html_removed html_removed html_removed html_removed

Every sip of old bushmills

Takes me back to 03-05

Where I fell into her sorrow

And barely came out alive

In Kentucky, in Ohio

I fell in love with the land

But my heart had no place to go

Thoughts of suicide to end the pain

Of a soul so lost

Driven insane

 

Jack and Jim, my only friends

One from Kentucky

One from Tennessee

But in the end

I knew they were never gonna help me

Another year rolled away

And the angels came to help me out

Saying I’ve got to fight to live

That I wasn’t over yet

I had more to give

 

I breathed in the Stockholm air

With my brothers in 07

A chance to prove something to myself

My doomsday clock stuck at eleven

 

I missed someone through the streets of Copenhagen

Knew it was just a waste of time

But the night was full of sin and hate

To be honest, I could never tell

If a knife wound would be my fate

 

Through Amsterdam to Berlin

I knew I was blessed to see it all

The sorrow fading within

Still, I missed someone

 

Stumbled through Prague alone

Hungry, I had lost my way

And to be honest, it felt good to be alone anyway

Vienna was beautiful, so was Budapest

Living like this put me to the test

Sleepless train journeys and parties

Until the dawn came around

Good times with the brothers

Who I can only appreciate now

 

My heart was almost broken

By things I’ll never talk about

And no one can party much

With a heart ripped out

 

I felt the earth alive below my feet

In the dusty Athens soil

And I never spoke a word

I felt love for something or someone

I was higher than a bird

 

It’s hard to forgive yourself

For all the things you’ve done

Even though you know there’s good reasons

And circumstances change

Sometimes quicker than the seasons

I wrote a lot of stuff in Berlin

About all this hiding within

I was up all night with a coffee or two at hand

Waiting for a plane home

Back to sleepy Ireland

Home was in the arms of a girl

That would never belong to me

But Ireland you’re still a babe

And I love you still

You’ve just lost a lot

The things that kept you tranquil

 

There’s a guilt that lingers

When you see places

That no one else can

It’s hard to explain

But they’ve never see how close to the edge I was

So maybe they can’t complain

 

I was trying to find my way

Just like anyone

Florida to Carolina

Under the summer sun

I was getting stronger

With trying testing times

Until the Nashville city nights

Let me rest, some time to unwind

Tennessee a more a more beautiful place

Would be hard to find

 

God I hate nights now

I think about the girl I never have

When I should sleep to find the rest

To own the day

To do my best

I need someone to think about

To ease the hours of the nothingness of the night

By James Battersby

July 08

For an artist or writer, i feel that due to the creativity coming from mind and therfore mood, this in itself encases the essence of your soul into your work. This is why many artists cannot sell their work as it feels like selling your soul. For example, if you had 25 art works, this in a sense, would be 25 pieces of your soul. This i suppose, is why we must detach if we can. Another way to look at it though, is spring cleaning your soul. Artwork, like once beautiful photographs now holding saddened memories or once heartfelt but now old redundent love letters, perhaps then can be easily isolated from us, as mere " artistic endeavors" or " old memories".

But mood of course, always plays a big part in what we are willing to show the world, or a loved one through art. Love, when told through paint or inked words, can appear very colourful.

A poem about my struggle to find inspiration

When I was loved

The colours seemed brighter

But love is exhausted now

Like the last light on a flickering candle

As the pool of wax like a pool of tears

Kills all sight by killing the flame

Just like the light that paved our way

Through the night and through the day

The colours appear upon my palette

Lifeless, grey

Now in the darkness of the night

I sometimes dream of you

A dream of our ancient wish granted true

But into the dark you ran away

The howling piano notes are here to stay

They echo now, in the halls of my mind

Beethoven’s moonlight Sonata

Is all I can find

In every dream

In every grey cloud

Like some ghost in itself come to haunt

Even when I awake, tis there to taunt

But beautiful even so

Every note perfect

Especially the notes deliberately slow

Now the paint upon my pallete gathers dust

The spiders spin their webs upon canvas so soon

So soon

Such small creatures working so hard

Silver lined webs sometimes caught by the moon

And I know dear one I should embrace the spring day

To chase the hurts, the wounds away

And in time I will

Copyright James A Battersby 08

Dear friends. The spring is here and it is helping my ould soul to smile and i hope it offers you the same. Looking through the poems i've written over the years, i decided i would share a few. Mostly they were written in the forests, or beside the sea. I think the oxygen helps the brain :D. Some are about thoughts, some are about Ireland, and the last one is about my thoughts on seeing America for the first time.

Spirit of the Land

Since the long years of my birth

You have been at the front of my mind

The sea wind, the deep forest

The solitude in the darkness

My lifeblood, my heart

Amongst anyone else I'm only half of who I am

But with you, I become myself

Your waves that crash

Your trees that sway

The carpets of leaves

The blankets of snow

I couldn't forsake any of these

Every leaf precious

Every stone a part of it all

And when I understood this

I understood the importance of being myself

The trees have yet to judge me

The waves caress the rocks

Here since creation, the only ones I can relate to

When with you, I don't need to fight or be on guard

With you I can be me

In your presence I feel protected

From this technological world

 

Ireland Loveth her chains

I saw what you could be

What heights you could reach

If only the shackles

around your ankles were loosed

I wish I was the one to do it

 

But I am led to believe

You don't feel like a prisoner

You polished those shackles

Thanking your captor for the anklets

I wish I could say I didn't care

But I love you

 

It's not easy to forsake these feelings

As I watch your captor, crush your heart

He beats you, he rapes you

But you say it's all under control

yet I cannot see it

 

You say it's not that bad

Yet I say you deserve better

And I fear your beauty will fade

I see your green will turn to grey

Scared you'll give your life away

 

For so long I've watched in sadness

So many enemies surrounding us

And look at us

How long have we fought amongst ourselves

With unfettered tenacity?

