No one as simple as I
need claim visions, or tortures
but when you sing it I see it
Oh minstrel, Oh chantuese.
The second worst thing in the world:
the ones I love most driven to tears.

Worst is when I have been the cause.
What wouldn't I do to have it any other way?
How it ever happens is humbling.
And easily, unintentially, repeatedly:
 a nightmare that threatens my sanity.

L...

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It's not the artist's desire to resolve it
it's the artist's desire to describe it.

It's not the philosopher's quest to resolve it
it's the philosopher's quest to explain it.

No one has a duty to describe, explain
or even resolve an argument.

Let both sides raise their voices together-
"My words are half the story no matter what you say."
-a harmony despite themselves.
 

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Monstrous earth-movers in orange livery
threaten less when viewed from a moving train.
Appraise their jagged lunges at your leisure.

From the comfort of your chair,
fly from fires you have no need to fight. 
Be happy skirting wrecked ghost towns, 
new scaffold and crane visions appear.

Stations not stopped at,
piteous with reasons why,
appeal with beige genies 
leaning from quai...

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A holiday can rehearse the last day of your life.
Like it would be, if you knew it was.
A beach break is best.
You can look into the distance
where there's nothing much to see.
I think that's just how I would look.

There is that world of sand, structured or loose,
bathed in its own beauty;
a world you have not made.
It blows into your heart
-walls and moats, tower and flag-
with ...

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A bird becomes aware of another in the sky.
Free to adjust the flightpath
Free to sing out with unclear meaning as they near.
There'll be no evidence of their meeting
and no call to remember a detail.

I see it all from my window.
You have a better view but you can see what I see.
Into blue or starry skies, overcast or clear
wirelessly my thoughts fly out hopeful
of the faintest sig...

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Long, long ago she sat
rapt in attention,
the girl with the golden plait.
She had set herself a task 
and could not fail.
It was fun at first.
Everywhere and at all times
throughout the fairytale landscape
see her ready to jump-
denounce any false word,
clear as the musical clanger
or the blunder in mathematics.
Her task needs paralysing concentration
never allow error to swan past.
...

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A few dozen trees and the whole world.
True, birds fly into the mist
who knows how they fare. 
Here an earthy scent holds us like a sea 
and suffuses every thought.
Where the oak drills into the earth
generations of creatures have shredded wood
and dewed moss cushions every stone.
This complete world is a velveteen toy.
Oh no, all is not good. One is a poisoner
where another's a fri...

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It's the battle of Britain all over again.
Arched windows in the eaves
provide my view as from chalk cliffs.
Outside of myself they take me:
the return of the housemartins-
soaring and swooping and astonishing
the weary spirit. Moving
aside, immediate concerns press
like a heap of papers realised 
suddenly in the hand.
But leave a portion of the soul 
looking upwards, faithful in its vi...

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As if he was an alien
observing human beings
so as to pretend he was one of them
he lived his life doing things
not because he wanted to
but because he thought
that's what people did

As if modern conveniences
were an unwonted imposition
and the ambitious dreamer
had no choice but to acquiesce
to the blind bargain offered up 
it increasingly seemed
by a contagious smiling devil

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It's another perfectly plain day here
   nothing has gone up in flames yet   
        birds might be murmurating overhead
           the roof hasn't fallen in yet
This warehouse liberally sprayed with isms
   political correctness fucked off
        barn doors wide open call foul weather in
           and hot air spiked with dust takes off
A radio forces five or six tunes
   in time measu...

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"She's under thirty."
It started as a joke against myself.
Not giving youngsters credit,
being a resentful or miserable old bastard.
It's become useful shorthand.

I've known people who always win
people with a lot to say
people with no fear.
All a thousand miles behind me now.
Under thirty.

I've learnt of the aristocracy 
of modern times, the divinities.
Their music in every e...

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for Mandy

Carry him gently up to bed
the spirit of the day
succumbed at last to exhaustion.
The fire in his eyes now resting
no games left us to play
mayhem still coloured in crayon.

Taking the trouble to show me
night shining bright as day
the grace to lift shadows your gift.
While grief makes its awful demands
and dreams then cannot stay
but take to your ocean to drift.

Just...

