ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Who me? Born in 1962. Wrote prolifically as a teenager, heavily influenced by books & the music of the time. Stopped writing for 20 years more or less. But started again... Some of the work here dates from the "early period" - 1979-1982. The rest is since 2000. I`ve no idea whether I`m a better writer now or then. Maybe I was never any good! I`ve always wondered. Feedback most welcome...
I've not visited this site at all since January 2006 as I shortly after discovered the unfettred joys of blogging. I'm still writing and actually had a very good summer of writing. I'm posting a recent poem here now but all my recent work is available on my blog - take a look - http://peter-rivendell-poems.blogspot.com/
[December 2006]
AUTHOR'S OTHER TITLES (53) A Bright Blue Cloudless Sky (Poetry) A cheery work about emotional displacement, I suppose is one way of putting it. But whatever you think. [184 words] Across Fields (Poetry) - [25 words] [Relationships] Adventure Playground (Poetry) - [113 words] Afraid Of Buildings (Poetry) Written one unhappy morning, but I got a poem out of it... [132 words] Arriving (Poetry) Just a poem about the way I`ve been feeling lately. [65 words] At Sea (Poetry) - [39 words] Best Friend (Poetry) Sometimes you can`t even choose your friends. [62 words] Catch The Moon (Poetry) An uncertain tale of "forbidden" love. [92 words] Confusion 1 (Poetry) A game with destiny? You decide. [169 words] Decisions (Poetry) - [59 words] Decisions Of Allegiance (Poetry) As a teenager, I revealed my most precious secret to my best friend - my love for him. He rejected me. That painful experience influenced some of the thoughts in this poem. [150 words] Deep Water (Poetry) Just another day. I know this feeling but we`re not close friends, fortunately. [107 words] Distortion (Poetry) Written about a million years ago, but still makes a kind of sense...? [129 words] Drowned (Poetry) A lyric for a love song of sorts - [293 words] Echoes On Water (Poetry) - [19 words] Expedition (Poetry) A view of the future? Or a view of the past? Is there any difference? [170 words] Falling (Poetry) the first poem I wrote after years of not writing... it`s about a feeling that I often have lately, that somewhere along the line, something`s gone horribly wrong and I can`t quite put my finger on it... [132 words] Flow (Poetry) - [106 words] Flowers That Only Last A Day (Poetry) - [40 words] Global Warming (Poetry) - [64 words] Gone (Poetry) Being miserable is the new black. [197 words] Heart Of Our Home. (Poetry) Betrayal is not always the greatest betrayal. [83 words] I Wait (Poetry) Another tale of urban anxiety... probably as much a song as a poem. [133 words] In Memoriam (Poetry) Short and bitter-sweet. [38 words] Isolation (Poetry) A poem about... [26 words] Magazine (Poetry) This poem was inspired by the Berlin novels of Christopher Isherwood (which inspired the musical "Cabaret"). It`s a story set at the moment when you realise that while you`ve been oblivious to events ... [251 words] Marching Band (Poetry) When love fades... a lyric as much as a poem... [96 words] Nightscape (Poetry) - [100 words] Nightwalk (Poetry) About walking alone at night. That`s it. [193 words] Opening Up (Poetry) Am I no longer enjoying my job...? [198 words] Paused In Traffic. (Poetry) The January blues, I guess. [100 words] Performers (Poetry) When you feel like an outsider, sometimes you hope no one ever notices... Written when I was 18. Seems strange to me now, but can just about remember feeling like this - glad I was able to write it do... [239 words] Pierrot (Poetry) A love letter, after a fashion. [196 words] Pushing The River (Poetry) - [39 words] Random Acts (Poetry) Written by writing lines at random and then organising them into a more "organic" kind of flow - and somehow, it tells a story and makes sense. Just an experiment, but a telling one? [204 words] Sarcophagus (Poetry) Grief and betrayal in a bleak landscape. [204 words] Scared (Poetry) - [74 words] Scratched To Grey (Poetry) ... being in love with someone who can never love you back... [145 words] Sequence (Poetry) Playing and losing a game with fate. [202 words] Silent Command (Poetry) - [208 words] Swimming Against The Tide (Poetry) - [90 words] The Beating Of Wings (Poetry) For you to decide. [254 words] The Fundamental Loneliness And Futility Of Our Lives In The Context Of The Vast Infinity Of Time And Space... (Poetry) A feeling. [28 words] The Storm Inside Him (Poetry) The Storm Inside Him [108 words] The Trees (Control) (Poetry) It`s up to you to decide. I know what I think. (Title: Control - but that was already taken) [161 words] Thoughts Of A War (Poetry) Leaving home... [240 words] Threats (Poetry) Sometimes, even in a crowded place you can feel totally alone... [73 words] [Gay & Lesbian] Trapped In The Masque (Poetry) A dark hymn for troubled times. [120 words] Triptych (Poetry) Three linked poems about alienation. [339 words] Two (Poetry) Just a fragment... but it tells the whole story. [24 words] Unending Rain (Poetry) Crime doesn`t pay. [76 words] Wave (Poetry) - [34 words] When Winter Comes (Poetry) The struggle to connect. [148 words]
Curiosity Of Nations Peter Rivendell
Beneath the cenotaph,
The wind blows so cold,
Raising towers of leaves to swirl and fall.
Along the avenues,
The song of the crowds drifts so low.
We have no reason to cry as if recalling wartime.
Black eyed windows show no emotion;
They show all faces,
For bleak denial is a human trait
Which all men know.
Moving very slowly forward,
Walking staring onward,
Passing monuments that go unseen.
The lash of the wind,
Silent landmarks registered in fluid,
All things considered,
All things discarded.
Feet on damp pavements
Dance the city limits swimmingly.
Crowds and colours,
Cars and clowns.
The night they burned the buildings down
We swam to avoid the flames,
Entangled in the jaws
Of underwater features.
We breathed in the rain
To sentinel our objections,
And returned to the street
Cooled and calmed.
Relief from the heat and faces changed
From what we thought to what we saw.
We stood cigarettes and poise,
Reminders of a youthful elegance,
And we ensembled on a screen.
There was no chance for us,
Locked in someone else`s dream.
Hunched over typewriters,
Grey men punched out words for us to speak.
Where was the voice of our generation?
Falling timbers, charred yet burning, opened heads.
We saw the sky,
We felt the wind on our face
And blood in our veins.
After driving through the night,
We achieved a balance of our own.
There was reason to cry during wartime,
But we stood on the edge of a lake,
Not knowing what lay on the other side.
The city lit the sky behind us,
And we saw colours men are not supposed to like.
Clothes left on the sands,
The sun began to rise in the east,
And as the shadows fled from the shoreline
We strode into the water and clasped hands.
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