Twilight hues threw a perfect bull’s eye on the drip heavy spider’s web

that still filled a perfect pie slice on the grubby window pane,

the slow sun drew shadow shapes on the flocked chimney breast

with the fading ghosts of beech leaves and telephone poles.

I closed the door, started making quiet camp with the chairs,

nodding to my old friends the barometer, the clock

and the ol...

Read and leave comments (2)

Gaping gates rhythmically punctuate the spiky high hedges,

opening portals into a life of bales and machines

all lying idle, waiting for work.

Flitting skylarks pour their songs from somewhere above

to meet the rising petroleum aroma of hot tarmac,

the sticky whiff of cows sheltering in a shed

from the sun that reddens my boyhood neck and my arms.

I’m squirming on a too hard p...

Read and leave comments (0)

Wet afternoon archaeology

sends me dreaming back down

the damp streets of old Cwmbran.

Greyscale sketches of Christmas’s long gone

when we scampered and fought

while age sat weary on the family’s creaking roots.

Deep beneath our skipping feet

in shoes already tight,

ancient trees patiently revealed

a backyard bunker of gleaming coal,

backbreaking sacks marbled

with...

Read and leave comments (7)

A splash of scattering wind wags the brittle stalks of winter bleached grasses

and sends bald tree tops sweeping slow arcs against the cloud dashing sky.

The old ash behind me breathes easy with the slow dozing rhythm

of these waiting and watching January woods.

Snowdrops gather to whisper secret stories,

mythical tales of springtime’s approach,

while the deeper digging roots

...

Read and leave comments (5)

The faded cover settled crisply over the handlebars and taillight

ghosting the slender skeleton standing quiet in the cold garage.

A mummified exhibit in an old closed zoo.

I listen for echoes of an energetic summer,

the engine sound bounding off the block walls,

the twang of the stand retracting

and the solid clunk of first gear.

But today’s smell of stale petrol and cold oil

Read and leave comments (5)

Stalking ghosts with horns and hooves

resolve into elderly elms and oaks.

A hundred hungry barking squirrels argue

with the dawn’s reluctant acorns

while damp mist sits cold and earthy

in my chilly nostrils.

I stretch wearily and release my stiff back

finally and gladly from the yew’s hard caress.

I can taste hot pancakes,

sharp bright blueberries

and thick sticky syr...

Read and leave comments (9)

I went into that same awful dream.

That sad night movie still repeating

to this trapped audience.

Our empty bed long recoiled

from the warm spot where you once slept.

The house bereft of everything

but the dust of our together days.

Nothing to hear but the beat of my breath,

the breeze that diluted your scent centuries ago.

Then you shake me awake

‘Are you O...

Read and leave comments (0)

Sitting on a sticky carpet of damp grass by the River Itchen

while the thin sun coyly brings itself out

from hiding behind the still bare trees

and the dark wandering clouds.

Four clear empty beer bottles rattle beside me

as I reach for my lighter

and see shadows slowly shift in the gathering daylight.

Heartbreak is a hard one at daybreak

when you’ve decided that a nig...

Read and leave comments (8)

Let’s say it was a winter Thursday afternoon

like any of the million winter Thursday afternoons

when I’d come home from work

just after you’d come home from work

and you’d gone over to the window

by the silent stereo sitting in the corner,

to close the curtains, to close out the torrid day.

I was standing in the doorway with my old brown coat still on

but this Thursday even...

Read and leave comments (10)

I've promised myself this will be my last excursion into wistfulness for a while:

The flat pale sand stretches away like an endlessly undulating sheet

covering the wonderful worlds of worms

who wilfully poke their tiny walnut whip casts into the afternoon sky

while I soak in the rhythmic swishing of the lazy summer low tide waves

and the boisterous conversations of the wheeling...

Read and leave comments (4)

Today I chose the wind rattling window,

the high blue sky and not the grim grey wall.

I flew out above that cloud drifting horizon

and at some point remembered to breathe

as I wafted weightless and wishing for wisdom,

hoping that somehow I’d stumble unwitting

into the pure being of becoming a beginner,

of feeling the joy on the edge of the moment

and the unbearable bliss of...

Read and leave comments (6)

Dew bejewelled spider webs span the handle

of the broken wooden fork

propped in the dirt like a cross for the fallen.

Khaki leaves scatter the garden but the bright Acer

still wears its scarlet uniform.

The shrill of a panicking blackbird’s pinking

pierces the steady scrunch of leaves decaying

while the slowly scouring scrape

of my rake across the sticky wet ground

distu...

Read and leave comments (5)

Decided to try a haiku today - 

Being; a practice

inevitable as breath,

essential effort.

Read and leave comments (2)

I see the backs of people’s heads like a bubbling pan of milk

while the band are weaving filamental feelings into a new sort of music

against the black backdrop, a display cloth sharply presenting bewhiskered jewels

and battered gear sprouting curly leads and lights.