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A poem found written in my own hand
from one of my forgotten lives- 
I've had a few-
drives a coach and horses through my hovel.
It appears I should have given more-
look at me with nothing! How could I
disagree? In this life 
the poems keep coming, who knows from where? 
Losing them would be a swim out to drown, 
accepting them with an even hand
burns the nerves but must 
provide ...

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Soft petals-  shrill trumpets-
woven through barbed-wire fences.
Known to fade; fall; but reform
in novel elegances.

Please, there are no words of wisdom
just words, help yourself.
Pass them through the in-turned mind,
doom them to a dusty shelf.
 

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The day's drudgery should be done by now
still he shambles. Dimmed Wandering skies
match hard concrete ground as on he shambles.
His feet are aching but his head aches more:
he could just as well be that disintegrating
plastic bag buffetted along, his torturous journey
has no point. The love of his life has left
their love-nest. She just needs some space.
He has heard that phrase before ...

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There is a silly old fool, he writes poems.
His themes are various, his output, vast.
Half of his effort is junk- he is
an artist after all- but even the good word 
is diligently ignored. All of it
sinks to a dark seabed
nibbled there by species unknown.
The silence really is deafening.
If anyone finds the power of speech
the only question will be
"What is this shit?"
The silly old...

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A stony raised path splits the lake in two.
Enough to mark the place rewarding.
Children, old couples, fishermen:
to be sure, they worry- do they merit these wages?
In this way the mood of joy is tempered
and this much better they all are for it.
Walking, engaging with goose and fox;
from recalling a wider world exists
to deep pursuit after almost silent
yet well-versed divulgence of...

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To bear in mind the common wrongs,
carry the burden as a test
of the meaning of 'eternal',
the prospects of the great projects
and purpose of the mannered life.

It was to bear in mind the common wrongs
Jesus Christ spoke of the poor always
being with us, full knowing the poor
are all of us and all we are. 

When the poor see the shining van spill out
busy men, drilling and testin...

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Now strawberries and cream define a marriage
bromide and cyanide undermine a marriage

Let one image stand in reflective hours
white swans, long necks entwined in marriage

But do not forget for one minute, wild hog
and fierce bat are misaligned in marriage

What more is a waterfall but a backdrop
while tales of romance unwind through a marriage

And a knife, a fork, a bottle and a cor...

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It's not what you should do, it's what you can
creating more than giving and taking
my love saved my heart from her tired divan

All the world in an unmoved caravan
making room for love the undertaking
It's not what you should do, it's what you can

So far had I wandered a lone woodsman
as evening fell I heard a sweet singing
my love saved my heart from her tired divan

I had no r...

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Ratty, scuttling across the lane,
from cover to cover, wishes again
he were huge. Too big for this narrow vein,
huge as a house. He could swallow whole
whatever he chose. The world
would be his waste-pile. Eagles in flight
his light snack. One thought would not stick:
if he were huge, also in proportion
would be his problems, enemies 
and comrades too. Sick!
 

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Into gloom, and uncertain footing,
place of dead-ends and torturous descent;
into this airless, soulless surrounding
goes one to meet his love, and sing again.

These dim-lit cold-grey rocks always lead down
but this hopeful wills his lover ascend,
or rather the lover spurs him upward
for man and muse each so comprehend.

(You should know that when the lovers emerge
into the blindi...

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A small boy lost in finding good pebbles
"Isaac"
for the game of the moment, which was this:
send a stone on a high parabola
over the waves then quickly follow up 
skimming a flat stone aimed to coincide
with the flying projectile at splash-down.
"Isaac!"
Some stones were too good to give up this way.
One perfectly spherical stone hypnotised the boy.
The perfectly curved orb followe...

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Did you ever you see so many 
regimental banners gathered together
as all those you can't miss 
roosting in the breathing space of a cathedral?
All types of military flags
hang from carven ribs like festive bunting.
Crossing uneven stone centuries
all times of crisis
overhead explosions of colour
camoflage ornate arches
sculpted to inspire.
I believe if Jesus Christ were alive 
in...

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Now it seems I am to live forever
all those dead come to me in dreams.
Insistently they put it to me
that I am not living at all.

