ONE YEAR ON EARTH.

It’s a year to the day
Since you arrived in my life
And no one who has landed before
Has made anything like the impact you have;

No person I have known
Has marked the ground around me
So compellingly or with such business
And industry as you have so honestly brought.

Love has been
Dubbed before In the
Lanes of my animation but it’s also
Been lost or nailed to its own carried crosses

Without hope of
Remission, or the pleasure
Of resurrection to tether it to,
And fatefully it’s been placed within a grave.

People have sent
Friendship or lent trust
That has been rusted beneath
The insistent rules of my constant rain

Which inevitably
Has washed away any sign
Of their endeavour or spread
Thinly their measure across the plains.

But only you have
Made the move from
Seed to me and grown inside
The husk of my hide with sufficient drive

To thrive and root
And inspire my tiredness
To respond long after it usually
Throws in a towel to announce retirement.

Only your lore
Has had the capacity
To capture me at source
And scatter ancient thoughts of mortality

And failure
That have ailed me
Since I first set foot upon
The turf that worsened at my touch.

The fine kindness
That imbues you flows
Easily into me and soothes
The winter views of my version of events;

Centring attention
Spans that have languished
Since love left me feeling useless
And unworthy of ever finding proof of it.

You have done this,
And with only best wishes
For the next adventure that has
Tempted me into maturity’s outstretched arms;

You have lit me
Internally and bidden
Me to learn more of you,
And together, my love, we are greater on Earth.

APPROACHING THE FIRST REVOLUTION OF OUR SUN.

There are lights
That never dim or fade,
Or flicker for good labour,
And for some they activate so easily,

Though many who
Consume the warmth
Of ordinary brightness
Do so without realising how fortunate they are,

But not I;
As for me the night
Had been the default
Condition of my history’s constant stumble

Until she reached
Out across the active
Vacuum of distance’s hard drives
And brought the swarthiness of my life illumination,

And now,
On the edge
Of the first anniversary
Of our glorious meeting I wish for all to see

How much love
There is in the luminous
World and how it thrives
When the lives of the once blind are touched by it.

AFTER ALL.

After all has been said and done.

After everything this year has brought;
Thoughtlessly or meant.

After standing next to a shapeless shadow
And knowing its face.

After having a cracked window each Saturday
In which to view a relationship with my boy.

After being accused of verbal abuse
And more heinous truths.

After my last strength had left
Me senseless.

After all has been said and done.

After pre-arranged fleeting meetings
Were abruptly cancelled.

After balances and checks were stretched
Beyond the last cigarette.

After smoking and stroking addiction's itches
And stopping and starting again.

After avoiding a celebratory drink
On the brink of success.

After passing into realms of
Absolute centres.

After all has been said and done.

After legal arrangements strained what
Relationships were left.

After feeling bereft at the cost of stretching
Judgement’s emergency budget.

After being vindicated by the drunken incidents
Of his mother’s perpetual failings.

After taking it further than I anticipated
I would ever have to.

After winning the first round and
Beginning the second.

After all has been said and done.

After losing Jim in the flames of his own
Home’s strangeness.

After gaining Tammy’s love in the lanes of
Her American city’s mystery.

After staying the course of my determination’s
Race and facing its responsibilities.

After fulfilling my life’s mission by finding
A final role for its missing bits.

After sitting in a room and being told
I hold the key to Harry’s future.

After all has been said and done

I now have my son.


For Harry, Tammy and the memory of Jim Holley.

SECOND DAY WITHOUT A CIGARETTE

I’m seem to be waiting
In the shade
Of a tradesman’s promise,
That was honestly offered yesterday,
And regardless of how many times I say
I’m not going to do it again
I always do,

And as the shadow
Of his oath
Grows over today’s closure
I’m left to consider bidding elsewhere,
But then there are only so many grants
Available and plenty of days
Left to waste them.

