# At the Far Tor

> Poems etc. from South Devon, England.

**Published by:** [Ade's Press](https://paragraph.com/@adespress/)
**Published on:** 2024-05-21
**Categories:** poems, poetry, creative writing, devon, books
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@adespress/at-the-far-tor-1

## Content

'At the Far Tor' Poems etc. from South Devon, England. A small collection of personal poems etc. featuring images or photo-art. by Ade M. Campbell Jan 2023 [+ now as complete collectible NFT, on BASE (ETH network) + Arweave, as 500 limited editions only, 2024.] Intro… + ‘open mind’ (Blackdown Rings : site of an ancient settlement) I'm writing poetry again, but hope it doesn't last. It's all the re-writing and decision-making and it distracts me from just living and being. I want to write totally free-verse (like Jim Morrison for example) but after I read over them I start to assemble and disassemble parts like building some hill-top 'tor' in Dartmoor of words and it evolves... I don't always like the result and I will shift stones years after it was originally written so it becomes something different or removed (so you might find some of these poems have changed, in various windy or abandoned mountaintops on the web or blockchain). But it can be good to revisit some of those tors again and there may be insights or wisdom surveyed from their heights. I hope I am free from building them again as there are other things I want to do and to make. ‘open mind’ i open my mind to poetry, so the world filters in... through the minds' blinds shine out these word-lights but the meanings, the relevance is dim to the earth's madness and its machinations and the joy of pure moment and being. i want to destroy the will to power, all the books that delve needlessly deep; do simple, natural work and be wise, physically tired - and alive... 2017 . Btw… I lived and worked out of South Brent and Ivybridge (South Devon, UK) with a young wife and two kids for a period of 5 years until 2015. We used to walk up onto the moors, or take trips to the (thankfully) still inaccessible coastlines. These poem-rocks I leave behind, or skim out across the tidal estuaries. I hope to return in my lifetime, or I shall re-spawn to haunt those - impressionable - coastal walks… Dedicated to (all) my family, who’ve each left some of their spirits in this windy, variable corner of the world. xox ‘brave old world’ the future of our people is a 'dragon's claw willow' - crooked - in this garden where i sit at peace, in the shade; old as the hills. how strange, how similar seems the future… sun-bright and shadowy on this day. the ranges; the hollows of our human fires will pulse up roots, of upturned trees twisting, inverted; spilling out onto the ground. yes, the future of our folk is a 'dragon's claw willow' - crooked - in this garden where i sit at peace, in the shade; old as the stones. some things will remain: the plough; the cup; the next fiery pen the territorial sword... here's to all that remains! ...to our knowing, secretly, something of their burial; those bright and burning coals brushed for, with bare hands, then raised to the sun - pure - in the silver forest... and that lost realm of magic, and youth, where poetry is born, takes form and can never die. (2013) ‘old dogs’ we are not the ones we were - anymore. a world has challenged us; won cold battles in the war; lengthened our long shadows under the sun; shifted our configurations - unfazed - into the cracked; the crazy, washing us out onto whiskey-red shores. as all things in the world fragment we slipped in sleep downstream through the falls of mornings flashing in the green, the blue; the bright gold. how we sung in unison with stars while the score still scored its trance but now - no more... the songs skip rings as we sing its grooves; our lips move crookedly. let me not lie to myself but believe in Love and be old now, another puppet in the show - I now know - carves puppets of us all... winking in my nature at the dust and loud dogs on the doorstep; banging at the frames again. i would not lie to them... the game has changed - all unchanged; bones of our memories will dry; we cannot rule or fight the widening tide but just keep on, keep on in its functioning flow that flows and flows - through the highs and lows - drinking its drink of us; strengthening and silencing brief lives inside Time (our tiny notion of Time)... . . (2012) ‘the flickering girls’ (from Carnglaze Caverns in Cornwall) you! I see you - you are on fire! - lithe girls, with all the life that is leaving me; my strung-out wolf-soul wondering in a life, now wandering; leading me down to its smoke-wrecked shores. in crisp September burn as I - my yearning world - never burned in shelters from the wake. leaf-deep, you see, my storm quaked and I could not break into those tree-tall towers - those shadows - keeping my all, from your enthrall. so... no... there are - here - few sighs of wind on this ash-buried timber - brittle - and so blasted. no bright joy for me, anymore but there was love, and there was need and now you're wearing them - inside the sharp and alarming, closed forest of youth; stark temptresses, dancing, full-naked... ebullient… half-smiling, to someone... just beyond… not seeing me - no, not really at all - now sliding away... (oh how it is - harsh beauties - that this world will wash itself with ourselves, and with our worlds to leave us dry - and belittled - whispers where we were only and forever more fuel; more bone-meal for its billowing breeze.) (Sept ‘14) ‘close to right now and the future beyond…’ (from animated photo-art on the edge of Dartmoor) close to right now and the future beyond …lies the present… .