Once Upon A Time
August 2018
#116
Once Upon A time
Once upon a time we knew that words carried love, and healing, answers and help.
We told each other stories around campfires.
Words were used wisely, thoughtfully, carefully and precisely.
Histories and memories carefully stored in minds, shaped by tongues, shared on lips and placed gently into fresh ears. In fresh minds, they grew into the wonders of all the worlds, seen through strangers' eyes.
Meaning and sense fought like dragons, spitting fire, burning brightly, destroying and creating, destroying and creating over and over again. myths and legends, songs and rhymes, passwords to long forgotten secrets, baffling and wonderful.
When there were too many to hold together, we wrote them, fixing them into clay and stone. We pinned them down, as ruthlessly as butterflies. Those words could no longer fly. As fast as we learned to spell, we killed the magic.
Once upon a time, we will know better. We must.
Ashley Jordan
GROW
Poem
What if one day you woke up and everything was gone?
The sun you have always woken up to never shone.
Beautiful leaves aren't there because no trees have grown.
No blissful hot days wishing the cold wind had blown.
This is what it is like sometimes in my head,
Like I have woken up and I'm already dead.
Wiping tears from my eyes, my cheeks are dry, I have nothing to shed.
Darkness consuming me , surrounding an ocean of red
Blood spilling out from my scars, years old,
I'm like the last slice of bread, speckled with mould.
my patches are growing bigger every second that unfolds,
Until there is nothing left but a shadow in the cold.
Words By Flower Shae
Stevenage Survivors
To The Queen Of Soul Aretha Franklin And To Brother George Jackson
It’s impossible to forget 47 years that you held your ground in the cages of life
The beautiful writing for a new future ahead and a circle of life
That took command of the mountain
Chicago, Oakland, Los Angeles, from East to West
Sitting by the Frisco Bay, letting the seed blossom into a fruit
For the song of the Living Ballad of George Jackson
Who resisted the living monster with his cosmic heart and wisdom
For this poem is to honor a hero from Sunday to Saturday
As the flag flies high and the Sun will shine forever
Hey, Sister Aretha, Queen of Soul, please sing this song for me
It’ll bring back memories of Ann Arbor and Detroit
Oh, the beautiful song of Respect
And now we come forward to fill with the stars of hope
A milestone of your soul
We will see a reflection of ourselves and memories of our roots
To surface as Resurrection City, living in our own village
Without a landlord, without injustice, without the horror of the living moral monster
And in life, it was a mirror of love, marching for peace, freedom, jobs, and bread
In all directions
Wading on the water, a holiday moment as Aretha, with your sweet voice, kept us strong
While the Peace and Freedom Party convention in Ann Arbor
Elected Dick Gregory for President and Mark Lane for Vice President
Like hot fun in the village, Brother Fred Ahmed laid his spear at Glenville, Ohio,
And give more power to the people as they cry for justice
El Grito del Norte de Reies López Tijerina, President of La Alianza Libre de Nuevo México
For the cry of the treaty of Guadalupe
And Chairman Rap Brown of SNCC spoke for freedom, justice, and equality.
And a political prisoner in the island of Manhattan
A young Puerto Rican Brother Eddie Oquendo, a political prisoner in Brooklyn
For refusing to serve in the War in Vietnam
And Dr. B. Spock was indicted for anti-war and anti-draft
And Chairman Bobby Seale of the BPP was held as a political prisoner for speaking
In a demonstration at the Democratic National Convention
As people were demonstrating for human rights and against the war
And against police brutality
And for the three martyrs in Miami’s Libertyville Community
Killed as they were marching against the Republican National Convention
Fifty winters and springs and summers have passed
And people’s history – he who fights for freedom is already free
For this is a grand poem for Sister Aretha Franklin
Singing a beautiful sweet, sweet song, Baby, Baby, I love you
And to the unsung heroes of 1968, I danced the Tighten Up with Archie Bell and the Drells
In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King and the Residents of Resurrection City.
© Carlos Raúl Dufflar 8/21/2018
The Bread is Rising Poetry Collective
Once Upon A Time
Once upon a time there was a time that was in the process of being born
Its parents, older times that had themselves once been once upon and now were several beyond, were very proud
So proud, in fact, that some self-styled personage of superior importance was moved to remark 'These are proud times indeed'
But a stray moment brushed gossamer past an anchored Now and created a future that could never be, for it had never known a time to be once upon or several beyond,
and it wandered lonely as completion
and sang the riddles that were wrongly recognised as God
Once upon a time there was a time that was no time,
though no-one knew that it was so
and stars were born whose names became stories and films and motor-cars and horses
ans even transcendental music
And once upon a time
these words were written
and what they say is quietly waiting to be understood
Roy Birch
Stevenage Survivors
The Light In The Garden
They lived in a house
Inspected by commuters
Getting the train each weak day,
Where fronds of lavender flowers
Perused the tracks;
And down close beside the river
Seagulls alighted and called
Mournfully to each other
As if they’d lost their way.