So after licking
The stickiness
From a yoghurt pot top
I guess I’ll stand up and get my hair cut,
Seeing as how it’s now nearer a new day
Than it was when I sat down
In anticipation.

And wouldn’t you
Come to
A similar conclusion,
About the world’s worthlessness,
When just as you’re dressed to go out
A knock on the door announces
Their arrival.

WALKING INTO AUTUMN.

The recent week has seen a flurry of activity
What with Lennon’s seventieth birthday,
And my baby’s forty first,
And a deluge of music
Remixed and released
To breathe freely
As it always should have done,

And we’ve all run the race
And tried to fuse our individual happiness
Into the greater debate,
Whilst the baby’s been taking me for a walk,
Until he reaches up of course,
To be carried,
And I have to question the meaning of it all,

Waiting for this fall to show its true colours
And sully my mood,
And an exposure to emotion
Tire my riot,
And after my pattern’s been flattened
I’ll lay beneath the rafters
Of my house until you lift me again;

For it’s only the thought of you near me that sustains,
But the reality of you afar that jars,
And I’ve been propped up on chocolate
And cigarettes and pop
For too long now,
For now all I need is you
To bruise my cheeks with winter kisses.

MY VOCATION.

At
My school
I was one of those kids
Who thought that bed testing
Would be a worthy occupation for sure,
But,
Once left,
I realized enough
People already did that for a living
And that the pay and conditions were poor,
So
I wandered
Into shipping, which,
To its credit, wasn’t responsible
For the eventual debt I was saddled with
As
That was
My own doing
Due to this particular career
Choice not affording me the life I lived,
By
Which time
It was too late to
Stop the rot setting into
The dry timbered hull I’d lazily built,
And
Ever since
I’ve searched the Earth
For worthy work and luckily
I’ve found a sturdy girl to employ my skills.

UPON A PROPOSAL.

A proper bottle opener,
As opposed to teeth is needed,
And a cigarette lighter
Instead of hob heat;
A quiet restaurant corner,
And a meal of made proportions,
Should be thought of
And brightly ordered,
And after an attack of the practicals
We should enact the rituals
Of asking and receiving
An answer in full.

And so it went and was meant,
And we stayed until we left,
And when we did it was with
A tidy reply and the best intentions
For a life led together,
And should the weather of selves
Swell and swirl and hurl us off course
Then we’ll turn to face the force of us;
Burning a new path
In the map of life
And forging ahead
As man and wife.

ORDER.

I got a divorce,
And of course
I’m sure she got one too,
But as she didn’t show at court
To talk over our son’s custody
I can’t really be sure that she’s aware of it,
Living in the shell that’s snared her:

Pasted in her place
And wasting away in apathy;
Fractured in the foundations
Of her being;
Cored by the facts
Of a fallen apple
And unable to snap out of its fictions.

Leaving her front door locked,
The phone alone,
Her post closed
And circling between remorse
And blame whilst unable to jump the train
Of thought that originally
Brought her here.

Yes it’s funny how you marry together,
But separate apart,
Even on good terms,
Which we are when she’s sober or bold enough
To acknowledge her faults.
So yesterday I got my absolute decree
But did she?

DRESSING UP.

The cosmetic mask
She wore was drawn on for the occasion
Of their love making;
Caked to imitate a tramp’s face
And taste better than a duchess’s looks,
And dressed with tresses
Stretched back and bangled.

He wore a thick fake tan
And on his manicured hands were rings
Especially placed for their weight;
Complementing the cut
Of his pimp’s clothes
Until he was imposing enough
To wetten the deadliest drought.

They tangled for a time
On the mantled bed before he reddened
Her cheeks a little more
With a sweet left hook
And she beat the fuck out of his structured
And well proportioned torso,
And then they fought some more.

War paint ran down
Her stained glass face till you couldn’t tell
Her bruises from the soup of her make up,
And as the breaking of bended rules
Continued they took their tussles to the hot pool
Where, choked up on coke, they remained
Until their water cooled.