…some new influence or encounter with nature; the next hunt and reward where what our inner nature dictates lies the beginning of our work; the tomorrow it can create. . mostly, it is restriction in the now; freedom later, eyes searching for something to be dazzled by, again but — all our ‘meaning’ is defined by our efforts; by the way in which we do or achieve things; by whatever box or boundary we are restricted by — confined in — on a path to some harmonious kind of being… where the jewels in the far light can be stared into because we seized just a few of them; those that were there, too right in front of us. . . . 4/2021 (from ‘in ash on the sand’) Collectible as separate NFT (art + poem) ‘wind in trees’ you're like the wind you're strong then you're thinned into the rustling. i watch wind waking leaves of some tall trees submitting to a slow dance for height the arms rise and fall worshiping transience forming an ancient trance; a rhythm through the mind. Flow like the trees like the sound of their secrets; the rustling and shimmering through leaves. find out how they tussle, how they form with the wind - like the willows - why they break up the light from pure gold hiding high - encouraging sun - then, flooding my eyes - behind a myriad mass - time's trinkets - overseeing what we build, we arrange on the earth: for the burning of time; the burning of fire... so much to behold to believe and to see in these dancing trees… learning the ways of our flow of all life within time the inspiration... if only we could be as the wind; to be out in the wind is to be out with a friend surrounded by all we are, all we are not - pure transience... but to hold on to nothing and to no one to be an infinite spirit… would never hold us close to the earth; would make us just as the wind... strong and then thinned into the rustling. . . (2015) ‘by the sea’(word art for orig. songline from ‘embertime’ recording project) Collectible as separate NFT (Slapton Sands) ‘a ghost on Stoke Village hill’ (Plymouth outskirts) on a top I oversee the city. i face it squarely; its squares, my suited back to the heat. it's a morning drunk with renewed Summer sun already warm, birds gossip and squawks echo above the quiet, hidden beginning of our activities. a train is set to move sleepily across. a clang of industry; an engine far away melts into the distant, buried thunder of some ship, or a large machine. all the huddled Plymouth homes are waiting for eyes to fall out of doors and windows and start walking on the long, steady legs of our race. small voices arrive nearby with dogs. a chain rattles and goes taut owning someone with its little clinks - adding already to a whole, soft orchestration. 'oh no. Oh bloody hell.' in sympathetic attempt. 'wheelie! Stop!' 'who are you?!' - a joke - 'haha!' 'how is he?' 'i feel so sorry...' 'really?'... yes, really. We bubble over, into the day we are all to work in for the machination of its ways, our world, our non-being; to feed that low, far off rumble with traversing words - those unseen ships in the distance - we arrange ourselves before within these corners; on these shores. here, at least - in this space and this 'sometime' - as one new Lord, or next in line of this lost realm - just now recharging - not yet turned on - i would smoke a good coffee, drink one last cigarette and think of everything; everybody; smile at nothingness; the summons of a church city bell. sleepy, waking city laying it all down again where are my girls? my lovers, and old comrades? i hold a future for you all still in me. i am not yet a ghost, am I? not yet a ghost? yet... what can any of my words say now, to you... from here...? what can they say beneath the face and sun of Time - crooked and still carving on - ever deeper - spaces into fading faces sown by needs i've seen and watched before. and I will not be turned, or pulled by you below the water; getting washed away. i will keep my oar in and my eyes looking out for better currents. i will write these lines, already set (i may be fading but I'm still here...) but I think it's time - my boat must be moving out… and so it is we inch, or cast off, further into the beyond - that low, ship's rumble - and this new day... [c.2013] .