Summer sky with spitfire.
My wife says it's her dad.
And loud the old engines roar
holding my attention.
Ants shall raise their antennae
wild birds make for a perch.
Our vision extends to a distant speck
hard to say exactly when
its gone.

Hold hands and carry on.

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Your troubles began long before you were born;
it's not your fault. You could boast, if you would,
of walking towards the light.

When young you think you can fly. You think
you can live forever. You thrill to think
you will escape a forest of razor-sharp thorns
and fall into the open arms of Love.

So suddenly old, you do reach the heights-
relentless mountaineering just a way of l...

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This lesson only grasped through time

Our view emerging in the climb 

Its vexed infancy played out the longest:

Our army without guns is the strongest  

So sing the old songs, drink deeply

And with tears drying become sleepy

To dream swift, golden spears of sun-rays

On the eve of our momentous day

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All that can hound you to your grave
howling and slathering
takes form from your mind
where the consequences 
of your chosen path
pierce the mist step by step

You'd love to slam a door
like a human being would
but the hole you're in has no cover
unnaturally you'll scream for sleep
knowing your bad dream burns fiercest there

Could this tumbling world afford
respite for rabid creatur...

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For my complaint
they hold the pen
like a boat oblivious
over the Titanic
exhaustive discussion
they summarise
and I, exhausted
put my name to their craft
on the surface the deed is done
and the deeper point is missed
 

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It took time but he learned the old lesson
found he couldn't relish his feast
while all around were hungry faces
closed doors and loud music
couldn't lessen the needling pain.

How could he enjoy heaven 
knowing others endure hell?
Don't all gleeful thoughts of 'heaven' 
preclude the grim idea?

This Buddha envisioned humanity
sharing one shattered heart
and the question was not how t...

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Life! That joke-
the man is a voodoo doll
everywhere pin pricks 
disfigure the days
with upset and aggravation 
with calamity and irritation 
frustration disappointment despair

odd to be metamorhic
after both carrot and stick
shrivel and drop
whence came my achievement
now it's over and I'm not yet dead
another funeral negotiated
and I'm moving on
this my achievement

greasy pole...

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Harsh and dangerous years
grey pebbles encased in ice
seasons in their perpetual cycle
visit yet to gather their tithe.
Black covers of a book slammed shut
epitomise time here where we are
thankful of sleep as the hours may pass
but think too of the unconscious loved one
that precious time you realised, dumbstruck
they had fell from the heavens for you
a pristine figure you had to reac...

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The very idea of it
fair distribution
does violence to the picture held
by America-with-a-mask:
A vision of good folk alfresco dining
oblivious (can you believe it?)
to their closest neighbours.
Their frayed neighbours would beg them 
to keep the racket down but know what
reception they would get.
America-with-a-mask at their best
in a reverie, see no futher 
than silken robes of ...

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Along the familiar boundary sniffing
Lady twitched a loose leash.
That bird, still unidentified,
gave her curious call.

War begins in earnest and already
the tallest trees are felled.

As before the anthem goes
"only warriors will protect us"
the b-side of the medal has scratched
"only warriors will attack us"

Now sentinels have grown smaller
face the cold, check the cloudspee...

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When I'm recognised
as an enemy of the state
my dogs may survive the catastrophe
and don the golden collars of the tyrant
I say life was good when I leashed them
with lengths of rope I'd find
and dogs can never be happy with unjust masters.
Into the woods we'd wander where
soon will be a leisure paradise for a price
but heaven was unbranded when 
thin branches whipped our skin
as w...

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The wheelers and the dealers, middlemen singing the blues
(you hear that...?)
my wheelers my dealers my middlemen all singing the blues
( I hear you!)
I see what you got, you got nothing I can use
(all right.)

and the seargant at the station he's always singing the blues
(you know it)
yes the seargant at the station got to be singing the blues
( I know it)
his boys go around and round,...

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Had a little drink about an hour ago
catfish on my line
push out on the raft where the river's slow
steamboat passing by
gives my such a wail like a thundering train
hat's over my eye
give another hoot like the express train
thats a two-step in ragtime

Been dreaming again I was twenty five
summer was ablaze
you wake me, shake me, see if I'm alive
what for are my days?
you can sa...