Only they can risk everything
after losing time and time again.
Only they will race up a mountain
having learnt only how to fall.

I awake and review my agenda
insinuations still echoing loud.
It's only after long meditation
I learn to hear another vo...

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the grass is greener
the stars shine brighter
on the side of liberty

the grass is greener
the air is freer
on the side of equality

"the plain is plainer 
come over the stream"
"the deep is deeper
come over the stream"

the grass is greener
the dance is dancer
on the side of liberty

the grass is greener
the corn is corner
on the side of equality

"the plain is plainer 
...

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Light. dark. 
A king stripped of comrades.
Opposing forces restricting movement
to two squares. Light, Dark.
Your moves are forced. When it is your turn
you must be thinking...
God only knows.
Meanwhile, see a hostile pawn navigate.
Destined to become a queen, destined
to deliver checkmate.

This is a poem
so there must be some kind of metaphor
kicking about.

As a chessplayer ...

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No more than an ant hill
under observation

Kids can shoe the mountain aside
for fun

Beasts fiercer still
claw the pile in earnest

Where the waters rise
the floods will sweep through

And after, drought
routinely turns the ground to stone

Observe the ants on any day
staunchly take up the challenge

From rampant plague to feet of snow
never a dull day for the workers

T...

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Caveman had occasion to drag cavewoman home by the hair.
Being discomfitted by coconut 
cavewoman threw said coconut at back of caveman's head.
Many times before they reached home
coconut, "ow", back of head, "ow".

No wonder then when they reached the cave
neither was full of the joys of spring.
But their exasperation gave rise to 
the proudest of human achievements: speech.

"For...

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You're seen beneath broadleaves
as light rain passes over

Disaster upon disaster
safely behind you

When the rainbow shows
you're happy to move on

You're caught listening sometimes
sorrowful sighs on the wind

Driving home today
how many to run out of road?

Your eyes shock those now asleep wide awake
and those all too awake at last shall dream

You speak of a clock 
smash...

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For no particular reason we'll stop
look over the water hand in hand
we'll be just the age we are now
and all time together springtime

Reliving moments of expansive love
languid sun-dazed children recall our own
smiles like great banners of joy
poetry caught up in the simplest words

Butter-coloured dunes, trailing grass crests,
billowing sky one translucent pashmina,
undulating sea a...

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You dig your heels in.
You'd drag all the world onto your side
your enemy also.
So little movement for the effort
in the tug o' war.

Say the others are thin as paper
weak as ghosts. Enlist your children 
unto the fight. We're not establishing truth here
but winning counts for something
in the tug o' war.

You try to back out of it-
that's getting more into it!
There's pretty gi...

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He'd always turn away at the last moment,
this made him better than the barbarians.
Now a dream unfolds as it will
and he must at last witness an execution.

This convalescant life, he'd laugh, is a spider's web
set up in a hopeless location.
But now it opens all the windows
for thoughts over stale situation.

Look:

One man on his knees is keenly curious to the end
another, prec...

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The daughter-in-law is called in
-the old woman's blanket must be moved 
an inch to the left-
ah but, things can never be put right
and knowing that, she'll try
as if a winning ticket is to be found
under this or that pile of papers.
Before returning to the laundry
she'll assay the tea ceremony
(the perfect recipe, that infernal chimera,
 sits just out of reach)
oh, and it'll never...

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'Brotherly Love'

He said I was a philosopher
said it was not possible 
to communicate with me
he didn't say but thought
I was a little rash through surrealism
made cold with him- with anyone-
by all too easy an acceptance
of our hideous buffeting by fate.

I thought of myself as exactly the same as him
as anyone- but at a great distance
and communication must be conceded
difficult w...

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for Daniel Whitworth 1993-2014

When I see him I have to smile.
Heavy music becomes light as a feather.
Money from my pocket 
flies towards him like ecstatic dogs.
Frostbites chill out.

World champion he is
of endless fascinating things.
Today we dig to Australia.
Tomorrow swim to the new world.

All of life readily shows
family traits and values,
and we make a cast-iron case
...