‘beyond the dark pines’ that shore; it’s been calling us all day beyond that line of old, dark pines. i’m sure, there’ll be treasures to find; strange, blue wonders lost in a time; hidden within those overlooked, seaweed-soaked, sodden estuaries. . . since it’s now our turn let’s go down, to that bustling old sea-town, hushed for now by gusts of this great wind whispering… of something still to learn in seeing — what we can see; some mystery, unknown in being — simple, free as all we can be… keep close and maybe we’ll make it back home safely before the stealthy tide turns steadily against us… . . even our small but hardy crew of fired-up pirates — intent - on finding, sharing all the secret light there is on this bright and dark earth. . . and what did we smuggle back? or salvage: a fine, abandoned shell, the smoothest rock, an old piece of string to wind around the years and attach us, bind us, to that source of everything around still drawing and calling us within… . and where will we steal such power? to the pulling moon… out — to other, far stars… or put back in that land thrilling and wild where fierce, sun-filled daffodils bunched in the hand belonged to us with all the tiny changes; living signs and sounds - cold, soaked or warm - challenges; inciting us to new riots along the sand. . indeed the sun breaks - and we too — against those fast, foaming treasures of the sea freezing our feet breaking us back out, or down in laughter fits; falling around the wide, giant bay scattering; splashing us raw into its shocking, fresh, timeless time… . but soon - battened down against a wind - becoming gale - battering another night - and nearly all night long wide awake thinking, listening - at the end — dreaming - of what more could possibly lie out beyond those dark, now darkening pines… . you know, I know - the new kind will hunt and gather - maybe find - something new to burn and shine for a short time… draw and excite then slip away… like grains of that shore’s warming sand through our ever-young, ever-reaching fiery hearts… . and these sea-cold hands… with still, its great and ceaseless work causing me to pause, assemble, and make plans. . 2021 (from ‘in ash on the sand’ but collected here for its S.Devon origins.) Collectible as separate NFT .‘coastal birds’ the wind again; it owned that place; we were not supposed to be there hiding out on a cliff-edge. . below us, dark sea blasted netted stacks of stones holding us in place. that bright morning black rooks had tried to warn us - about it all through their high, ragged calls. well, it could now actually be the end of us- battened down as we buried heads inside warm beds - like birds in one of those dark pine trees we would fall and not matter to the world; its turning, booming, crashing storm rolling out battalions of waves on another dark, abandoned planet. . or else we might — even — win through in the end - you’d hope; break away —in rockets — up to other stars; some display at least against that sleeping force threatening again to snuff our fires so easily out. . for yes, that night, was a battle only dumb men would presume to dart out into or describe; believe they could ever conquer… . we are just birds - grounded it’s true - but only birds fleeing and flung, into new, blue skies, opening up a while clasping our crooked worms; landing more and more into any safer, quieter corners. . did you ever, like, like this world, we held out against? where we walked and talked and decided, what we needed to decide on next; where our minds - still fly and roam, swiftly stirring our stomachs again - through the great night - those nights - some time ago… yet only figments to this lost world we serve utterly and will return to wake up in again then be worn down, sleep deeply, snugly into; for the length of a dream it seemed to have some need of us… . our fires maybe, are like its deep fire feeding on its own creations, where each will face that storm — embrace — fully what its life is, what our death’s merger means; for this blind biosphere some freedom and great sacrifice; our erasure, for its grind; its continuance. . . . 2021 ref: dylan thomas ‘the force that through the green fuse’ (from ‘in ash on the sand’, collected here for its S.Devon origins.) ‘dark soldiers’ (Lydford Keep) the words we learn have no meaning but by rote before the day's guns thunder into life again. we are caught in the humdrum while Time marches on to leave us dry, old soldiers marked and bitten by a cold war we can never end, nor comprehend. a few - behind lines - seized more time to find; unearth this knowledge of ourselves; this system. they've carried this power within them through strange shelters. 'how much will I be changed? before I am changed'? but... you, dark soldiers of Life, when will you come - and will you come - to understand the true shapes of the borders of this war? we share with our all our voices and our ways, our roles; selections of campaigns born out into the light - this harsh land of day? how will they take their quiet toll here, too within the flow, directing flow, of this transfixing river ...before the new day's thunder comes? so much there is to know need never be known where we are sown enthroned thrown unknown and now all flown. 