a thought, an emotion, a far journey from the reality of what is.
in all these years i have learned a little wisdom. i have learned that the acceptance of 'what is' is the only path to peace.
my objective is peace.
the journey forward, the road to acceptance is pain and loss, the keening wail of regret come too late.

and so i write again.
the haunting

and so the haunting begins
unable to reach out and hold
the yielding warmth of beloved flesh
you stalk my dreams
so real my mind constructs you
that when I wake, I turn to find you
reminded over and again
of the final emptiness
my life without you

and you should never doubt
that you are loved
complete and whole for who you are
and I the fool
who realized too late
that love is more than place and time
love is the shared dream of tomorrow
love is the instant shared
love is yesterday forgiven
all less than perfect
overlooked for the sake of forever

for who would plead for perfection
when they had love

copyright © 2016 by Eryll Oellermann

Tuesday 31 May 2016

of cardboard construction

I wonder why I spend so much of my life
going back when I knew better
that is how it was for me
the desire to leave and then the need to return
to try again to read with understanding
the book I had so carelessly opened
the book so stilted and full of secrets
which I in my delightful arrogance
sought to understand
fought to uncover the depths which must be there
hidden perhaps by fear and rage
until one day I understood
the mask was all there was
and when it fell
I saw into the empty eyes of hell
alien beyond belief
without mercy or compassion
a creation entirely constructed to protect
nothing
I had shared five years of my life
with a shadow of the missing
wisdom come late is still wisdom
I turned on my heel and sped away
from the uninhabited depths of those eyes
gone, the need to return
I took the blade and probed memories held
and cut them free
as I tore from my heart what was left of love
in the spaces of my mind
a card board construction coffin like
for that which I must cut adrift
I looked down upon that face, once dearly loved
unhappiness writ deep into the lines of life
I whispered low, goodbye
and set her free to travel where they go
these people of the shadow
and from my shoulders rose …
the weight of trying
and I so light so once more young
felt freedom almost forgotten
I smiled



Copyright ©  Eryll Oellermann 2016