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The topmost leaf of the tree
I'd Imagine in the wonder of youth
a ladybird settled there
realize from her vantage
I must appear the insect
while in my tired myopic age I find
 my exasperated view obscure
the summit of Everest mist-veiled

as I write they come to fell the tree
now shall I learn something of the heights
something but not everything
considering the toppled giant
too...

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Night sky- just a superhero's cape
dragged through puddles when
it is missing the stars.
And I know you
have taken comfort and inspiration
from fixed stars and wanderers
while joining the dots
brought me no arcane revelation.
But I think we can agree
the poem is a bed-time story for adults.
Nothing gained by studying it
you have to dream on it.
The poem won't bring starlight
to d...

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She
was married one day
before a jealous rival
killed her husband.
And so it was
her fate to enter the flames
of her husbands pyre.

Her sisters prepared her 
as they might for a birth,
urging her to redouble her strength.
The implacable sun rose
and with a show of gaiety
they walked her to the place.

Foreign explorers pulled her from the flames
just in time and at the cost o...

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If a TV were to be switched on, showing anything,
how quickly I would fall into its evil clutches.

It may be true; we may have to imagine;
there is no TV here, no string of messages
on a mobile phone, no neighbours 
sharing their music.

I wouldn't normally put myself forward but
I feel whatever we do here
 we should meet like this again and often.

Not knowing the future
(as op...

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Huge drops galloping from memory

drench a thin springtime suit. Again.

O brown Earth, green Earth!

No, no, you will never change.

Blue sky; black sky; sing your old lullay

again. Again.

For epic adventures among beetles

cast to the ready storm a composed mien.
 

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The adults, by brute force, had an engine

in pieces. They must reverse the process

to move on.

The boy had found a manhole cover,

colourless and unreflective,

cast-iron and screwed down.

The embossed surface

incorporating random letters

caught in a labyrinthine pattern.

The system of runnels, cleared of dusty mud

by a finger, perfect for guiding

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Anyone might imagine a person
who DIDN'T have a troubled past.
Camouflaged lunatics
search every dark corner for one.
Dour shopkeepers lay out
their carpets and table for one.
Men say a woman, women say a man
the old say the young, the young the old.
All agree they'll meet a Martian sooner.
 

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I know you have killed many enemies 
all those that lodged in your heart
should more storm your high fortress
I know you will burn it to the ground

So like simple night has blinded them
hateful arrows now miss their mark
and as if buried in pure white snow
evil taunts now force no echo 

I praise your meandering steps
outwitting your serpentine heritage
and I praise the necessary...

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     Eye to eye with circling shearwaters
the dumb spirit scans the sea.
As I think I divine a voice
the feeling dissipates like filigree 
foam on the breaking wave.

     And while sharing truths as perceived
the dumb spirit does not record.
There can be no archive and no
epic drama witnessed abroad
illuminates one unmet 'why?'

     And it's for my patience to crumble
where the...

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Mark Whitworth 1958-2021

Who grows young again through time?
See, through bitter ice become drip-clear  
melting from a forget-me-not that waits there.
Sustained as a long-held blue note
through out-of-sight jazz testimony.

I have in mind one
to rival Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape"
-gunning his motorbike up a grassy hillside.
One most fluent in music, our most expressive lan...

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Daybreak came round again.
She had a foot massage booked at a plush spa
but veered away admiring irises and unknown blooms.
His sister attacked his dad in hospital
pulling out tubes.
She returned to a childhood home
so improbably different now!
His 'phone wouldn't function right
distraught Romeo couldn't contact Juliet.

A few kisses sort it all out.
...

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All of us who invent the harder way
we too hear hear the door close quietly.
On the brothers who go to see the world-
how do they find it? Oh...no more is heard.

All of us left speaking just for ourselves 
hear our words echo from enclosing walls
emblazoned with scenes culled from that world
hung long ago and long unregarded.

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Five here, six there -families of geese
about their morning swim-
in all their senses
more aware than the human
(as always, the passer-by)
who reckons they are their own song
and when they raise their voices,
the mortal, featherless biped
-all manner of things being well-
finds an unfamiliar smile graces the face
ordinarily beset so with grimaces.

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And then

in our bedroom

the entire population of the world

crowded in

not only judging our love

but they had us there

exposed as spiritless puppets.

