Where Hope Lies
I no longer feel to voyage on, since I no longer feel
I no longer feel to voyage on this NICE pathway
That is no pathway but a rutted track that steers the wheel
On a golden course (for some) to where only dark shadows play.
And I know that once upon this path, largely for others' needs,
This chariot will charge forward with this form
(Only this supine body travels now...
Thursday 25th January 2024 12:48 pm
Fallen Leaves Do Not Resent The Wind
The young beeches have finally
Surrendered their winter leaves
To the midsummer breezes.
Will the wind not strip me
Of my own dead thoughts?
Tuesday 25th July 2023 10:07 am
Easter 2023
Easter 2023
(pace William Butler Yeats)
We have all met them at close of play
Looming with masked faces
From market stalls on a cold wet day
Running the gauntlet home.
We have passed their frightened eyes
With no polite meaningless words,
Or uttered to their great surprise
Polite meaningless words,
And formed after they had fled
Some subtle gibe or mocking taunt
To laugh with a fri...
Wednesday 12th April 2023 11:47 am
Dame Luz, o Dios
Ayudame, hermana, he me caído!
Help me, sister, I have fallen.
I, Willow, have called you, O Scissortail,
You and your harem.
Graze off the pests that swarm upon me.
How I love you!
You go about your business, demand nothing of me.
Help my sister too. She has fallen beside me.
Her limbs are broken and scattered.
Her old skin, ripped open, peels from ivory bones.
Yet see how still she c...
Tuesday 25th January 2022 7:52 pm
What's for dinner?
'What's for dinner, chef?' said the house fly,
From his perch on the roll of kitchen towel.
He wasn't to know.
'Nothing you'd like.' I sighed
'Surprise me!' he replied.
It is summer, and last night,
Mosquitos robbed me of blood and sleep.
So when cooking a pasta sauce,
Zoroaster's recourse
Is a creed that I heed.
'Go on, surprise me!'
So I did. And I was right.
He didn't like it.
Monday 29th June 2020 1:36 pm
Port of Spain
Death
comes in and goes out
of the rum shop.
Dread men and black cars
pass up and down
the calypso streets.
And there is a smell of salt
and the blood of woman
in the acrid incense
of the dockside.
Death
comes in and goes out
of the rum shop.
Death leaves
and comes back.
Friday 20th December 2019 7:39 pm
Pot Bound
In 'my' mind/heart 心
Ideas, plans, memories and emotions
Flow freely in the never-ending stream.
In 'my' heart/mind 心
A character grows misshapen
From its constricted roots,
And the winds which blow
Hot, then cold, then hot again.
Monday 9th December 2019 11:34 am
Dead Poets: No.99
A literary friend was remarking
On the letters penned by P A Larkin.
He agreed some were sad,
None remotely glad,
While many were totally barking!
Wednesday 12th June 2019 11:52 am
倒 攆 猴
Light spring breeze
Hands repel Retreating Monkey
If only I could.
Swallows buzzing me
Nuns hurrying late for mass
Two oast houses
Early summer night
Soft my pillow
of willow down.
Summer idiot breeze
One gossips to the other
Two oast houses.
Saturday 1st June 2019 9:13 am
In the Light of Love
In The Light of Love
As dust the mirror, smoke the fire,
All is hidden in fear and desire.
As I lie here in bed, feeling darkly oppressed,
It is merely the tombstone that lies on my chest.
And if now I feel sorrow, or longing or rage,
At least my heart is awake to the bars of its cage.
For if there is longing,
It is longing for that which can never
Ease the longing.
And if there is...
Tuesday 30th April 2019 2:44 pm
The Apprenticeship
In my youth it was like a long street I lived on,
From Hendon Central to Leeds 6,
Friends lived at both ends
With others and some acquaintances
At various points in between.
A red and white snake, or mottled grey.
A rucksack and a thumb.
So when that nice lady from Google Maps
Guided me back up the M1 recently,
How ridiculously familiar!
Even after almost fifty years...
Friday 5th April 2019 6:28 pm
Darkness Darkness
I stand and watch
The White Tigress raise Herself and burst through the trees.
Her reflection was on water
More radiant in her first quarter
Than direct through sparse birches and coppiced hazel.
Now poured a light so bright its power entered me like a beam,
Straight to my core.
Framed by the branches, barely diminished by the
Breath of Water raised from the Earth.
