THE MIDNIGHT BIKER

 As an enthusiastic longstanding biker and an equally enthusiastic digital artist newbie, I've recently combined these two interests of mine by launching my first pictorial blog – RebelBikerDude's AI Biker Art (click here to view it), in which I present a very diverse range and ever-increasing number of galleries containing my biker/motorcycling-themed digital artwork – the creation of which, incidentally, has proved not only very enjoyable but also extremely therapeutic while I've been dealing with the stress of ongoing medical issues. Moreover, it has also inspired me to write the following brand-new biker-themed poem earlier tonight – at midnight, appropriately enough – which I shall in turn be illustrating accordingly via a gallery of images in my RebelBikerDude art blog very soon (one of which appears above), so be sure to look out for it there [29 May update: I've now completed my Midnight Biker gallery of images - so click here to view it]. As for the Midnight Biker: my concept of him is as a sinister, supernatural biker who seeks to steal and ride away with our vital life-force, our very soul, while we lie asleep at night. But can he be quelled? Read this poem and find out!

THE MIDNIGHT BIKER

What if Midnight were a biker,
Cruising the back streets and alleys
Of our subconscious as we sleep,
A dangerous, dominant darkness,
Lustful and louche in leather,
Slouching dissolutely against a streetlamp-lit wall,
Or sitting astride a twin-wheeled monster of menace,
A dread shadow hag-riding our prone somnolent slumber
Beneath the silent setting of the sun,
Confrontational and confident, powerful and purposeful,
As he gazes down disdainfully upon our weak, submissive mortality,
Pitilessly upon our drowsing dream-led ramblings
Through the cryptic hinterlands of our hidden soul?

But even as he steps forth from the subtle shades of evening,
Ever-changing yet ageless, embodying our primeval fears
Of darkness, of dwindling, diminishing, and ultimately of death,
And now about to claim and to conquer,
To overpower and overcome,
With chilling, all-consuming certainty,
Another soul to steal and ride away with
On his steeled, wheeled steed of steel,
The first flush of Dawn appears upon the horizon,
A new day inexorably approaching,
To banish all nocturnal soporific phantoms from our mind –
And the Midnight Biker is gone,
For now…

 

FIVE YEARS AGO

Five years have gone by since the passing of my dear mother, Mary Shuker. Sometimes it seems like only moments ago, other times an eternity, a different life in a different world. How I miss you Mom, how I love you and wish with all my heart that you were still here with me, sharing my life, making it worth living again, a real life instead of a sham existence.

FIVE YEARS AGO

Five years ago today, Mom, you left my life, you left this world – and my life, my world, was left lifeless, worldless, without you. So it remains today, and so it will always remain, until we are together once more, all of us, our family, reunited at last and forever. Friends tell me that you have never left me, that you are still here, all about me, always. I am reminded by their words of other words - those attributed to Hakim Sanai, a 12th-Century Persian poet:

Unable to perceive the shape of you,

I find you all around me.

Your presence fills my eyes with your love,

It humbles my heart,

For you are everywhere.

How I wish, how I hope, how I pray that this is so, and, above all else, that even if only once ever, but at least just once, I could know this for certain, beyond any doubt, beyond any shadow or whisper or flicker of hesitation, know that you were indeed here still, filling my soul with your love that was always there for me when you lived beside me in my life, when you walked with me in my world.

Then again, perhaps it is a test, a test of faith - just like Orpheus faced when walking out of the Underworld in the fervent hope that his deceased bride Eurydice was indeed following behind him, but Orpheus failed to win her back when he finally gave in to the temptation of doubt and looked behind him to make sure that she really was there, and, in so doing, lost her a second time, and this time for all time. Perhaps my test is to draw upon and have faith in my memories of your love for me, upon my certain knowledge that as long as you are in any way able to stay close by, you will indeed do so, never leaving or abandoning me, but instead always here for me, watching over me, guiding me as ever, until my own time here is complete - and that as long as I believe this to be so, so shall it be. Only if my mortal doubts overcome me will I lose you here again, a second time, Mom.

So, on this day, of all days, I must overcome any doubts, any fears, and for all time, because I will not lose you again - never! - and henceforth I will continue, in whatever role God intends for me here on His Earth, until in His mercy I am finally at peace and at last restored to you, to all of us, in His Heaven, never more to be parted.

God bless you, Mom, may I always be worthy of you, as the son you loved so much when you lived beside me in this world, and as the son whose love for you lives on in this world, and always will do, through all the days of my own life here, however many or few those may be.

My mother Mary Shuker (© Dr Karl Shuker)

THE PEACOCK CAT

(© Worth1000.com)

I have always been fascinated by the flamboyant beauty of a peacock's train, each feather proffering a veritable eye gazing down upon an adoring, venerating audience – an audience that equally would worship and has indeed worshipped in awe the aloof but ever-seductive entity of mystery and midnight that peruses the world through the golden eyes of a cat.

So when I encountered online this spectacular photo-manipulated composite of the pavonine and the feline reproduced here, what else could I do but compose a paean of praise in poetry to its esoteric extravagance?

THE PEACOCK CAT

The peacock cat purrs softly amid the fire of the firmament,

Its burnished plumes glowing and gleaming in blazing beauty

As its glorious train sweeps downward to trace across the face of the world.