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I was told to stop
It was then I was 
a man thrown overboard
sinking further

joyous light grew dim 
but never would I stop
I got the blues deep
played the walking bass 

along the sea bed
my guiding light
bio-luminescence 
picking out my two-step 

shuffle beyond a wreck
passing through shadows 
sensing my path rise I found
the shoulder of an island

perhaps I should call...

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...and I'm back
in the poetry shed.
Uneasy with creatures in dark corners
never really convinced
they can do me no harm.
And why am I here?
No latest episode to relate
no issue I cogitate
I have no gong to bang.
Why am I here? You tell me.
Whatever progress made through perfect stillness
to dim unholy light I surface
as foxes emerge from cover.
Stars hang over like guardian's eye...

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A curl of orange peel
falls like a helpless marionette
with each pip deposit the plate rings 
your window frames the young sun 
sweeping a heaving ocean of prose
also through glass arcs of breaking waves 
appear as poetry beyond collection
their shoosh heard all throught the night
never one concerned to get somewhere
you balance some time later
upon volcanic dust by those hooked wav...

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 (To the tune of the same name by Phil Cunningham)

Violet Tulloch, Queen of Lerwick
will you count me in a last time
round and round we go a last time
round and round we go

I remember one september
Violet Tulloch, Queen of Lerwick
Winter on the way one more time
round and round we go

Mists encroaching, frosts grown deeper
becoming the season
there's a ribbon, silken ribbon
windin...

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Mists lift from the lake
     it's found to be a mirror
you find it good to bow your head
     for low branches
like crossing a threshold
     entering a magic circle
instantly, on the path
     I dare say any path
the lord, a handful
     appears before you
a robin redbreast
     who'll weigh your soul
offer safe passage
     just as long as
          you know who's boss
 

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The little boats
Incidental to the ocean
oscillate and jostle
seem precious to no one.
And disappear without comment
paint to peel, iron to rust
further downstream-
orphans stunted for lack of a crust.
Or nations small as islands
never considered before
about to go under-
little boats, bring worlds ashore.
 

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Dragged by the hand to market
I'd bring nothing to the table
for these poems cannot be bought

Who I hear whisper to me
I whisper to in response 
no one could sell such poems

Or shouting my urgent warnings
desperate signals in desperate times
poems for peace not for profit

Singing if I see swans rise
not if someone'll pay me
poems not wrapped up for sale
 

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Dragged by the hand to market
I'd bring nothing to the table
for these poems cannot be bought

Who I hear whisper to me
I whisper to in response 
no one could sell such poems

Or shouting my urgent warnings
desperate signals in desperate times
poems for peace not for profit

Singing if I see swans rise
not if someone'll pay me
poems not wrapped up for sale
 

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From the point where heart and mind meet
fields where innocent lives enjoy leisure
are found to offer sanctuary to all
and all, spiritual swordsmen from birth,
are roused to work defending beauty
should dark senseless clouds encircle us.
 

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Once there was an orchard it's true
well maintained in lines
where nettles now fill the wasteland
still a lone ancient looms larger
growing wildly with every whim it seems
in reality collaborating 
with a changeful sky and all life around
atuned to symphonies through the leaves
entranced by the tingle of involved roots
windfall offerings precious as ever
follow gravity to the centre...

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Actors from other plays
and there's no crime in that
shared the stage; 'shared' meaning
each in their own speech rapt
from those unspoiled days when it was safe
to step out in the sun and nothing was 
more natural than a breath of air
strife in paradise nonetheless
in entangled languages was heard declared 
like competing birdsong 
from impenetrable brambles
taken, for were we not the...

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dancing through
a bent note ridiculously sustained
look an idiot and carry on...

not deafened but failing
to hear a whispered message
there's always tomorrow...

we've been here before
what can be offered now
to bring us back again?

pour new seeds in the old design
a signalman's lamp swaying 
just possibly enough...

...as long as the birds come to the feeder

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Not a catch in anyone's book, ditch the thing
there's work to do. Fey depths- keep your mystery.

This jellyfish weighed in a savage net
alien, too subtle, senses shredded
raised out of context, dripping oil on water 
this bare veil of life, by bubbles and stream,
now draining away.