The momentary dark cloud passed swiftly.

Again we were brought alive

each by the other

in the joy of devotion.

Entering a dream or waking from it

the two are one in our Eden

and timeless days recoup the...

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     With all the gravity it can muster
the Earth is pleading, now quietly, now loud,
pleading.
     Such cries as anyone could overhear,
pleading.

     A vital truth is true forever,
you need only listen once
to join with me in all my further cries.

     Insubstantial beauty, crystalline snowflake
the truth is your distance pains me,
I must hold you as a mother does.
     O pl...

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I think of writing for you people
however far removed.

As you harness nuclear fusion 
for an abundance of clean energy,
all that came before- call primitive.

And maintain the Earth's population
at an optimum level. An issue
never before properly addressed.

These two achievements are the wings
to allow a sensible view for the first time,
carried free of age old labyrinths.

Y...

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     It will not mistake pride for gravitas
when it takes a cloth to the looking glass
but will find one's relation to heaven
simply focusing on what is hidden.

     Because privacy loves...no one need know
one hears the violin court the oboe.
No poem ever brought, or ever will,
mosses from that valley to this stark hill.

     Revealing in whispers -like to madness-
how one disti...

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It is time to write in praise of the episode apart.
Picking blackberries lost in nothing but 
blackberry bushes.
Let nothing force a wedge into the episode I praise, 
the fragment complete in itself.
Time and place unknown,
one back from hellish war
covets the empty sky.
Ten feet from shore, once upon a time,
fore and aft the waves rose up,
and the depression I was in was all there ...

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The land perceives 
forest and field.

Imagines a border, 
a slowly waving ribbon,
defining time over decades.

Understands the back and forth 
of each creature to suit it's needs.

Field to forest,
forest to field. 

Thoughts wander as owls orbit 
and salmon navigate, 
what is to stop them?

An unquiet land might speak
through forest, through field.

Sacrifice 
imaginati...

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A morning gong scatters the stars-
dreams retreating to the edges.
Now begin in the middle of things.

Two spirits fell to Earth entwined,
the one and only image of Eden.
And guarantee of fruitful days.

Two lions, powerful heads
lolling against one another,
eyes open/closed.

And doves-  
beaks hold out branches
as promise for a safe home.

How renaissance draperies follow fo...

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Until you understand you have set alight time
I wish for the wind to howl and the rain to pour,
until you speak plainly of your part in the crime
I wish for lightening to sting and thunder to roar.

I thank the flautists and lutenists
I lean on through this cold, bleak mist.
And thanks to those whose heartache should not be,
smallest comfort as the greatest to me.

I wish for you to...

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The people anxiously crowding 
the over-populated times
will never be reconciled 
with people of flourishing times.

One counts life as cheap, 
for the other it is precious.

I have been surviving
through no fault of my own
as a factory farmed animal
in an over-stocked pen.

Decent folk must be unaware
of what these conditions entail.

In the spinning galaxy's good time
one g...

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Wondering sometime about time and space
the sages would make a world of Lego:
they couldn't make a man of Lego, nor an ant.

It was the vastness of the range
from atoms to interstellar wastes
that oppressed their feeling.

They would conceive by wit 
a more economical design,
a step closer to the quintessence.

And all their cousins, in the aftermath:
what pattern to follow, whos...

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     An oriental empire felt the need
to count all it's falling leaves
weigh all the water
and name every passing cloud.
No harm was done and the empire lasted 
a thousand years but the people 
who could neither read nor write
would hang their lanterns from trees
for an evening's food and music
quite unaware of any boundary
inside and outside, before and after
they were good people...

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Peculiar to each individual
the fog of the past: of a different order
from that experienced crossing the lakes in winter.
Any number of dates and names,
old coins unearthed, can't change the fact.
Photographs, far from magic, can't clear a way
although imagination leads on
to the nth degree.

Within the lifetime of a dog
clarity slips into fog
not just that
clear detail is the fog.

...

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Unuttered pleas, unformulated
not like groans but silence
explain these sudden appearances 
-like wandering birds returning-
of tears without cause
at the bus stop, the dinner table,
on waking.