SANDGLASS.

When you’re in the centre
The beginning of the adventure
Seems as distant as the end;

The winning of the maiden
A secret that has faded
And is occasionally debated,

And though the meeting remains
Revered its ingredients are strained
Through the sieves of our days,

But when we veer towards
The precariously marked doors
We mix them together for all

Our various skills are worth
Into a plausible dough that earths
Us to the planet’s curves,

And forces more discussion
About the painful repercussions
That would result from pushing

Our aims too far apart,
And how the end would start
To resemble a tumultuous car,

Crowded with incompetent cooks,
Who should have looked
More closely at their clocks.

FIRST DAY BACK AT WORK.

And when you’re not here I hurry through the histrionics
Of the day as honestly as possible:
Making safe the pavements that my son’s begun to travel;
Carving half a chicken after blistering its skin;
Soothing mother’s mood with music lifted from the Fifties
And generating sighs of great relief once all’s complete.

But still the empty minutes stack once those I’ve packed
With diligence have had their fill
And filed themselves for me to rate much later.
And still the empty hours tower over my time’s hoover,
Proving that no matter how hard I fasten myself to duty
I’ll be left fruitless at the end of its conclusion without you.

And all the fizz of wished achievements; all the glitz
Of entertainment’s idiots; all the bought goods, the thoughtless
Bid wins and greedy media acquired cannot aspire
To the undeniable sum of your company,
Or the wonder that you breathe into the free time
Before I succumb to sleep’s compulsive numbness.

So when you eventually bless me this evening,
Shorn as it will be of yesterday’s measure of meaningful
Seconds, I will beckon you closer to my mouth
And whisper shout just how much you structure me,
And how time spent without you near, even when still so far,
Is more rewarding than any spent alone.

IMPROVISING.

There’s a mist taking liberties with my time,
Drizzling its crime,
Fizzing with the chimes of rain on drainpipes
And wiping my nose in the fact
That I should have acted yesterday,
And popped down the shops
When they were open longer
Instead of nestling
In my bed
Until tomorrow.

Still I’ve had me a little sortie
For essentials
To the corner store,
And have managed to hoard enough milk
And cookies
For a fucking month;
As well as a couple of cream cakes
In case the stakes remain the same
For the rest of the week
And there’s no break in the weather.

And the autumn equinox is due,
By which time there’ll be no turning back,
And the year will inexorably
Slide into its final performance,
When the frenzy
Of last minute buying
Will make my Saturday lie in
Look all the more attractive
And it won’t matter
If it rains or not.

THE ARCHER'S MAN.

I’ve an image of an apple
On the head of vast man, who stands

Undaunted by the quick
Distance of his past adventures.

In a clearing ahead of him
There is a shimmer of a thinner kind,

And an arrow in the bow
Of a small apostle who has to loose it

And hit his mark without
The use of sight or sound or texture,

And though wretched
In the face of this thankless task

The disciple takes his time,
Assesses the line of his trajectory,

And fires his dart of hope
Into the gap that stretches onwards,

Convinced that the faith
Of his conviction will guide his shaft

Of light into the heart
Of his intended target, thus imparting

The fire of insight towards
The night sky and splitting in half

The fruit of ruination that
Was placed upon the minds of men.

HIS CONJURING TRICKS.

The motion of an opening book
Takes magic
And makes it look possible
As he flicks
From picture to peeking picture,
Shaking off the dust
Of all those who have seen
These images
Before from the pages he rakes over,
Trying to scrape
Away any stray words that have
Had the nerve
To wander on his perfect figures,
And bringing
Them to life in his springing mind.

But I must
Remember not to purchase
Another one
Of those beautiful pop up
Volumes as he
Really hasn’t grasped the point
Of their use,
Grabbing instead the paper shapes
That literally
Leap from their storage spaces,
Replacing
The animations he’s fashioned
For them,
And then dashing them to pieces for
Spoiling his spells.

