EXISTENCE                                                                          

Breathe in the air, it is free, ye poor, ye

refugees. Breathe deep and tell me

how it feels to have nothing but that

air in your mouth and lungs, so

slowly sucked in, seeped out;

barely a movement of your limbs,

shout to me, please, so I can

tell that you are not dead, not yet.

T...

Read and leave comments (0)

WORLDS IN WORDS

The word I’m looking for is “absurd” –

exactly the right word for a world in which

you can’t rise from a chair and not

stare full square at, say, a centipede,

off nowhere in particular, he glides along

(or is it a swimming thing he does?).

We, that is, he and I are equals, for we

share random lives: I could have made a

cup of tea, then returned to...

Read and leave comments (2)

MOVING OUT AND MOVING ON

Moving out and moving on, such is the plan;

we agreed a date in late July –

good for the buyers with half a summer still

to enjoy GB at its best, from breathless arrival,

through the finery of one whole, golden autumn

before hunkering-down deep into winter

and out again when survival allows.

I have, while here for thirty years, learned that

Read more …

ROMANTICATS (ode to Ludo)                                                                                

Black cat runs up a tree; seems to have seen or

sensed a bird that was meant to be hunted down,

even though the hunter has just been called inside,

that time of day, and has duly fed on cat mush from a

plastic pouch. Didn’t quite hit all the spots. Not a

lot to say about tha...

Read and leave comments (0)

CHANGING TRACKS                                                           96

Must I change now the track I took,

so many years gone, step aside to let the

pack lurch on, sweet health oozing from

every pore, always pushing, being pushed,

asking more of every pliant limb, every

pumping cell? I can tell it is the time, I

hear the bell and a number that I somehow

know is mine...

Read and leave comments (4)

JUST POSSIBLE

Is it just possible,

amongst all of the madness

and all the pain, all of

the blood and all that it’s stained,

that it just might be right

to consider once more

if there’s more to consider in

this abominable war.

I hear the phrase war crimes,

which – so far as it goes –

seems fine from the outside

but now more of us know that the

lofty amb...

Read and leave comments (3)

DEARLY BELOVED ONE

It’s time to ask the morning sun,

sweet treat of day, to be

gentle in its early rise and late demise

in this year’s June illuminations.

May you know the need for

one of us to rest our head so

all of night’s too short dominion

be tightly matched; for sleep will

leave long-time tired eyes to open

slowly, which otherwise might catch

a ride far ...

Read and leave comments (0)

DEARLY BELOVED ONE

It’s time to ask the morning sun,

sweet treat of day, to be

gentle in its early rise and late demise

in this year’s June illuminations.

May you know the need for

one of us to rest our head so

all of night’s too short dominion

be tightly matched; for sleep will

leave long-time tired eyes to open

slowly, which otherwise might catch

a ride far ...

Read and leave comments (2)

WHISPERED

I wish I’d whispered more often with a saint’s conviction,

especially when in the early hours of morning it seemed clear

the sun was on its way, to be spent sooner or later

 in playful illumination of my own mind or of each lip

which has conceded and confirmed, though not concealed,

desire and reserve to tease would-be voyeurs,

overdosers on diversionary half turns ...

Read and leave comments (0)

ROMANTICATS (ode to Ludo)                                                                               

Black cat runs up a tree; seems to have seen or

sensed a bird that was meant to be hunted down,

even though the hunter has just been called inside,

that time of day, and has duly fed on cat mush from a

plastic pouch. Didn’t quite hit all the spots. Not a

lot to say about that...

Read and leave comments (2)

VOICE IN SACRED HEARTS

Three voices, clear as bells but

more beautiful, blended as one in a

heaven made for the occasion and

hung from the vaulted ceiling,

each note a perfection,

each phrase a blaze of brilliance,

each song a longing to capture

every cornered soul; and in return

to offer, as bread and as wine,

a tiny part of the body and blood

of a new lord...

Read and leave comments (0)

VOICE IN SACRED HEARTS

Three voices, clear as bells but

more beautiful, blended as one in a

heaven made for the occasion and

hung from the vaulted ceiling,

each note a perfection,

each phrase a blaze of brilliance,

each song a longing to capture

every cornered soul; and in return

to offer, as bread and as wine,

a tiny part of the body and blood

of a new lord...