In this domestic battlefield
Few knights entered
And those were con artists,
But inside the damp sofa
That had been in the back garden
Ever since I could remember
A ringmaster and his troupe of tiny performers
Had transported toadstools
And hand-shaped fig leaves,
Pine cones and old man’s beard
To prop up the big top show.
Late at night there was an eerie glow
Around the base of the sofa:
A few bleary travellers
Might have noticed the light in the garden
And if a window could be opened
They’d hear the crack of a miniature whip and
The tinkling of bells that jangled in the breeze
Around the faery ring.
Rehearsals were sacred.
They wanted no trolls or goblins looking in.
Not bothered about commuters.
When the rehearsals were complete
The show moved on,
Having secured a run in a village by the sea.
And one morning I noticed the sofa had lost
Both cushions and the wooden blocks for its feet.
‘Mice,’ my old dad said.
Pretty well organised , I thought,
Noticing an abandoned pile of fabric circles.
But Enid who caught the 11.30 home from work each night,
And stared out the window with binocular concentration
Would have had another explanation.
©G Campbell 8th August 2018
Once Upon A Time
In my heart
When happiness decided to start
I saw the sun
and the sundial tended to move
Leaving shadows
Around its base
and the green grass
In all its glory
Once upon a time
Left the happiness behind
In my heart.
Then the world
Progressed
The Planet within the solar system
Experienced so much
and humanity
The people lay on the beach
All over the globe
Once upon a time
and many were reading books...
(c) Josie Lawson 13/08/2018 All Rights Reserved
GROW
Once Upon A time...Circles Of Light
Once upon a time
When the world was young
A weary traveller came to our fire
She was neither young nor old
But her eyes sparkled in the firelight
We shared our meal
She shared her songs and stories.
We were taken to the beginning
When the myriad lights danced
In the infinity of space
Gradually the lights came together
And we watched over them
Each individual spark merging with the whole
And the universe was born
Creation in progress
And still we watched and wove and spun
The light and darkness
The empty and the full
Till we faded peacefully to rest....
And when we awoke again
the time and tide
had grown beyond our ken.
So our wanderings began
To trace the sparks
Infusing them with the memory of their beginning
The great immensity of oneness
And we wander still
Sometimes gathering around fires
To sing and dance
Sometimes gathering here
To write, reflect and share
The beauty of our light.
Lucia Birch
Stevenage Survivors
Once Upon A Time
Once upon a time
when I was a child
I lived in a castle
at the top of the hills
and all around was a sea of blue flowers
which swayed and danced in the wind.
Once upon a time
when I was a girl
I lived in a chalet
beside the snow and all was cold,
I'd see footprints of deer
and hear the howl of the wolves.
Once upon a time
when I was a woman
I lived in the valley
beside the river
and every morning I'd collect fresh water
and wash my clothes on the stones.
Mary-Jane
Stevenage Survivors
Once Upon A Time
Once upon a time there was a forest. It was quiet. But one day a digger came to dig it up! But who could save it?
Well Katy of course. She ran out, stopped the diggers and it was quiet again.
The end.
Katy Kilpatrick (aged 6)
Once Upon A Time
Once upon a Time
when time was not upon
a disc was all that was
and life did not exist.
Where planets could not be seen
and stars were not noticed
by any kind of light or time.
There was nothing to behold.
When a pin of light
fell onto the sphere of the disc.
Then evolution started to begin.
Water fell onto the sphere,
Rainbows magically surfaced,
off magnetic rings of the disc
and clouds of flowers, rose into the air.
Colours surrounded everywhere.
The pinprick of light changed.
Into a golden ball of warmth,
spreading comfort and joy all around.
Ice, fire and earth. The elements
came into being as planets gained appearances.
So life and being, spread all over the planets.
It all started with a pinprick of light to where we are now.
Paul Evans
Stevenage Survivors
Crossings Grazing Cows
Inside once upon a time
The bell rang memories
When it started with Once Upon A Time
The cow bell in the mountains
Rings a bell all times is heard
A time that's passed played out
It's got that magical buzzing
That rare unique special extraordinary
Incredible wonder miraculous
In the rainbow that bowed
Bridging times together
Champions feats beyond language
In that rare rare ears time
Far away long gone years
John Joseph Sheehy