She countenanced no shr...
Tuesday 1st January 2019 12:57 pm
Lazy Poets
‘Most poets are just lazy prose-writers’,
Said William Burroughs.
The cheek of it! Though he did say that T S Eliot was
Impressive as a lecturer. He had found that at Harvard.
And of course they did both come from St Louis.
He expressed no view of Ezra Pound though.
Hadn’t really read him, he professed.
Lazy prose-writers indeed! Of course, he always liked
To express dissent from commonly ...
Saturday 30th December 2017 1:05 pm
The Wind's Lament
( a section of quatrains excerpted from a larger narrative poem)
The sun which once warmed the morning dew,
Gave my breezes the scent of thyme,
Now it barely climbs above the yew
Spreading over that grave on the chine.
And what if I danced now before you,
As the waves along the shore?
Would you know that he did adore you,
Feel the warmth of his love like before?
Oh Annie! Soon the l...
Friday 24th November 2017 6:54 pm
Broken to Thief
On that first slow return of He Who Eats His Children,
Watch! Is me again
Awake and bound to the backyard trace, the strutting cocks of neighbours,
that blasted Housebird trill.
But daybreak does find me
Under bruise-blue cloud, water pearling on wind-torn fig,
Rain from butt and drain building into the yellow river.
Watch! Is me again
stepping out now for now,
In a storm burst from my ...
Friday 20th October 2017 7:33 pm
Before Return, Stripping
Ouvre la porte pour moi, Papa!
No!
I will no longer swim this Ghost River. No!
I will strip this corpse of its former flesh
And build anew.
That beech tree sheds its leaves and waits for Spring.
What has died has died, as all things do.
With Stripping comes release,
Release to live anew (and live for You)
No!
I will no more swim this Ghost River. No!
Its angry spirits have worked to...
Tuesday 3rd January 2017 10:51 am
Where Hope Still Lies
I no longer feel to voyage on, since I no longer feel
I no longer feel to voyage on this silver pathway
That is no pathway but a rutted track that steers the wheel
On a golden course where only dark shadows play.
And I know that once upon this path, largely for others' needs,
This chariot will charge forward with this form
(Only the body travels now)
And I will not stop nor ev...
Saturday 14th June 2014 8:38 am
Middle Age Mystics: 1 Spain
Santa Teresa de Avila
Found some Carmelites plotting to kill her
But she avoided the thugs
And by using strong drugs
Allowed God's infinite grace to fulfill her
Pobre San Juan de la Cruz
Never lived to be long in the tooth
But on his Dark Night
He bathed in the light
of his lover's ineffable Truth
(Intimations of his immortality
Must not slide into facile banality
And it has to be ...
Saturday 1st March 2014 6:55 pm
Male Health Issues: No.1
Middle-aged prostate well-being
Depends on the candour of seeing
That one really must thank
The relief of a wank
From the Unbearable Tightness of Peeing
Friday 21st February 2014 5:34 pm
Omnipotence
I wonder could there ever be
An egotist as great as thee?
To think a Robin sang for thee
When walking down beside the quay!
The Robin is a punchy bird
And thus his song is often heard.
The song he sang was aimed at thee
To get out of his territory!
And later as the danger passed
To stick your poem up your
Monday 17th February 2014 5:22 pm
Tales from the Dock
Number One
In a murder case tried only latterly
A vague and dyslexic Fazakerley
Was asked was it true
That he'd shot her clean through
And replied 'Er..No, not exacerly.'
Tuesday 11th February 2014 11:43 am
Train of Thieves
(A simple blues song - to be wailed in E)
Can you hear the train pull in the station
Sneak-thieving Sound breaking in the day?
Sight feeds a brain that craves information
The whistle's blowing and we're swept away
This empty train ain't bound for glory
Not on this or any other day
Joy, fear or pain, it's just a story
Slam closed that door, walk the other way
St...
Tuesday 4th February 2014 12:44 pm
River
Ant told of this many Suns before,
busied in preparation and climbed higher.
Son of the Grey Serpent slid over the sky.
Now water drips everywhere, beating through the canopy,
draped in mists.
Boinayel with us through still, sullen days of waiting.
Seven Suns of rain.
Moon is almost full and life a slow round,
From light grey to black, dark grey and back.
The whole village hud...
Monday 6th January 2014 5:21 pm
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