 

I wanted to love you

I wanted to serve you

To embrace you

 

There are no southlands

Without a north

No northlands

Without a South

 

And I am nothing I want to be

If I am expected to hate you

Those feelings remain devoid in me

For i see beyond the now

  

Land that I love

 

When I look upon the land it makes me glad

Of all the various shades of green though

It is your eyes that I favour most

 

And the forests I have come to assume will always be there

Perhaps will fade away as brick and mortar take their place

And the coasts and the green fields will become cities

For a siege has come to my land

The age of greed

The carelessness of men

 

The young and old alike no longer care-

For the ways of our ancestors

There was beauty to be had in simplicity

But that no longer pleases them

 

But still I find comfort on the seashore

And in the mist air is where I find a comfort

And the smell of whiskey brewing from o'er the fields

Reminds me there is still some things that stay the same

 

For though I change year by year

The land still calls to me, to keep me near

Happiness is a sunset hiding slowly beyond the sea

And beauty is a woman who still practices grace and hope

In a world turning it's back on all that was once good and pure.

 

19^th December 2005

 

 

some day i'll fade away

With me i'll carry the thought of you

Along this path of thorns

Over the hills and winding roads

Upon seashore I'll burden them no more

But you are such a one I cannot ignore

The doom is impending, and Ireland, she is dying

The wind is cold, now no warmth is with me

I have done the thing I knew I should

I left Vinland and never returned

A native she was, she offered me love

But my heart was not to be found

I could not give her what she wanted

And now I hear the cave in the darkness

It echoes my name down the ancient halls

Carved by time, carved by waves

It echoes my name down it's halls

A resting place for the ghoul whose heart is cold dead

Except that even I have feelings,

even I want now and again to belong

and still you are in my mind

as the mountains behind me turn to faded blue

I should give up the ghost of you

But you are in my dreams

And I am reminded more everyday

How life is a double edged sword

The bitterness of hate

And the bitterness of what love unreturned can bring

The sea is calling me to a place

Where most would call a last resort

It doesn't seem such a terrible thing anymore

Or to lose myself in the hills, to find out

What it means to be alive and what it is

To be a man

J Battersby December 06

  
The forest is my love
I know now without a doubt
The wounds in my heart
Wounds that have bled without sword or spear
Are healed by the smell of weeping pines
Away from everyone and everything I am myself
No one to explain myself to.
Nothing to defend myself over
the forest accepts all those who fail
all those who make mistakes, but society cannot.
The trees fail to gossip
They fail to judge and imprison
 
  
There is still a place for you 
There is still a place for you

green valleys, and mountains of faded blue

still a place for you



where laughter follows your every footstep

as the seawind calls your name

it is not a dream my beloved

no not a dream



below your feet lies a living heart

barefooted it can only be felt

she bleeds the way we do

her heart is the coal, her blood is the oil

we condemn her a little more each day

to a life of agony



the birthpains of the world 

cause insanity to the nations

but when she gives birth

she'll be refreshed and happy

and she is beautiful



the seawinds call your name

the valleys close in to embrace you

the leaves fall as a carpet to carry you home



J.A.Battersby copyright 2006

  
The New land
 
This new land I have experienced
The new England it was once called
Now she is seen as the beacon of light
 
In the land of Ohio, near the great river,
 I've seen a part of her beauty
Where Autumn it seems, is so much more colourful
shades of brown and red, orange and yellow
the locals are even friendly to the foreign fellow
 
It is a beautiful land, I understand their pride
Sweet potato and yams, 
And pumpkins grow in their fields
Wild turkeys, skunk, groundhog , deer and eagle
They all run wild
 
There is a beauty in this land
And an atmosphere that is quite unique
Perhaps it is the heat of the summer nights
As the fireflies dance amongst the trees
 
Or perhaps the community spirit
Where decent folk will stop to help if they can
They enjoy a few drinks, they love their families
And stand by their wife and kids
 
Good old boys they called themselves
The kind o guys that don't look down on the poor
And don't much look up to the rich
They find contentment in the simple things
 
They made this new land their own
And built her from the ground up
Now she stands on her own
Like an independent woman
Like lady liberty herself
She is America.
 
19th December 2005
James Battersby
 
Written upon seeing American for the first time as a young pilgrim a few years ago 
feeling like i was Leif Ericson or Christopher Columbus :D.
All Poems are Copyright Protected

big game hunting

 

Just after watching a show about hunting. Except i don't consider it hunting at all, there's no glory, no "trophy" the way the people talk about it.

It was a show i kinda caught the last 20 minutes of it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7329425.stm

Just made me really pissed off and mad. I suppose i don't understand the mind of some people. you always feel that although we lead different lives, we're on the same way of thinking.........kinda. Anyway.

It's a bit hard to understand why someone would get excited about flying out all the way to africa, to sit in wait below a canopy and send a bullet through the heart/lungs of an innocent deer, or elephant etc, with a high velocity rifle. Totally don't get that at all. They call it sport. What it really is, is heartless. Bad enough shooting them in the vital organs, but i'm sure you always get a "customer" (i can't justifiably call them a hunter as there isn't a skill involved) who will be a crap shot and the animal is going to suffer even more.

I just find it very strange. How can you trust people who would actually enjoy doing that, paying that kind of money to end lives for nothing...

 

Photos Taken by me Jimmy Battersby of my homeland plus a few paintings inspired by it. Thanks for looking