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I know you have killed many enemies 
that lodged in your heart
should more storm your high fortress
I know you will burn it to the ground

As if simple night has blinded them
hateful arrows now miss their mark
as if pure white snow has buried them
evil taunts can force no echo 

Praise for your meandering steps
outwitting this serpentine heritage
praise for the neccessary breath
that ...

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The dog comes dripping from the poem
as from sparkling water.
It's for you to love the animal
in a snapshot of his nature.
See him shake himself dry-
a dot-to-dot of glassy beads.
I say see, I mean imagine
and step back, true to your nature.

( Don't worry: when I say you I'm thinking 
of myself, it's how these things work.)
You don't own the creature, you can't
even stroke or pet...

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One acre of grass. Thistles, nettles, anonymous bugs

and just lying there- sticks and stones for bat and ball.

Yet again it is afternoon-cum-evening 

another course laid out for run and jump trials.

In time told by sky-shown colour 

amorphous clouds racing for faraway homes

momentarily absorb every possible tint.

Little feet strike the field as lightening

Earth answers...

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Lady plays the Tarot
her cut-throat razor
splits an infinite deck
in the present moment
showcasing one colourful image 
over all other bright possibilities
look and attend properly
it fills the entire field of vision
there never was a witch
nor any outlandish deck

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Awake again to the room you have dreamt up:
two identical doors on opposite walls
a mirror for each of the other two walls.
After checking your hair you pick a door and leave.

This is a world where love is a blessing,
it is an improving power.
It replaces selfish greed
with a desire for another's happiness.
One sees the reality of another
where before one saw only a tool
to use if...

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My poems spring no more on stress-free feet
nor hallowed ground nor untouched wilds they walk.

Ever-present inflamatory gout
and something they call fasciitis burn.

My steps become a mechanical hobble
comical I guess as I walk through flames.

What kind of poets press on without hope?
The ones with unfailing inspiration.

The ones lacking the view from Everest
speaking of wonde...

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Was there ever a level playing field,
children gambolling everywhere like lambs?
I often dream of this version of paradise 
being reclaimed.

Because now I have been urged and prodded
up my own towering, fragile-looking ladder.
apparently everbody has one,
apparently the sky's the limit.

I began afraid of the height
afraid of the indifferent elements
but thought this is how it mu...

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Your heart is mortally wounded
little bird chirping 
little tiger roaring
little wonder you are sad
your joy eludes the firm grasp
your troubles all unmerited
and your heart is mortally wounded
little new born lamb
little baby crying
so little time is left for you
and your flaw is not your fault
your story already well known
your heart mortally wounded
no demon targets you
equal...

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Like anyone serious about their Art
I have craved a hermetically sealed room,
just for ten or twenty years.
And like most I have failed in my quest.
The more determined artist searches out
roccoco caves almost unreachable
and in the weirdest crevices they will
pursue their Art, probably upside-down
and without visible means of support.
If I, as a good friend, could hunt them down
I ...

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think of breath made visible in chilly air.

I think of the child
who nearly managed to faint
producing short-lived ghosts from his mouth.

Speaking from experience,
there is joy to be found here
and that must be worth something.

What our pride owns will collapse:
even-handed time insists the world we know 
be reduced to a rumour of Atlantis.

I believe a butterfly c...

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I plucked a flying arrow from the air;
it was aimed for the heart of a child.
I was a hero and a child was saved
but being too clever for my own good
I thought: this couldn't have really happened.
I was saddened not to be the hero,
relieved a child was not terrified.
I saw how the picture might change-
a universal hero, a universal child.
Who supports this ponderous meditation?
Tell...

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The nettles are on the march
and the brambles too.

See the right angles 
of a world war two bunker over-run.
The straight-line wisdom 
of civilisation crumbling.

Lichen, moss and fungus
signal sites for dens and nests.

See abandoned boats all along
the delta, mired in grey silt.
Crying out loud
time has begun to dismantle us.

The nettles are on the march
and the brambles ...

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The stain of day finally absorbed
into evening shade. Shall we
step outside to cool off.
The moon beckoning closer-
what does it mean?

Hear the siren's blare fade
but the cricket's song persist.
This city may be unknown
still the friend is recognised.
What can it mean?