An unnerving thing to see; not like stars
that no longer exist, or horizons
that can never be reach...

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When did the scales tip, and pain outweigh the joy?
I've walked toward love since I was a boy.
When did the wind change? I'm back from the shore
dreams still washing up just as before.

Are there laws to limit love I have not heard?
Has the unexamined life become prefered?
Have all the sweet birds fallen from the sky?
Listen. The morning song! Oh my, oh my.

When did all our stories...

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It has to be

large print

not
      too clever
and not too crude

It can't be a sure-fire hit
you have to take a chance
or forget it forever

it doesn't need to be
a cavernous 
          hope 
growing inside 
a Ben Nevis

it just is

Right there in black and white 
     and you all for shading
might two agree to disagree
     and still hear the ring of truth?

You know 
...

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For standard arrangements no special terms
within the heart's private confines a pause
here an entire class, while keeping schtum,
unearths archeologically deep
incongruencies or impurities

Stark circus acts must tumble, you'd think
when the obvious hits the eye 
heirarchies of people standing 
on peoples shoulders on peoples shoulders 
still they stand.
 

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Out of place on the steep bank
beyond revolving and tangled washing lines
alone a group of bright narcissi wave.

Framed by the kitchen window
Not quite Van Gogh's sunflowers
they are the only flowers in this still life.

You planted the bulbs when first we moved here
holding on to something of the garden
we once treasured- it was all our own work.

Fitly they bloom around your bi...

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More than once have I hit that basic level.
Featureless the desert that stretches out.

You don't phone a friend or catch a train
no sudden idea springs up to change things.
You come to know the animal genius
one step after another... one step...

Waste no energy shaking your fist
at heaven, at your unfair lot.
Nor twist your gut in agonies of blame
of shame and regret. Concentrate...

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Follow me across the country:
the horse that pulls the plough.
Seasons shall reveal their mystery
while ever years allow.
Sailors speedily to safety
skylarks haply back to earth
and the hours passed lacking love
now shall they find rebirth.
For the morn becomes the evening
where country meets the town
and the fields where lay our memories
will never let us down.

Follow me, free ...

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Why leap out of bed at midnight
to save a line from dissolving before dawn
when the heartland of poetry is oblivion?

Millions of invisible poets
are leaping out of warm beds,
they pass like a cloud's shadow.

Leaping for the distilled mood of a season
not this occasion or that
not expecting to stop a tank.

But how many must be the ways:
unbottling the moonshine
laid down by a poe...

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The mirror is covered or taken away
you don't know where to look
but know me you should 

Warnings, like price-tags, you've hung on me
crazy...bad...false...
you're abusing youself!

Family ghosts are mixed
with memories and stories
they make a mouldy stew
ghosts of strangers are needed
to clear your fever

Play the old tunes but
make of them what you will
your melodramas aren...

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I come to plentyonly with nothing but
like buntinghanging the signs are 
everywhere and there I find
making music from an oak-shaped sillhoette
blackbirds who're invisible
quieted then shriller when I pass belowbranch
the stranger inaballad I feel
though born to plentyonly and caught 
where widerfields open I read on
you see my eye is a fieldglass
lit on a towpath as hophome-fast go ...

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Through fifty years tight buds would swell
Down fifty years sweet blossoms fell.
Tears enough shall balance humour
let poetry narrate disaster.

Quite dead, to our lawn, the bird fell. 
Put in each heart a myth to retell.
As if each one a feather took
and privately pressed it in a book.

Of this each one now stands accused:
secret keeping and hidden views.
For fifty years are felt...

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I don't remember
an occasion
meeting someone
the whole world's ocean
within reach
amiably smiling
ready for any 
accompanying dog
both being strangers 
to the beach
I imagine someone
condemned to die
who won't let me down
no reason to speak at all
ask me
"why the poem?"
 

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An ancient craft had carried them away
far out to sea: sentenced words, jolly tars,
these living ghosts, reeling around n' round
the good ship becalmed 'mid circling stars.

A practical skiff chancing alongside
then shall take on board the implication:
an undreamt Aztec fleet shares these waters
where track we bright-scaled fishes migration.

Where fingers trace the ornate sculpted ...

