I reach and cut a round hole in a square piece of card

and hang it on my wall, for all of mine to see

name it 'despair', that part of me, that

proceeds to extinguish all that touch,

frightens insects from the white

surface, scratched cold

barren, bereft.

But as, by whim

my friends they visit, I'm

found laughing at the trinket, how

and why this reason flew and set...

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I brush stones off cheap earthworks

marred in wretched waning light

in bars of concrete, platforms drift

and I climb, skirt a boundary.

True, they drift, and I a drifter

for four days now, take heart

(what little I can) from the sun

that broke the boats through glare.

Now shade, the evergreen snaps

borders straight rule I descry

fringing the house on the hil...

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Your projection leaves much to be desired

A preacher on a sphere barren, brown

Leaves fall at your feet, then washed away

By the biting tide, of dull and grey.

And since your last promotion you have

Been slow to react, blank, negative

The whites of your eyes never clearer

All ear for problem lost in the wash.

That I guess is the nature of the rise

The clear law...

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Poised on the plate the knife makes eight
The ceramic truth, the blackened rough grate
Downward-cast glance fingers fumble for silver
As the letters on the counter silently quiver.

Candles I lit, true I would have held them
But filaments waxen bleed through my slow turn
Crouching, I maintain the blank staring contest
With my reflection, the face of no conquest.

The crockery scurries fr...

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At peace
At last
At war
Stuck fast

Tied down
Cut loose
Turned up
Excused

Slept well
Kept tense
Clear words
No sense

I was once
So serene
Now this needle
Wavering

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You made yourself famous

And then what did you do?

You grabbed a lead hammer with both hands

Smote the thing with all your might

Saw the pillar crumble to dust, then

Shrunk from the strobe searchlight

Danced with the lowlifes

That flanked the waste ponds

Made life

Took life

Then revelled in all your failures

Trailing ragged, bleeding

Across the frozen hinterland...

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Fluttering slowly past
A flicker of light, of technicolour
Paradise through a rainbow lens
Dust floats still in the eye of the sun
The laughing, trickling waterfall
In the corner - the fountain, the wine and food
Spinning slowly in a dream
That became reality
These flowers, these patterns, swirl upon memory
Strung out throughout the mind
A show of lights inside our heads
The fabric soft...

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Take me home, please, I became overtired

With these false visions shown to me

A monastery on the coastline, I saw

Lined up against a wall, waiting to take a drink

From the well that feeds the lost souls.

Sick of the flies on the wall, they crawled

Over my skin, feeding on my own weakness

They left me naked against the drainpipe

The stone was built over me, covering

...

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Enter

Walk, stairs, climb

Wooden surface, polish, shine, steel

Under cupboards, open, sacrificed

Golden heat, radiates, outside

A blank page, void, universal

Nature’s eyes, peering in

Beds, rows and lines, carved, unfocused

Spiral arrangements, bric-a-brac rooms

Scattered sequins, secret, special

Threadbare, lifeless, needless

No waste

No special limits

Water...

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I hesitate before dipping

the rough edge, ripped shard;

ink screwed on, blue clasp,

scratches from the mind's eye;

call you up, embrace, descry

a vision from beyond my grasp, as

time and journeys flung us wide.

I listen for the creepers' hum,

the stirring, pollen still beside

the sparrows in the tangled verge.

From beyond rock walls, broken, cracked,

earth and...

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Folds in free-fall

Reaching out and over

Etched into the serrated edge

Envy cordoned into plastic packets.

Zones in the atmosphere, cold, moderate

Igneous paradigm, fortune corroded

Neo-polemic, butchered and stolen

Gangrene outlived, shaped then broken.

Water trickles from the heights

Acres of snow held gifts for giving

Silent plateaus, hands unwilling

T...

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I see a face at the window

Looking from behind the shroud, stopwatch readied

Senses on edge, pieces

Of a shell

Reformed and moulded, a two-way mirror.

It hurts and pains the soul in me

From a glass-house, safe sanctuary

Brightened box

A beacon in this desolate night?

Or a slab of ice I broke, too thin?

On the edge of the pond

No light to see fish by

Th...

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White strobe

beams descending;

mites of dust – millions –

spiral down, forever falling.

A head bent forward, bright eyes

peruse a wall of text.

Artefacts surround,

wood, bronze, iron;

examined, gazed upon, a story

of evolution grasped and clung to.

Mirrored walls and stone faces

stare blind at this visitor,

just another intruder.

The encoded scriptu...

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Poison vapours

etched in gloom.

Ghastly, void,

vacant, the guardian of

a chained black gate.

Never sleeping;

eyes, as heads,

unnumbered;

waiting for heroes

to seal their fate.

In legends torn

from clay cast bright

we may witness

fire and blades and bows;

such blood-fuelled spite.

Now all too real;

slowly shed,

the skin of time;

a...

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I scaled the heights, and let me

confess now of their beauty;

razor-sharp rock, heather coarse,

blown fibres from a rainy north.