When spring is a thing of the past
plant these seeds, please, in the mind.
Just as the bottle is emptied
do ...

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Everyone knows the difference
between prose and poetry
is the difference between
words and song.
I say it's the difference between 
birds and the Moon.

Birds can but follows their own agenda
meaning neither good nor ill.
The mysterious Moon will lift the tides
we catalogue as though we know-
until overwhelmed by the deep.

I fear those who support megatonnes of rock,
their Moon of f...

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I won't presume to regale friends with odes
of the storms that all but uprooted you:
we grew up together didn't we.

I remember those spindly limbs
like long hair in the wind, but see
now you are stronger than most.

Scarred by traumatic memories,
incessant pests still all about you,
at last you are grown noble.

I'll sit at your foot to catch the spirit
for only now are sweet ap...

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I took issue with a plant in my garden
called it an eyesore and a weed.
After removing any sign of it
I was content again 
to laze upon the fragrant grass.
But I found another to argue with
and quickly removed it too...
a year later now, my garden is a desert.

The one who would restore the garden
for the benefit of every wild bird, 
animal or insect may take the land
blessing us both 
...

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She had found out the hidey-hole
of all the gold you could ever use
and all the shiney silver too.
When he begged to know and told her 
all their dreams could come true
she said "I know, I know, and you know as well as I do."
Imagine him exasperated, bewildered but unrelenting,
boldly crying "TELL ME."
And hear her reply 
" You see a cloud rolling to the horizon, 
free winds carrying it ...

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Once he saw himself
a shaman from a vanished world.
World in perpetual motion;
no patience for how the photograph lies.
Two-dimensional people of today,
snapped and shot, could not stand in his heart.
But she! He saw how she powered forth 
from a pre-linguistic world. Her magic
brought joy with instantaneous engagement.
That's not to say she wouldn't speak.
Speech is yoked with brea...

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I'd hang a poem or two, well-framed to shine,
on the walls of a friend or two, and their's on mine.

You see, opalescent clouds from pink skies
march in regular lines towards me.
See again for a converse perspective,
and artful the braiding of melody.

I believe our words should begin to care 
about exactly who they're written for.
Why trust our babies to public platforms,
to hope ...

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Sketches dashed off
immediately torn to shreds.

Confetti of nameless colours
obscure the view.

And how quickly a new sketch is made!

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It is in the way of things
for your eyes to hold the stars of Van Gogh
and, behind the double-gate so elegant,
for an Aladdin's cave to hold treasures, 
more than treasures.
You'd be forgiven for thinking
my eyesight would grow dim
before these reflections in those elegant eyes
strike me dumb and exult my soul.
And is my step to grow feeble and need sticks to help 
before my attempt on t...

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     For all the garden birds now grounded 
and poorly sheltered through the blizzard
strength extends to sleep. 
     Why wake to more of the same? 
          No; wake to blue skies or not at all.
     All the flames- ritual, beacon, celebration-
sleep so still. When all is ash 
do embers not fade to die?

     Love, it needs no great faith to live again
          the instant a n...

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Shortened stride in falling snow, in England.

See a panorama cropped in every way.

Endangered birds still asking nothing mourn 

their missing heaven. All now tucked away.

The one good superpower is balance.

Just up to the next corner thoughts can stray.

Mouse to mouse move all the nearer for warmth

deep dreamers under white blankets they lay.

So slow th...

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People from the other side of the mountain
(our bright their dim, our straight their crooked)
with unfamiliar customs, strange words
(our most celebrated ones unheard of)
studying our time through their own lenses
(our perishable goods once stocked high all gone) 
hunt and discover- but they knew all along

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How a tornado didn't rip me off of my feet
I'll never know.
On the surface of a totally strange planet
standing by a bottomless pit
people all around, god knows who.

The hitherto kindly minister lady
began her magic words- shades of Clannad 
belting out their most spooky chant
far too loud. All of a sudden
this was real.

Having been thumped in the stomach
I was invited to take ...

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He could sidle up to the pier
unmissable rusting hulk
slowly slowly docking.
He could stand off in deep water
make himself known
boiler room venting its last
steam as signal.
Could send from his craft
a launch under cover of night
an imperative mission
success dependent on reception.
And you thought 
he might make the effort 
to pick up the phone
or tap lightly at your door.

