A Song Writer's View of Lake Lucerne, Switzerland

Imagine it is 6am, not a great time for musicians, trust me! Usually just going to bed! But up and out into the cold air, which embraces like an early morning dip in a polar bear's hunting hole! Magical, yet frost bitten! Huddled in the bus with warm woollen knits, waiting...

and then in that early morning haze, to be so incredibly awestruck by the magnificence of the world's simple pleasures! Whilst sat on the boat, gliding across the silvery water, cutting through the mist like a knife through soft butter ... I write this to the sweet strum of my ukulele...

That I

A scrap of nothing

A scraggamuffin from nowhere

Should see this wistful mist

Smoke curdling

Glass like shimmer

The clouds mirrored

Wrapped around mountain peaks

 

The immensity of space

The slowness and stillness

Of peaceful pace

The icy lake morning

Kissed through my face

The worry of the day

Now replaced

By the gentle break

 

And me,

The breeze from nowhere

Of nothing

Should in this moment

See everything at once

My tears

Welled from the same spring

Bring me closer to myself

Than I have ever been

Clean from within

Broken free

From all expectation

The Captain of my own moment

Me, a scrap of something

Part of this

Nature's kiss

A blissful parting

From that which has laid

Un-rested

The suns own daughter

Tested

Shining now

A beacon

for the tomorrows I shall live

From this moment

A Tour Poem for an Australian Friend

Whilst on tour we met lots of wonderful people from many parts of the world, all with their intricate stories.

One woman from Australia told me about an Aunt of hers' in the UK who was very elderly and thought she had no family. Then her relatives from Australia found her ... it inspired me to write this ...

Counting pounds

Pennies played

Life's bills still unpaid

81, 82, 83 ...

With nothing

But the moths from her purse

To keep her company

Her mind's eye wanders

To sun cut skies

How time flies

Now others watch

Their loved ones play

Their children laughing

But not she ...

81, 82, 83

Alone, apart

A longing lost

Within her heart

No postcards from

Dream like climes

Now falling on harder times

The morning mist monotomous

Cutting through her day

Then, just when

Her wishes fade to nothing

Like the colours of the sun

The clouds lift ...

And one by one

Lost actors

Dance upon her stage

She knows them not, and yet

She has known them always

For their eyes

Are her eyes

They share the same blood

Heart full

They dance and sing

And bring down under

To her front door

Alone no more

Her heart melodic

With the riches

That her purse ignores

She bathes her last years

In the oppulence of kinship



Stunning Outside Sculpture Gallery at Laguna, Switzerland

Poetic Thought:

Why not

Make every space

A beautiful place to be?

A People's Gallery

Wistful walkways

Where sculptures

Please the passers by

With lakeside views

And mountain skies

Touring Thoughts! We are one of the SAME!

Extra thoughts written in my little book whilst on the tour in Europe …

 What strikes me is how we are all the same! Our streets, systems, order, our shared sense of routine. We all eat at the same times, wear the same clothes, sleep in the same way.

We all have the same name, letters different maybe, but a short tag in a slightly different flavour; Children walking in snake like lines 2 by 2 as if slithering into Noah’s Ark, conforming in the same way, non-conforming in the same way; pick pocketing in the same way. A cast iron cauldron of global ingredients from the same family with slightly changed texture or taste, size or symmetry.

We all live in houses, drive cars, cycle bikes. We all have glass windows, front doors, personal belongings. We all have family, friends and loved ones. We all have the same hands and feet. We may live and die in different countries but we do it in the same way.

So the question is why do we want to focus on being so utterly different from one another? Same blood, same earth under our feet, same sun, moon, sky, stars.

Why can we not celebrate being the same?

Just imagine if we all woke up one morning and collectively thought, ‘My word, we are all the same!’ The consequence of this would be immense. If we are all the same, then we are all part of the same one and if we are all part of the same one then why would there be a reason to hurt ourselves? There would be no justice for fighting, stealing or beating ourselves; no explanation for jealousy hatred or loathing for where is the use in expressing these things to another if they are the same and part of us?

Some animals already get it! Take the bee colony. It understands that it is ONE or the dolphin; she swims as one with the ocean, or the tree that grows at one with the soil. It doesn’t go out of its way to cause the soil pain. Why would it!

Any creature that believes itself to be more important than the universe is at risk of self destruction. It is conceited to think we are the keepers of the earth. We are not keepers, we ARE the earth. It is almost too big for us to comprehend that we are so small.

Green, yellow,

red, orange, brown,

but still leaves

Still falling, falling

Strumming & Humming in Paris

Our last stop, Paris!