Each eye, every ocellus, gazing forth from the splendour of its emerald feathers,

Peers with timeless stillness and silence upon the lands beneath,

All-knowing, all-seeing, all-dreaming, all-being.

The lands receive its hues, its light, its shades, and its shadows –

Multicoloured, varicoloured, parti-coloured, many-coloured.

A kaleidoscope of ever-shifting, ever-shaping patterns embellishing our world.

Life surges, satiated, inebriated, by polychromatic potions and elixirs

Cascading in torrents of tinctures from the prismatic palette of its exquisite soul,

As its train lies settled awhile, an ever-watchful extension of its feline being.

And then the peacock cat moves on, withdrawing its divine train of turquoise and topaz,

Of sapphire and sardonyx, carmine and cochineal, agate and amber,

Ultramarine, aquamarine, cobalt and emerald, drawn out and away from our world.

And what is left? No colour, no light, no subtle hues or vivid vibrancy.

Look around at all that is gone, all that is lifeless, listless, and lost,

Our grandiose achievements strewn in Ozymandian folly, unseen and unseeing.

The vast void of eternity encompasses us in its sable spider-webs of dreadful darkness,

Nothing but nothing remains, where, formerly, yet all too briefly, there was colour, and life.

The peacock cat is gone, and now, and forever, so too has what had once been our world.

THE DREAM-CATCHER

When I saw the above image online, it immediately suggested to me the concept of an otherworld dream-catcher, a silent preternatural being standing unseen beside us as we sleep, ready to capture the dreams that we shall dream that night. So that is what I wrote.

THE DREAM-CATCHER

The dream-catcher stands unseen, still, beside our beds,

Powdered skin as pale as bleached bone upon a beach,

A tippet of swan feathers around his shoulders,

A dense ruff of white owl plumes encircling his neck.

His long fingers snatch at the dreams that flutter by,

Like ghostly moths in the miasma of midnight.

Then he blows them softly inside our sleeping minds,

Keeping watch over them, and us, through the dark hours.

And when dawn comes, when the bright sun wakes in splendour,

He is gone, leaving no dream nor any trace here,

Gone away to ensnare new dreams for new sleepers,

Until our dream lives are over, our dream lives done.

THE GREEN ELEPHANT

On a number of occasions down through the years, I have been inspired to write poems and verses after seeing beautiful, bewitching works of art online. And today was another such occasion, in which I penned the following poem after encountering the spectacular illustration presented above.

THE GREEN ELEPHANT

I dreamed one night that I had seen

An elephant, but it was green.

It stood amid a leafy glade

With light and shadow overlaid.

A patch of sunshine on its brow

That glowed like gold, I know not how.

Its opalescent tusks glowed too,

A pale, pellucid, pearly hue.

It gazed at me with stately calm,

A scene suffused with leafy balm,

A green cathedral, still and bright,

A place of wonder, dreams, and light.

Serene and silent, arched and tall,

So too its guardian of all.

Majestic in the mellow mist,

Where dreams can linger, hope exist.

Its trunk rose up in slow salute,

Its sunlight-sprinkled message mute,

Yet eloquent inside my mind

Before I left its realm behind

And woke once more within my room,

No green or gold amid its gloom.

Just fading memories remain,

Until one day I'm home again.

THREE YEARS AGO TODAY

Mom and I at the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2007 ((c) Dr Karl Shuker)

Yesterday I penned the following lines, marking the third anniversary of the passing of my dear little Mom, Mary Shuker.
God bless you, Mom, I've missed you so much during these three long, sad years, and I always will do, every moment of every day, through all the days of my life.

THREE YEARS AGO TODAY

Three years ago today, Mom, was the first time in my life that I reached for your hand but no longer found it there for me, ready to hold mine with its loving, comforting, caring touch, as it had always been in the past.

It was the first time in my life that I looked for your smile but no longer saw it there for me, ready to dispel any shadows of doubt with its loving, comforting, kindly reassurance, as it had always been in the past.

It was the first time in my life that I listened for your voice but no longer heard it there for me, ready to lift my spirit with its loving, comforting, cheery encouragement, as it had always been in the past.

It was the first time in my life that I sought you but no longer found you there for me, ready to stand beside me, to walk beside me, to share my life beside me, as you had always been in the past.

Three years ago today, Mom, was the first time in my life when the future no longer mattered to me, when the present no longer interested me, when only my memories remained dear to me, enabling me to return to you and relive our countless happy days, weeks, months, and years together, as there will always be in the past.

MORE STAR STEEDS AND OTHER DREAMS - THE 2015 EXPANDED EDITION OF STAR STEEDS - HAS NOW BEEN PUBLISHED!

I'm delighted to announce that a new, greatly expanded edition of my poetry book has just been published! Entitled More Star Steeds and Other Dreams: The Collected Poems - 2015 Expanded Edition, and published by Fortean Words, an imprint of CFZ Press, it contains two entirely new chapters of my poetry and other lyrical writings of mine. To purchase it directly on the UK and USA Amazon sites, click here for details and direct clickable links to those Amazon sites. Hope you enjoy it!