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An inverted dish holds a patterned moth
wings necessarily constrained.
On the one side is shame, taking comfort 
in safety. On the other 
an irrepressible wish- to break free.
Moths able to smile might raise a gurn-smile
ways out by force of will ruled out.
Take strength and hope while fortune's in limbo
both horseshoe bat and moon-light, imagined.
 

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A period of weeks and burgeoning leaves
transmute the whole idea of 'tree'.
Day by day its shadow draws a new map 
of the world on the schoolyard wall.
A child has the best view to see it.
Where another child from another year 
has scraped away mortar with a lolly stick,
tiny insects are awaiting their time.
Try all ways to stop them. The kids 
will strike the wall with footballs 
r...

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I half-remember, perhaps it was a dream
this iconic image from someone's art.
What glimpse it was that can still make me start
like a banged gong, it could have been a dream.

There's a street reduced to smoking piles
in the bombsite a woman proudly stood.
Centre-stage by her doorframe's splintered wood
and amid this desolation, she smiles.

Smiles, for her returning love draws near:
th...

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for Mandy

with you
I walk through the kissing gate 
where love begins into
a field of horses
all power and passion in a mist
into the pliant wood
so absorbed in beauty
and so to a small pool
the while dreaming 
each reed and ripple unaware
now, there you sit secluded
inspired to paint
silently I admire
it's true any way back 
loses itself in the past
as summer increases
are new ...

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but we are not birds
navigate through darkness
but we are no bats
together we traverse all the world
but we are not clouds
ascend to the heights
but we are no angels
together we leave the worms behind
but we are not astronauts
finding bliss in weightlessness
but we're no aliens
and in freefall together
we seek no safety-net
the sky could not be bluer
while closer we hold each ot...

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First you listen with the fist
made no more for hearing than for caring
but you start from where you are.
You listen with the elbow
only to get by: so, so many people!
Do they all want a piece of you?
You listen with the shoulder
maybe life is a game of rugby
but that may not be quite true.
Then you listen with the ear
wild gibberish in strange tongues
how are you to understand?
Y...

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Anyone walking far enough in a straight line
is thought a genius, or leader to follow,
or a wonder, or a danger to society.
A mystery beyond understanding
or miracle or danger to society.
So if you make it past the graveyard
with you walking stick,
past the field with horses
wondering what it's all about,
over the zebra crossing with your inhaler
past revving drivers who own the road,
t...

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You'd better open your front door
you'd better make sure 
you've got the right
clothes on
and you'd better step
out there.

I've found no other advice 
worth a pebble.

Even John Lennony me
who creeps towards no more war
who works for no rich and poor
knows it ain't happening.
Well, I've said my piece
I'll leave it at that.

Take my scarf and hat 
for a snowman in a blizzard...

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This year saw again hundreds of crucifxions
the witness knew only one, and innocence fled.
Hers was an undocumented life, her children
and sea-sick home conveyed by her spider-strong thread.

Repairing all the patterned coats reaching her hand
holding one, then the next, like dreams through her morning.
All those new faces learnt geometry in the flight of a stone
similarly they'd lear...

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'Awake', 'Snowflake'.
every line with it's rhyme
saved up to flourish at the end.
Then the crocodile passing the lollipop lady:
'Limp', Lazy' and 'Loitering'
a select congregation 
branded with a cipher on the head.
And once commonplace
the dragon and the unicorn
now only haunt castle ruins.
When they pass a fallen wall
I clap my hands with childish glee.
Sadness also deepens-
dr...

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Not necessarily sympathetically
watching
a wasp stuck in honey.
Insect limbs wave
not gesticulating 
just trying to be free.
A million a minute come lessons like these.
Beetles might scampers across a leaf
smooth and vivid
reaching the edge 
they simply scampers across the underside
grey and hairy.
My sort can't do the same
liable to fall into black holes
and taking special care...

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Before the seasons picked up a serious pace
I would protest and rebel,
would shine a light for those challenged.
It was me needing the torch.
Fumbling for inspiration still
I mind my work while the war goes badly.
Constant and quiet as the many-eyed moon,
but can't make out, common or rare, that detail
obscure in all this ebb and flow
worthy of a poem.

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