...

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The goal worked towards
not part of the game
won't ring the doorbell
with the house all aflame.

It's grasped by the mind 
not held in the hand;
a passing cloud over
a parched land.

A sleeping infant;
a tree unobserved;
a lost symphony
every note preserved.

Close as a whisper
in a waiting ear
when only the dead 
can wait one more year.

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A peasant girl conjured by song, her story-
    and my tower of arguments 
         tumbles right away.
Guardians of my status quo 
     thin like smoke
           and are gone.
I myself bead with sweat 
     to establish a homestead
          where the lark and the kite soar free.
And if morning tide shows my holy fever
     cured and way downstream
          let me shiver in a fr...

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I have been encouraged to reanimate mythologies
when they are of a mind with my cause.
          My excuse.

To scan the canon and most obscure visionaries
for immediate use in elaborate travesties.
          My confession.

These mirages have not the power supposed.
All I am will be rebuilt, given time.
          My challenge.

I have to speak plainly as children, truly as pain,
...

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Dark lines patently trouble our moon
but she is ever young.
She has failed to record her dreams
but as paeans they have been sung.
So long so distant and above all
how to embrace now?
Voyage further for an answer 
but her seas rise under the prow.

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I'll hear no more of the piteous masses
pray tell now of our dogged filigree.
Persistent iron turned upon itself:
all our own paths blocked, yet withal,
spaces created between thrusts of steel 
and snakes of hard wire make a home
for our heart-red rose without root or stem
-so often cried, repeatedly- mercy.
And I have cried for the limitless masses.
I and I have been the strained ...

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From the high ground spread out your silver skirts
though the dawn be a thousand miles away

my chamber is flooded, my casement wide
and the dawn yet a hundred miles away

unbidden you send your mute messenger
a cool dawn calculates ten miles away

who could mistake the mundane for magic
the fast marching dawn now a mile away

and who can quite recollect the sea of...
whe...

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Yer old cavemen, they ate raw meat
they had trouble making clothes.
They'd only say "Ug, ug, ug."
I wouldn't wanna be one of those.

And I wouldn't wanna be a dancing bear
I'd be dancing through my pain GRRR!
Entertaining the ignorant
and the ones who know are WORSE!

I wouldn't wanna be a poor witch
swinging from a gallows tree,
only crows paying attention
all the good brethren shunn...

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A leaf takes all your concentration.
A silver-green side and a brighter green 
green side curled into a little boat.
Braving an uncertain voyage becoming real 
only as it happens.
Intuitively you follow the music
of this singular leaf on its clear stream
for the value it must bring.
You needn't apologise for your nature
though you have a way of looking
in a minor key.
Your musicbox...

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Tell us the story again, again,
of going to the well again.
Mothers merry in highest praise
finding their children so happy
with so little again. Then,
the beggar beside the well.
He sings to a small guitar
of the lord come from afar
with blazoned bucket so shiny
who turns for home
disappointed, thirsty. Again and again!
The ballad relates how the lord,
glist'ning pail bright as your...

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In the agora, as a child,
I stood shoulder to shoulder with you.
Moved where the jostling crowd led
regardless of my will.
Now, older than the paved walkways,
I am drawn to the quiet words of Socrates,
tireless in that quest for wisdom.
By the flashes writ large across my sky
often I am startled
but lightening has never struck me.
Against a background of volcanic eruptions,
turbid ...

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Truth is frightening. 
Straining to wriggle from its stranglehold
develops a vital strength in me.
Light spreads further and brighter: 
the inevitable dawns on me.
Ah, but the pace is slow! 
Like a statue that moves 
although nobody has seen it move,
it is closer now. I see clearer
balance in motion, silent expression.
Countless brief lives swept away 
when tumbling rivers spill th...

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This budding, tightly curled potential leaf
has begun, and stalled, a fantastic journey:
progress halted for each chill wind racing through.
Now it gives itself wholeheartedly to flourishing, 
the idea of retreat discarded. If
a cruel icy hand should grip the land again
this life must cease. But, pouring on the vitality,
this expanding leaf is keen to show the world beauty.
Minstrels ...

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