Read and leave comments (0)

OH TO BE WINGED                                                                         

Sometimes it’s time for the wonderful wind,

even the lightest breeze, to just quieten down,

do as it’s told, blow somewhere over there,

there in the background, and let other

voices be bold, be heard, be stirred up

enough to stake a claim on my attention.

Today is such a day, in fac...

Read and leave comments (0)

COUNTING SWALLOWS

In which direction should I turn my face?         

It’s time to pull away the ties that

cleverly ensure my misted eyes stray

no distance from the ground until, bound to blindness,

I can see the irony of the right I’d claimed,

on any issue, to be first to engage

or ask you, piecemeal, for release.

I always understood release as freely available,

ami...

Read and leave comments (1)

Lincoln Bill crowned you Queen of all around you,

insisting that he who played King for a day would

kill for a second: the honour so high and

rich with all your bounty –

no mere paper gain, it came laden with the

trappings of a full-hearted love, say it

twice, three times, whatever helps to emphasise.

Now, about that love, I knew from the start –

no need even to r...

Read and leave comments (0)

INTO THEIR HANDS

There are walks and there are walks;

the big difference is that on some we talk

but not on others. On some (like those with

brother Jon, well content resident expat of

what was once the exotic, despotic and

generally chaotic empire that sat uncomfortably

astride East and West), the rarity of their occurrence

demands that we speak – so we chit the chat and

Read and leave comments (1)

WE LET IT GO

The accumulation of three score years and five

has half woken me and drawn an ageless blade that

shares my bed – to be clear, its domain lying underneath –

a little blunter than once was, when proud Boy Scout would

scour and burnish carbon-pitted pots and pans in return for

cherished sheath knife, soon to be illegalised (remember

we outlaws’ conspiratori...

Read and leave comments (1)

Two pairs of magpies strut and preen

across the greened-up garden lawn

behind the house we bought a few months back.

I note once more the lack of birdlife here –

unlike the cosmopolitan crowds that would

serenade us each day from every bough,

loud enough to shake and wake all lovers of

calypso sung and hung on high,

and thos...

Read and leave comments (1)

Moving out and moving on, such is the plan;

we agreed a date in late July –

good for the buyers with half a summer still

to enjoy GB at its best, from breathless arrival,

through the finery of one whole, golden autumn

before hunkering-down deep into winter

and out again when survival allows.

I have, while here for thirty years, learned that

time may be measured by chur...

Read and leave comments (1)

And what did you fear when you

thought you might have to fight, again,

to win invitations for your heart and voice, to

reach out with ease to whoever happened to be there?

Now it was, you said, time for poets to refocus –

not just because the others had complied;

isolation and distancing had seen to that.

All of us had sensed change.  You were

a poet if you were t...

Read and leave comments (0)

I last wrote about our five quite some time back,

a time when, for each of them, you and I (and mostly you)

still weighed in and sparred, day on day, in any cause,

on standby should they slip or fall – though close at hand is, perhaps,

the better way to say it, the gentle way to convey a sense of

our being technically unseen, absent, yet able to be found

by one or two, no more th...

Read and leave comments (0)

SORROW AND JOY                                                             

We listened to a love song while we ate,

swallowing simple words, unquestioned

passports to our hearts; invading, possessing

our inner selves with the mellow, fashioned flow of a

voice that could touch us all, share her belief

that song is the measure and cure of grief.

What was it that made us bl...

Read and leave comments (2)

NIGHTS AND DAYS

Nights no longer spent together,

no more dusk to dawn events which

drew us down, hand in hand, to and

then along the promenades of sleep,

start to end, we alone, outside unseen;

no motor movements (I saw none),

save two hearts each gently experimenting,

pressing, caresssing two firm pulses

slow-waltzing together in perfect time

and pirouetting as their...

Read and leave comments (1)

RIVERTRIP

The idea – to float quietly down the Danube, to

tip into the Black Sea and back again – was on its face

a good one, although quiet contemplation proved not to be

the dominant mood for the whole shebang, what with

so much out there, back there, over there, so many

holes hammering into the softer spots of my skull to produce

a yet more porous pot that just cannot serve...

Read and leave comments (0)

WEB SIGHTS

It is more accurate to say that I was consumed by,

rather than saw, the pre-dawn work of countless arty spiders

spread as far as my senses could stretch without causing them

to rupture. I was, at the time, struggling to decide whether I had

finally freed myself of the novice’s need for a homebase for thoughts;

one from which collaborative mental exercises could, early ...

Read and leave comments (1)

NOW OR NEVER?