2014/15, revised again 2019 Note: i (think!) this poem was something about how an understanding of Nature can expand the mind, if we appreciate our connection and our role to/within it. ‘beyond all hype and bubbles’ (Flete estate + estuary) old photos feature outlines of pines. a distant ship shifts on the horizon. . beneath this, lie the treasures of Time to spend away, today, down by the sea, not always looking ahead or feeling so numb, comfortably. . many, were found - then lost - or at least held for a while… . you know, one day we will forget everything, our lies, our strange ideas - these words - even this wind which brought us; bound us, so close. . . will we find our future? do you think? no, don’t cry or be dragged down remember a here; the now… . your pure joy, rising up through every moment - the very first and last - not written yet — or far off but snug — as we were - within that timeless, time-forged coast - its new pioneers… . where everything that ever was, and is - still is - forever near; attainable; forever incredible and possible… yes, possible… . . . . 2021 (from ‘in ash on the sand’ but collected here for its S.Devon origins.) Collectible as separate NFT ‘to the far tor’ i look to the top to the far tor, looming; bare, honed, and huddled bones revealing their formations to themselves; a wise assembly into which I'm bound… to share their silence between their cracked stone palms; to reach a distance; survey formations in this life before some far release… . not yet… let the hills be dim and rugged in the cold wind all around but there are birds for it is spring soon. a plane - flying low - turns and I think of all we are this struggle - hardship - fellow, windblown figures - piloting their way to the tops. . i come to feel this life - exposed here - one reality - forged - by forces, stark - i bring my soul into their massive hands; the rocks like buried fingers cannot move where they've been set. . . this life of art for just a vast, restless mass struggling in the dark to keep alive and breathing; producing food, burning our energies back to the sun. . where we cannot live without our other tiny, island lives; close but far-lit tors, with beacon fires fierce, hungry stars we are; blinking on and off.. . sharing in the taking, the restless need to give, the being; our own breaking… feeding some message to the earth - with strange circles celebrating themselves so well - through us; deep-dented by so many sudden, violent storms that test the whole landscape. . i keep climbing... to burn on, burn free and then be gone to memory, the force of love and the ghostly wind haunting glorious ruins of time. . but these unreal, barren spaces must be roamed to feel and understand the gaps - this other side - to the fires of modern designs, the new campaigns of our own conjuring; striving to keep us fixed and safe and not exposed or loose upon the hillsides of the world. . but I take this slower time, today breathed in, now smuggled away back down, steadily to the sheltered spaces where we fight for brightness and joy - new shreds of brilliance - building up our fading towers of words… however long they stand within the shadow of that far tor, looming. . (June 2015) note: I lived on the edge of Dartmoor and finished a poem following a walk up onto the hills to get some wind-swept peace. At the top, there are 'tors' of ancient stones that are features of the old hills, once covered in forest. Anyway, I wrote it partly on this walk to escape modernity for an hour, getting away from continual organisation required in the role of a manager. I was trying to reconcile something: modernity, life, death, and art as a whole I guess, in the presence of the old stones and hills. I'm not sure how successful this attempt was... but the words became piles of stones in themselves, set in a kind of stone. ‘coast guard’ in the dark I lie back thinking of when I first heard such desolate presence turning and pounding at a near shore changed utterly by a storm quietly raving; crashing and eroding time beneath heaps of stones, under directing stars; even a vengeful moon. . that sound — oblivious to men — is no friend of everything we stand for everything we hold dear. . besides there was only just a TV signal, a small open fire had warmed our perched and smokey, cosy home and life was newly-fired but now so fragile where our family clan lay — except for I — listening… timing… the next bleak and random space between each close and far-off breaker. . it really is our dark earth; our troubled sea conspiring against us; expelling or at least getting it all out, or something. . under such siege others slept on warmly thru that loosening, booming night… then i too… buried deeply in between — and found rest within oblivion… .. before . a brand new