Sitting on the edge of these

steps, in a vigorous breeze,

the land falls away, time’s plaything,

whilst eons fade on the wind’s wing.

Valleys, cities, factories, spires

of churches, through a foggy mire;

questions floating through my head,

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'No museum here' you said.

So I guess you had to make do

with a rusting emblem of the dead

time's plaything, your due;

a line from a prayer-book

a dusting of gold;

shattering a morning

of a bleak, mindless wanderer.

'Leave me the key' I said

and took the road to roam

gathering the crafts in arms

burying your trust at home;

a spring back in my step

a thou...

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I didn’t know what it was like

in the sea, I only imagined

cold, depth, darkness;

a sliver of the unknown;

‘The Inchcape Rock’ – Peter Graham,

1908, that which stayed

pinned to my father’s wall;

a navy blanket slung careless, crumpled.

And strange to think

at sunrise, the mist would seem

to cover, then to clear, and wave

for the gulls to pass on through,

wh...

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Frozen, they placed heavy footprints

on hard-packed foliage, etched ice;

the withered bark stretched around

in slanting lines, near-collapsing.

Moving these weights, one step, two;

these notions in a February mist;

regrets like the broken skies above,

where clouds drift dark with mingled smoke

from fires marking from whence they came.

But no scars give away their cr...

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Once, upon, a time…

Is that how it went?

And did it follow that

they said

those allotted words, those

mined from the red hot

pits of thought,

shaped and resized;

tamed, wearily eyed?

And there, in a large,

gloomy house:

our hero, spending days

pacing halls too big for

the right adjectives to name.

They sit, press their

flickering hands together

...

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I stepped slow, drunkenly down

a half-shadowed rough road at noon;

no more than a sliver of dust,

a dirt track, borders pale in ruin.

No labour it was, but pleasant,

above a sky of summer blue;

yet autumn’s grasp it lay upon

the boughs, branches; a breezy tune.

And in a glade of silver hue,

of spider webs and thrushes’ nests;

beyond, there boomed in stereo,

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Straight and narrow

or wide and winding;

warm in a waning sun.

Steadily flowing, asphalt, tarmac

streaming under hedgerows.

And this, the thicket,

a riverbank clogged

with twisted, taut metal

that glitters, half-hearted;

with one million and one

sniggering cars passing.

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I find, always, when looking out

of your window, I can see

what has come, has gone and what

is yet to be.

Rain, sun, and rain, perhaps merely

a seasonal thing;

a tempest of sorts before the tide

unclasps its cling

on a battered shoreline.

Beyond the sea,

behind the smeared glass

a new dawn tempts me

to rouse you from your sleep;

whispering sounds like fr...

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One eye pierces the shard
The mirror fragment on the wall
The silver light, a fraction reflected
The iris a dagger, flecked with scarlet.

One stain remains unforgotten
The one of dishonour, an imprint
A blemish reflected on the cupboard door
On the lifeless, cracked wormwood.

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Spotlight on the leafy corner

He fell and crashed down there,

From the schizoid heights, poor soul

Anathema to the fields of silver and gold

Now blanketed under nightshade.

I see the black water, churn in half-light

Slipping - the mud combines

Through dense woodland, beyond

Light-years pass - the same old tests

The grip of the old evil

The tortured feel of metal ...

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One façade through windward gaze

Pebble ridges crashed upon the haze

A mêlée of windows, cracked cement

A winding stair, a telescope distorts

The servant's house, forlorn on the horizon.

The webs of deceit still linger in the corners

The dust-filled tomes still crowd the walls

The endless swathes of grey blue water

Enamel, evermind sheen, a boat lost, at sea

From th...

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Clouds sweep past the portal
Blue intersects the grey, a swirling square
And the wires turn to rust
All currents without feeling, blackened dull
The crates shifted, piles topple over
A dog barks, rough knife twist inward
Incessant whilst chasing tails, ideals in the rain
Over rooftops the projectile lifts
Over and above, destination unknown
Abandoned by the south tower
The pruning, it fa...

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Stale and zoned, white, blue, black masked

No faces worth renown here, a thankless task

All dissent expressed in the turn of a key

All reflections blurred in bright glass and steel

Particulars stored in bland files and drawers

And the tweed-clad march through endless doors

Grey sky no novelty, fires on the corners

Paths in the parks burn cold as the night turns

High-rise an...

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I walked down a solemn, slow-trodden road

And breathed in the dust of fragments

That littered the beaten way

Memories leapt to greet me, old friends.

The warmth, the red flush on pale skin

The familiar motions and thoughts...

Submerging in the chill Winter light

Bathing in the cold Autumn rains

Swimming in the warm Summer lakes

Waiting for the first new day of Sprin...

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How do the birds fly?
Soar, swoop, dive
on the cool grey morn
through
staccato, sea breezes?

How do you sit there
and watch the clocks
tick glum on cracked mantels
when
all must surely change?

I glimpsed these sights, two,
through a curtained wall.
Decided to take
the truer path,
opening the window
to learn what could be learnt.

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