Holding a fingertip softly
on a battered pencil
this is your last memory of him
counting what stock they had left
before helping them to pack up 
knowing they would return without him

smiling faintly 
as the book stall said 
he was welcome to any book there
and Jenny at the cafe 
who wouldn’t let him go
without promising to come back,

standing there lost in thoughts
until they wer...

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Barely a arms throw away
from where you walked
the lights holds it own
to the darkness
leading to another world

oiling over the distance
like a door nailed open
at the edge of the forest
blowing a soft tease of a kiss
at the edge of your thoughts

peeling the darkness from behind
in a beauty in near silence
cherry-picking the moment
leading a different way out
to the way you enter...

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Beyond this tree is another tree

like a desert highway

in the middle of a field

logged in the summertime

running in tandem with the powerlines.

Beyond this tree is another story

churning towards the coastline

and another adventure

in another day across this land

rubbed across this car window

Beyond this tree during dawn

the breeze is writing

a love let...

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Documenting the silence 
the bus stop is almost reclaimed by nature
until the bus arrives after a long conversation
with the broken country path
in a meditative rhythm each morning 

disgorging the mood 
its wheels on cast aside leaves
inbetween the sun barely awake 
in the early morning sky
and the sinking moon 

recording the moment afterwards
restlessly in symmetries in gentle wind
...

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Shouldering in silence
the phone receiver ripples in time
barely hanging in place
with an old 10p coin stuck in the slot,

braced in leaves 
almost like Nature was as much hiding it
as well as devouring it 
ablaze with sea salt tomb tears,

unrehearsed emotions 
a moment in time 
wedged shut through the keyhole 
offering no clue to who had being there.

(First in a sh...

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Amanda left the house with the dog; Susie was happy on her leash. She felt like there was something missing, but wasn't sure so she went to her favourite coffee shop and grabbed her usual take away. A nice latte with some chocolate on top. As she and Susie made their way back home, she remembered what she had forgotten. It was 7 pm, and it was time for...THE PUB!! Jokes, she'd not left the pub las...

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The trees turned purple with the breeze blowing like Chinese whispers. What a great title! I absolutely love this album by Coldplay.... Should I buy tickets to the show? And that's when she turned around and said: Absolutely not, Coldplay are shit! And anyway, we can't go anyway, not after what we read about chris Martin in the daily mail this morning, he hadn't read the article of course, so she ...

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(Wrote the other week in a zoom poetry reading after hearing a Indian Poet describe about how they are constantly hearing ambulances going past their home with ill people from pandemic. I aimed for a haiku with this but the poem decided otherwise and it became a closeish Haiku instead)

No Ambulances

you long for peace

from the sirens

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Bad Day

Cracking the key hole

your key spliters into bits

and with it your day

(NB. This did not happen to me although I heard about it)

#haiku #haikupoetry

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I made it!

(#NaPoWriMo 2021 - #Haiku of Life (2021)

2021

Becoming Forty Nine

I enter another year

smiling at the past.

(Concluding this sequence, I turn 50 next year and will face it like

I have done with the rest of my life with a smile and a

drink to friends still in my life and those who have moved on)

(Full archive - onewriterandhispc.blogspot.com - a ...

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* Nearly there *

2019

Sparks flying upwards
Was afraid to step on stage
for fear of my life.

(Me and Amanda read our poetry at a out-door festival 
which got hit by a brief storm and caused havoc with the P.A. system)

2020

Sent home from my job
Thought I would be back shortly.
This did not happen.

(Owning to my Diabetes I was sent home from 
work when lockdown started ...

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2007

Slipping on the stage
my 1st poetry performance
was almost my last.

(Although I had done a few minor readings beforehand, my first major poetry readings was at Turton Towers 
near Blackburn where I missed my step getting onto stage and was so embarrassed I nearly didn’t do it again)

2008

Twisted my ankle
helping to co-run my first
first open mic night.

(I broke into my t...

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2000

My dad wouldn't believe
it for years when I told him
I was dyspraxic.

(My first year and a bit at university I really struggled and several of my tutors spotted it 
and referred me for extra assistance. I ended up getting all kinds of equipment from the local 
council but unfortunately my dad didn’t believe a word of it for years when I was told I was dyspraxic)

2001

Writi...

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1984

We still don’t want you
your class team to said after
scoring twice for them.

(A early memory of playing in my class football team. 
It was not the best of times as I never really fitted in that class)

1985

Waking me early
I knew my nana had died
before mother said.

(My mum’s mum, my nana died in hospital 10 years or so after 
the death of her husband, my granddad all o...

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1977

Watching you struggle
your mum didn't know how to say
you were colourblind.

(I was around 5 when I had to do a test which proved 
me colourblind and it took my mother days to explain to 
me I was different)

1978

Step in my footsteps
your father barked walking us
to school in the snow.

(Another early memory – 1978 was a terrible winter with my dad unable to get to wo...

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1972

In a incubator
you spent your first six weeks
struggling to breath.

(When I was born in 1972, it was touch and go for the 3 months
I was going to live)

1973

Crying you didn’t stop
when you saw an Elephant
that very first time.

(Growing up I always had a love of going to the Zoo, 
although the first time nearly put that to bed)

The full archive of this will be found a...

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Was it that third or fourth night, Sarah
during that month we lived in Hove 
when my agent paid for us both
to move there temporary, 
that second summer we were together
and we stumbled onto that singer 
playing alone beside the coastline
at the start of dusk. 

Do you remember him asking, Sarah
pausing inbetween songs 
can either of us play an autoharp 
or a mandolin 
at the edge of ...

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You couldn't understand why the door wouldn't shut until you looked up to where the door met the frame and saw the army of zom-bears begin to start rushing through from the other side. Yes, part zombie, part bear hybrids, but you wouldn't believe what happened next.

Thankfully before they all got to the living room, I woke up but promised myself I will never take the brown acid again. As I left...

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The sound of laughter

is carried in the soft breeze

a footprint in time.

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I don't believe in Zombies he said misunderstanding what she said completely
Oh, it was a misunderstanding. You said Zumba. You're here for the Zumba class?
No, sorry, I wanted to exchange my Roomba, Is this Currys?
Change your Rhubarb?  I think you want the place next door mate.  We don't stock those here.
Rhubarb? no I said leotard isn't this the leotardis, the incredibly niche lyrca and doc...

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There was silence in the woods right until the car broke down in the middle of it.

Suddenly a spaceship rose from behind the trees lifted in mid air the front door opened and a figure could be seen.

Andy and Mike looked at each other and thought where's the open mic night? I thought we were going tonight, but then Andy remembered that Mike was never on time, so they had at least another hour...

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It was 4:30 pm, everyone was still in the building, they could hear the crowd chanting outside. Suddenly, windows were broken and doors began to swing open, the mob entered the main chamber, and to Mike’s surprise, the gathered crowd were all ancient, as in, easily over 80, and loud, so loud and surprisingly aggressive, with their arms raised and their voices loud and their balls swinging. Ha...

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