The sounds sweep around the room like a flock of excited ravens

spinning spells, murmuring then cawing idiosyncratic ...

Read and leave comments (9)

I know an angel

who floats on a butterfly’s wings

and weaves her delicate ways amongst us.

She lights the darkness

with her glowing intent

and heals through Instagram.

Her Facebook posts touch my heart

with soothing mantras

and her blessed sad loving eyes

ease my soul.

I know her

She is real

And she heals

I just cannot reconcile

how she can be human a...

Read and leave comments (3)

I wish I could celebrate the day, everyday

and passionately grasp each eminent moment.

But when I’m lying in bed not sleeping

often I feel I can hear her breathing,

subtle sighs and sonorous snoring.

It’s in those sleepless nights I hear her.

When the traffic’s gone

and the people are quiet.

there comes her bone-weary breathing.

Above that my wife’s lyrical night breath ...

Read and leave comments (2)

Yesterday’s clouds were amazing.

I was flabbergasted by their effortless grace

and amazed by their awesome power.

They were just there

and they were just the best they’d ever been there.

With their royal blues and their purple hues,

their blacks and their shadows

and their sparkling lights and those dazzling whites.

Through their immaculate bulk

rods of gorgeous sun...

Read and leave comments (2)

Oh this feels sore today

Because today is the day I’ve got nothing to say

Where’s she gone and what’s the use?

Where, exactly, is my wonderful muse?

See – it doesn’t even rhyme.

Read and leave comments (5)

Staring through the cold white cross across the door’s misty glass.

It’s just after dawn and it’s too cold for me.

I’m longing to be out in the garden again, longing for summer,

because out there is whole blissful world of birds and breeze and breathing.

Arches of sparkling sunlight and a hot day’s slow fat flies,

birdsong and traffic noise and the distant droning of a mower.

The...

Read and leave comments (5)

A splash of scattering wind wags the seed heavy heads of summer grown grasses

and sends tree tops sweeping short slow arcs against the cloud dashing sky.

The old ash I lean on breathes easily with the slow dozing rhythm

of this waiting and watching, of this September woods.

It’s smooth steady swaying tells me sweet stories,

whispers secret histories of Autumn’s approach.

Soon the...

Read and leave comments (0)

Flapping calendars and tocking clocks

keep tugging me back to tease out the sense,

to unravel the truth in the snapshots and scenes

that kept on appearing while I kept careering.

While every day I kept moving further away

from something I needed to know, from yesterday.

Some nights when I dream

I see sights tense yet serene.

Where we were the answer,

Just you and me...

Read and leave comments (5)

When I open my eyes

as I do all too often

I see only the room.

I know too well the dim glare

of the flickering light

on the dull wooden floor

With closed eyes

I go dreaming,

Drifting back decades

to soft summers and boredom

I long to feel the shock of striking

the bright and breathless surface

Dazzled by diamond splashes

sparkling on frothy bobbing ...

Read and leave comments (6)

Battleships and candyfloss drift above the battered autumn hedge,

I’ve always craved security but felt like I’m living on an edge.

The sharp blade, the teetering place, the pointed tip,

A secure job, a secure home, a secure future,

Maybe a decent relationship.

And it would be my failing if all that was to fall,

I would have precipitated the loss of it all.

But there ...

Read and leave comments (0)

Hooting and howling and rolling around the twilight woods,

A silent winged rollercoaster unseen.

I never knew there were so many different types of owl howl.

But later the utmost dark of the night was silent.

Creamy mist in the dips and

luminous moonlight bouncing twinkly off mossy bark and chipped flint.

Silent and peaceful and so then it was just me.

Me and the cold and my h...

Read and leave comments (3)

Stealing ten minutes on a Friday afternoon.

Fighting off the fantasy of a hot milky coffee, a decent one.

Lullaby of Birdland chases the brew ‘round my head like an owl in the woods.

I’ll have it down soon, along with those Autumn Leaves and the old Infirmary Blues

Thinking, thinking, thinking

Buzzing away in the black background, a bored wasp with nothing to do

go...

Read and leave comments (3)

Lying next to the effortless choreography of you,

Being with your breathing and your stirring and your warmth.

Knowing that you’re dreaming and feeling your being as you lie sleeping.

On the edge of awake but still dancing on the stage of your sleep,

The unconscious dance of you, the perfect elaboration that’s lying right there.

I want you to stay at peace, to stay fluid and fr...

Read and leave comments (2)

Being I in a world full of time

Can I catch some moments of me?

Of me that is and me that was and me that will continue to be.

Can I catch me being me?

I’m looking for language that I don’t even know,

No,

I’m erecting a tent, but it’s

more of a hide in the woods where I can silently be,

A camouflaged camp where I’ll wait for me.

Hold on,

I recognise this pla...

Read and leave comments (0)