How often do I hear that the years are just flying by,

assertions made, in the main, by those who have seen

many already and are startled by the sudden onset

of things that simply slow you down so less gets done,

yet not less than you would confide to anyone.

I think about my own struggles with the spoken word,

for example, those painful moments when, say,

Read and leave comments (1)

A THOUSAND DAYS

 It feels like a thousand days have passed

on each of which I’ve looked back and fondly asked

the question that is left of me and ties my tongue

and other limbs so long indentured now to

a devil’s throng of just my kind, each bound unto

the dark one as the price (and what an awful price)

for some brief relief, peace in my head for a day that offered

the fill...

Read and leave comments (0)

MUSINGS WHILE STARING AT HEATHER

August’s more reluctant dawns mark shorter summer days

and darker dusks on beloved Blackdown Ridge, splashing

heatherspreads of violet blue and myriad hues of

purples, pinks midst random sprays of mottled mauves;

as if to mark the Northern reaches of the nation’s

newest Park, its endowment designed to accommodate

its spine, the ancient South D...

Read and leave comments (0)

MIND GAMES                                                            

Light and life both sapped away,

dark winter’s day, I long for

bright, bold artist spring to splash

crocus colours over grey.

Faint hearts miss the majesty

of winter’s sun, warming cold,

the hush, the calm of fallen snow

the blue, streaked silver, canopy.

Strong hearts strip the light from d...

Read and leave comments (0)

CHASTE KISSES AND CONSTELLATIONS                                  

Long love loses the passion of love’s beginning –

it is an unlike love that differs more with each day spent,

the grown oak as to the acorn that has just found vigour

by rooting firm in fertile soil.

Oak that cheats understanding, it barely bends to high winds

and after, blown, refreshed, grows only stronger.

Read and leave comments (1)

HANGING FROM THE RAFTERS                                                                

An Irish band was over to open the Festival;

first visit for us to St Alban’s church – not sure

why we’d always passed by, so much missed:

vast arched ceiling, simple, revealing

rafters high enough to remind us all that

men once worked there, close to the heavens,

to set them, make them fa...

Read and leave comments (4)

STEPPING OUT                                                                                            

I stand on the edge and lean right out

towards the light, the face of one, of

so much more than someone, just met;

won’t forget the tingling of my skin, the

smell of hers, won’t let this slip, this chance to

be unequivocal, say what must be said,

do what must be done – as t...

Read and leave comments (2)

SET ADRIFT BY SCIENCE                                                                          

I lose the thread, quickly, when I

consider the context of all I do or say:

the play of light out there, where

night holds sway and I can safely

watch other stars far too far away

to really understand what it is I’m

part of; and the reasons why

I’m not wholly satisfied with the

Read and leave comments (3)

THREE WARM EVENINGS IN A ROW

Three warm evenings in a row

I’ve sat out here to toast my toes

and await the advent of a constant muse;

to no avail: in each such case, my eyes have

flickered, closed, reopened, all involuntarily

and in random order, my body telling me that

sleep has prior claim – certainly where

its opponent has no gentle voice or lullaby

to propagate incho...

Read and leave comments (2)

LOVES NOT LOST                                                                          

Thinking of loves long gone, loves of learning, yearning,

burning inside, of passion for life, memories sown firm and

deep in the garden of a soul still fertile, growing strong,

enduring. I know their vigour because I seek them out,

youth having slipped slowly away, leaving me to

rest on laur...

Read and leave comments (4)

PERFECT EQUILIBRIUM

Hot July ’75 days left a sky’s breadth lethargy                                                                      

over the living world, where a breath of cool air,

a trickle of cold water, a draught of cold beer

were our day-to-day deities – all else

one weary step to another, even birds hushed, it seemed,

weather-wise, shaded in silent woods,

life it...

Read and leave comments (2)

AND AS

And as the pen at rest inside my head

awakes and aches to resume its place

at our favourite table or easy chair –

which of course we gladly share given

the time we spend together there;

so, to keep it sweet as best I can,

despite a delinquent grey June day,

I tell myself that my plan will be to follow,

closely, this unprepossessing thing in

plotting the route f...

Read and leave comments (1)

AND BECAUSE

A phrase which suggests to me an outcome,

Born of reason; not the season for legal treatise but could

Call time on each resting pair of marching boots plus owner,

Dulled, still, at dawn following deadly all day military drill, the

Excess dust now gone and marcher done – he forever

Full of phrases, though no And Because, each one more

Grouchy, generally, than the on...