day - bound to come back beyond the dark to herald - . brave, fresh adventures for our greedy spirits, surging to ride out again; to seek the source of all that restless power beneath the near and steady horses of our parents love. . . you know the memory of those waves — and my fear — all turned over; changed; into bright wet sand; seaweed wreckage, running — to tame a land of windy, fresh mornings, ransacked and renewed for quick plunder together as the waves worked on, distracted; so far out — . we stole their treasures while they regrouped; hushed; more settled; sure — but still… and ever since i think on it — . that sound, cementing us in a fiercer realm; that time ruled by timeless, unstoppable stallions forever charging, rising, spilling and commanding — from their distance in the dark — smothered, yet ever present, beyond the measured law of each and every day since childhood… . since the music and voices grew all around us and let us drown. . . . . . (2020/1) (from ‘in ash on the sand’ but collected here for its S.Devon origins.) 2nd last line: see ‘ghost song’ by jim morrison last line: see ‘the wasteland’ by ts eliot ‘ceremony’ we must destroy each other before the world destroys us groping, closer in our brimming nest high above the world’s unbounded power, ceaseless and spare . the new, TV news gathers us in but i need you here to share this form I bare — this body — with all its fire for you — for all your kind — for on my own i can be strong but i am nothing - a ghost enjoyed by ghosts - i am no stark victim of your next decision, or abrupt, enveloping moves. . it’s only someone such as you — your feline folk — who keep me real, and clear: fangs bared and sharp, tongue lolling; my mind primed; ready to blow. It’s how it is — you know — we all share in our desires everywhere; worlds of desire destroying — to be destroyed; surviving — to survive ourselves until …our fires die out - or are subdued… . …and we are freer, emptier shells painting each other; creating games with words; lip-syncing from the shade or noticing change; smiling up at that sun which will burn us altogether. . others may notice our destruction even witness it but they’ll never feel more - no, they never partook of it. . believe me we’ll have a great feast and after start out again into the unknown foraging in fresh estuaries. just as everything we’ve come to know once was — unknown, strange and new this Earth, to be discovered . just as we were discovered while discovering in our joy; destroying — in this wind’s bitter grip - amid old ghosts of the destroyed; the once-proud, empowered departed. . we’ve survived their desire and must keep on loving and not hearing, fearing or becoming them. how we laughed at them! and i recall that chilly breeze how it made the whole hushed and flowing scene of sand; of sunlit water - flash with gold - beneath my only small, warmed toes digging in… i heard only a few high cries, ecstatic yells, from other souls — very far out - lost in the breakers. . harsh beauty, we must perform our ceremony of fire enough times, before all time. we must remember this is what we were — once; it’s what we are — raw energy controlled by that chaos — ancient; older than the hills around our bones as we stare back — stare down — from atop such soft but brittle, shifting thrones so many fathoms out - to that far source — that shining sea… and hear it crash once more; hear it roar beneath. … .. . 2021 (from ‘in ash on the sand’ -last burnt poems) last line: ‘hamlet’ Collectible as separate NFT ‘dark soldiers’ (original, shorter version) the words we learn have no meaning but by rote before the days' guns thunder into life again. we are caught in the humdrum while Time marches on to leave us dry, old soldiers - marked; bitten by a cold war we can never halt nor comprehend. some - from behind lines - seized more time to find; unearth this knowledge of ourselves; this System. 'How much shall I be changed? Before I am changed'? Life's dark soldiers: when will you come - and will you come - to understand the true shapes of the borders of this war? we share with our all our voices and our ways, our roles; our selection of campaigns that take a quiet toll within the flow, directing flow of this transfixing river... ...before the new day's thunder comes. 