Joining the street performers at The Trocadero was something I had wanted to do since visiting Paris 20 years ago! So it felt very special indeed, humming and strumming whilst gazing down at The Eiffel Tower, negotiating the traffic to stroll under L’arc De Triumph, finding the Cafe Rouge where I did a short set before running at top speed to catch our bus out to the cheaper side of Paris, Clichy, where we were staying. As we ran along rue de la 'something or other' I turned to my left and found

I was walking down the street alongside Paul O’ Grady! He looked beautifully tall and sleek like a Siamese cat. I didn’t speak to him, I felt like it would have been an invasion of his space.

We missed our bus and sat catching our breath on the steps of the Grand Opera House when a black limo and police pulled up. A very important looking woman got out followed by TV cameras. We got up and moved around the side of the Opera House and stood by some railings.

I could hear singing and chanting coming closer, and with that, 100’s of people of all different ages and from all different walks of life, came down the road together with banners, protesting against cruelty to animals. They stopped to do a street performance in the middle of the main road. The front row stopped quite literally in line with me at the break in the barriers. Some teenage girls were in the front and were beckoning me to join them, ‘Vien ici!’ and before I knew it I was in the front line chanting and singing with everyone else! I really got a sense, as in Amsterdam, that people are coming together to make change happen. There is something very powerful indeed about people power.

And so my dream tour concluded with the bundling of everything back into the bus and back to old Blighty. It took me about 2 weeks to settle back into being home. Off course, it always lovely to walk through your own front door, make a cuppa, snuggle into your bed, but there is something equally as soothing in being away from the structures of everyday life, no phone, no internet, just music, travel, writing and song. I can feel in my blood and in my bones that it won’t be long before the next adventure!

There'll be blue birds over .....

Poetry in Pisa

We took time out to zip to Pisa! How can you go to Italy without seeing it! I have been enthralled by it since I first saw it in a book as a small child. It was far out! My only feeling was that it felt somehow wrong that such a wonderful cultural and historical piece of architecture would be surrounded by so many stalls filled with cheap trinkets and travelling sale people trying to persuade you to buy a hand drum or hand bag! Right outside the gate in a re-furbished old building is Mc Donald’s! Yes, Mc Donald’s! But if you find a quiet place, close your eyes and ignore the ugliness of 21^st Century Capitalise, you can really appreciate the enormity of where you are.

A poem written by Cheryl Beer sat underneath the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Tell the people

We might be built differently

But we won’t fall down

Not until we are ready

Not until it’s our time to fall

Build me a tower

So tall

That Kings and Queens

And one and all

Will travel far

To dress and dine

For Summer time

And Italian wine

With columns built

On wooden stake

Stacked higher than

A wedding cake

And build they did

On marsh soil

Foundations soon

To twist and coil

And sink into the boggy earth

Giving birth …

To a sinking feeling!

Then make it stand

With greater weight

One side to other

Make it straight

So build they did

Columns longer

Weighing more

To stretch it out

From top to floor

But still it beat

Their human thinking

Engulfed by nature

And still sinking

A hundred years

A hundred more

They could not

Stand by and ignore

Their beauty tall

About the land

Losing her height

In soft quick sand

More than a lifetime’s conundrum!

So fill her boots

With heavy lead

Tie her down

Concrete instead

Of wooden piles

For miles they travelled

Wise men a-gasp

To try to stop

Her sinking fast

And then

She

Stopped!

Stood still

Leaning just so far until

She could lean no more …

Without exploding to the floor

And now they queue

Like humans do

To wonder at

This trick of nature

Balanced

A stack of cup and saucers

On the head of the high trapeze

Balanced

A tall giraffe

Bent upon her knees

As if shifted by the breeze

A tower of strength in Pisa

So if you choose

To travel there

Be sure that you take extra care

Buy trinkets sold on market stalls

A keepsake safe

In case she falls

 

Pisa Thoughts

Build me a tower

To bend and shake

That never falls

And just in case

I trip and make

My own mistakes

Know that I am

Only leaning

When barely seeing

Is still believing

Poem written by Cheryl Beer in the streets of Florence …

Walk in the steps of Dante

If I walk

With his sandstone

At my side

If I walk

With his limestone

Beneath my feet

If I compose statuesque

A melody so sweet

If I sing for him on cobbled square

Bronzed in marble

Half prepared

Will I walk in the steps of Dante?

If I let go of ink and pen

My mind racing to the page

Then back again

Read my words in different tongues

Less vulgar

Touched by everyone

To change the face of language known

Where greatness painted

Once at home

Will I walk

Will I walk in the steps of Dante?

No …

For my words fall

Like a sideshow

Of cheap trinkets

Sold on bartering streets

Destined to adorn

The fridges and key fobs

Of those whose feet

Will never trace his steps

Florentine Thoughts …

Do the things you love

And trust that the Universe

Will embrace those things with you

Don’t worry whether or not your creativity is good enough;

Embrace that which makes your heart sing and be what you are