Read and leave comments (3)

HANGING GARDENS, HASLEMERE                                  

Those of Babylon, no record left,

if half as beautiful as those you’ve kept

they deserved inclusion in the glorious Seven,

the wonders of which we’ll never know

sufficient for clever comparison; but enough to

win much more than accolades in words and gaze

than I, a devotee, might quickly assign

to their beauty, to...

Read and leave comments (4)

SILENT GREETINGS                                                                        

He sat at a metal mesh table on a matching bench,

smoking each time I passed at the end of each day –

noticeable because he looked, when he smoked,

right in the eyes of  strangers as they walked, sauntered, staggered, ran

either to or from the river; a look that said I am, you know, like you

...

Read and leave comments (0)

SHARING THE SUN                                                             

Summer morning I sit in worship

of a rising sun in a cloudless sky,

unblemished blue, almost too perfect

in a world discoloured by the human tide.

I’d like the warmth to slow us down,

with open eyes and emptied minds,

to let inside fine sights and sounds

then turn them into words that rhyme.

Read and leave comments (2)

A LAPSE OF CONCENTRATION

After we met, when we both

watched out for the other

(you were as sharp as a needle),

when we quietly moved on to “going out”,

I was drawn, most of all, by your

darting, quizzical eyes (swift as arrows)

and that slight furrow lying low in your

forehead (you said this was unremarkable,

I said maybe you should chill a little).

And now and then y...

Read and leave comments (0)

THE MEANING OF BIRDSONG                                                       

Warm May morning, pink azaleas alight,

never been so bright before, so

fiery so soon after winter’s wake

(quite late this year). I toast my feet beneath

a dodging sun, soaking up essential D, and

settle on a garden seat to listen to what I

cannot see: a tree-top high cacophony

of birdsong, every ...

Read and leave comments (3)

 LIGHTSWITCHES

Her last few days and nights

flashes of light and dark in

grey-blue eyes that know that

sight will soon abandon those of

tethered, tied down, waiting souls,

unblinking, fixed on her or those

unsure of where to let them lie.

I think I hear a soft, sharp crack

of slammed shut eyelids as if, of a sudden,

half a dozen giant gnats have

smacked right ...

Read and leave comments (0)

BRIDGES BACK HOME                               

Morning walks in cold September,

can’t remember quite so many in

other years: horizontal, silky threads,

eye level, spun by unseen spiders

across wider gaps than might be

believed to be of this world.

What flight of fancy this leap from

tree to gorse or gorse to tree?

I speculate that, in light of the

spider’s weight, h...

Read and leave comments (3)

A SPLIT LIP

It’s only recently I started to ask myself

the reasons why my upper lip is split –

initially just a narrow, shallow slit but left alone

to care for itself and so to slowly stretch and grow.

I don’t pretend to be one of those who claim

the right to tease for human frailties.

I too may look too long in a mirror and do not mock

others for asking some trusted f...

Read and leave comments (1)

BACK FROM A DREAM

Once more woken by my body’s aches

called away from recent dreams

that in a moment flee cool reading rooms

through one of four blue wooden doors

each to reach nothing less than

muddles heaped across a field of

bubble-wrapped, incoherent scenes.

My return each morning on zero gain

is caught on mundane memories

so trite as to leave them in the dar...

Read and leave comments (0)

EASTER MUSINGS                                                              

First warming sun today at last, to follow

cold, sharp winter; new buds start to dress

the land around, to adorn once more after nature’s rout,

stripping down to stark dark shapes summer-green,

winter-grey trees and hedges, belittled still by

funereal firs, blood-flecked holly, brooding yews.

I s...

Read and leave comments (1)

MUSIC DOWN THE MORGUE

I sometimes see the world through stand-in eyes

required to face the fact of newly broken parts,

immobilised by indulgent recklessness;

yet disrespectful of the powers that be

that would rule us all and all our hearts

as we stumble, artless, through our useful years,

transient as a species, our lives full of cares.

Cut to the chase: I broke an ank...

Read and leave comments (4)

GETTING USED TO IT                                                                     

I have been slow in getting used to it: I have

not got to grips or taken the bull by the horns;

I’ve fought battles each day to remain in the swim,

fearful of eddies, of brackish backwaters,

with no punch left to get back in the flow;

whirling slowly, treading water, seemingly stuck.

The ai...

Read and leave comments (1)