'to the flickering girls' (alt. version) you... you are on fire with beauty, boundless and harsh, and all the Life, this power, that is leaving me… my strung-out wolf-soul wondering in a life, now wandering; leading me down to its smoke-wrecked shores. but, hey - in crisp September - burn as I - my yearning world - never burned in shelters stolen from the wake. leaf-deep, indeed, my storm quaked at what could break; and i could never fell those tree-tall towers - those shadows - keeping my form too galled; too wary; and so far from your fast mystery, and enthral. no… few breaths of wind sigh here on this ash-buried timber - brittle, stilled; sand-blasted. no bright, feverish joy for me anymore where there was Love, and there was Need; where now you're wearing them - inside the sharp and alarming, closed forest of youth; stark temptresses, dancing, full-naked... ebullient… half-smiling, to... someone... beyond… not seeing me - no, not really at all - now sliding away... (oh how it is, lithe figures, flickering - that this world will wash itself with our worlds and leave us dry and belittled - whispers from a bacchanal where we were only and forever more fossil and fuel - bewitched and so beguiled - more lone, now levelled bone-meal for its blind; its blinding breeze.) ‘that sea’ Death is shining at me in the distance - in that great Sea - beautiful - in the blue light of faster, former days. . only now I see It — feel It — closer now, moving inside me, too, with those waves of my annihilation. . i’m waiting to be hooked out; cast into some sea beyond even, this golden sun. . . sure, we’ve worked; we’ve played in the bright wake; defied It for some while shifting our dreams, tapping on proud castles in the sand; all these many forms of fishing for the reeling in — tight turns - to lend us ‘peace’; notions of control; while It slumbers there — or wakes; to shed Its scale, so deep, Its mystery wide and ever-tempting; to drink up, then sleep off on the beach. . it’s no mystery: that Sea is Death It breathes; It breaks into life; It brings new life to us more sunken in the sand; this hungry shore. hello - i take a photo and admire the light but it does not capture this inner-sea beneath; my turtle soul blanched and overheating toiling now more slowly over its sharp, dry rocks. . It will pull us away you know, or crush us; shells like stars summoning tired bones. and we will go; fall down on the shore once more. born — we were, and bound — to slide - or be winked out; pulled back to fill the world’s spaces as our fingers forged new patterns of its thriving; surviving shadows. . isn’t it great to love such an idea of Death? to marvel for a moment how everything is shaped by that Sea: the very shape of this hustling, bustling shore. . . yes — everything is Death, or has been: trees, notched and crooked, grains of sand, fine-honed those gemstones beyond so many flickering plans, brief, sudden laughter, drowned by harsh separations barely noticed; in our imprisonments from each other. . i cannot say much more, of course. we are Its avatars, loaned-out creations - and - It is a force we ride, and are ridden far, and away… from plans, to have no plans; to pass long before our time is run or surrendering our selves - to just be old; tilling the land; ignored, as worn-out sand-keepers letting others live; sharing in their joy; smiling simply into the wind and the waves with all other half-baked notions washed and cleaned and dried. . remember… me?… why? ‘i’ was just another of Life’s white lies, another of Death’s tools working together for a while . to feed what Life is emerging in the careless, care-free flames of those waves out there whispering they were always there. . . ‘Oh, how, time flies With crystal clear eyes And cold as coal When you’re ending with diamond eyes.’ [inspired by a song ‘cross bones style’ by cat power, plus the coastline of s.west england, uk.] (from ‘in ash on the sand’ but included here for its S. Devon origins.) Collectible as separate NFT ‘old world’ (photo-art for a song outline: https://audius.co/embertime/old-world-guitar-800727) Collectible as separate NFT Extra Note (Stover Park) Thanks for reading! More poems can be ‘found’ online or off, evolving or devolving, including ‘In Ash on the Sand - Last Burnt Poems’, ’Across the Shore’ (an NFT collectible poem catalogue) plus earlier work ‘Gathered on This Beach’. ‘Estuary’ is a guitar song from an ‘Embertime’ project - maybe - still out there online. Recommended reading: elemental ‘Moortown Diary’ by Ted Hughes, for his vivid North Devon homage. Ade, 2023. (Flete estate) (now you've come along, you must go down off the moor now, and return to the road....) CONTENTS Intro… + ‘open mind’‘brave old world’‘old dogs’‘the flickering girls’‘close to right now and the future beyond…’‘wind in trees’‘by the sea’‘a ghost on Stoke Village hill’‘beyond the dark pines’‘coastal birds’‘dark soldiers’‘beyond all hype and bubbles’‘to the far tor’‘coast guard’‘ceremony’‘dark soldiers’ (original, shorter version)'to the flickering girls' (alt. version)‘that sea’ ‘old world’ Extra Note…

## Publication Information

- [Ade's Press](https://paragraph.com/@adespress/): Publication homepage
- [All Posts](https://paragraph.com/@adespress/): More posts from this publication
- [RSS Feed](https://api.paragraph.com/blogs/rss/@adespress): Subscribe to updates
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ademcampbell): Follow on Twitter

## Optional

- [Collect as NFT](https://paragraph.com/@adespress/at-the-far-tor-1): Support the author by collecting this post
- [View Collectors](https://paragraph.com/@adespress/at-the-far-tor-1/collectors): See who has collected this post