THE FLAVOURS OF TODAY.

The last day of the County Championship
Brings no luck
And a German Pope,
Who won’t be knocking on my door
If Yorkshire loose,
Which it appears they will do,

Though he probably wouldn’t have been paying
Me a visit if a victory
Had been possible,
Along with other draws or losses,
Unless I missed his wishes in the post,
Or an invitation got tossed,

But that’s alright as I wouldn’t have the time
To receive his Holiness anyway,
What with my day
Being consumed by the snook,
And a huge Shepherd’s pie
To be built and cooked,

Though maybe, if he really wants to,
He can pop along for tea,
As it must be one of his favourite meals
Named after the parable
Of our Saviour as it is
And capped with leeks and cheese,

Although it’s main ingredient is sheep,
And as any Lamb knows
It doesn’t pay to lay down with Lions
Especially if you’re lying
Underneath a snow capped top
Of butter crusted mash.

BEYOND THE RIDGE.

Follow me and I will elevate the very earth that greets us,
Carving stairs of softest cloth into its varied face,
Laying over them a colour scheme to match your palette’s
Finger printed breeding, and once your first foot fall
Connects you’ll crave the next step upwards to investigate
What waits above.

Atop the rise I’ll reproduce your favourite trail and skyline,
Gladed at first sight by saplings sprung from summer’s finest roots,
Then further buttoned in a thicker woodland’s suit;
Warping overhead to wrap the hatless in the vines and finery
Of this environment’s commitment to a future decorated
By its dominant attendance.

And from it we’ll emerge, hands linked in finger chains,
Into a vale whose tears have collected in a river bed
And swept all sorrow’s sediments from off your face;
Replacing what was lost within your lifetime with a wash
That waits to cleanse you deeper than the features that
Have come to crease you.

Here we will swim a while and feast a time on fortune’s food;
Exchanging any hunger felt for younger selves with nourishment
Unknown when strength was ignorant of knowledge
And a reasoning unfeasible before, and on the tiny shoreline
Of this watercourse the sun will set a better dressing
Than it ever had adorned.

For you this world I’ll furnish with a never ending fomentation,
Lengthened by the look of pure surprise that greets you
Upon entering and in the morning venturing out further into
All that lies beyond the spring and flows unto the one true
Promised land that only honesty and all its kin could
Ever have envisioned.

TUESDAY BLUES.

We probably
Both caught a cold
Coming back from the doctors,
Where we’d set off to
Earlier on account of
The prospect of
A chesty cough,
Which was now,
No doubt,
About to come to fruition.

But he was given the all clear
And we steered home,
But the rain ruination of another
Day laid waste
To any further plans,
And the demands of his tiny life,
The twin peaks of walking and talking,
Were beginning to thin his energy
To the extent that intention
Got the better part of valour.

After getting back
We mapped out what
Was possible with a house full of toys,
A flagging interest
And the placid rest periods
That were God sends,
But, as mentioned,
He wasn’t up to much
So we decided to hutch down
And wait for another day.

HER WORK.

A crimson sky
Is splashed with white,
And summer long colours
Fill circles
As her page turns to certainty
In the autumn light.

Sage is placed on lower greens
Upon an unseen bower
As sheens of high veridity
Billow beneath
And garden growth is trothed to potted plants
Commanding your attention
As they stand
Upon each other.

Uncovered in the square
Of careful canvas
Is the perfect execution
Of her latest work of future frame;
Aimed at no one in particular,
And everyone in general,
And yet to be rooted
By the shoots of life
That connect my husband
To her wife
And strive to tell the tale.

Her grail is mine for seeking
And for keeping safe
Until the grave bequeaths
Its finished beauty
To another generation.

UPWARDS AND ONWARDS.

When you fall
From all fours
You don’t have far to fold,
And like a child
Finding height
It hurts more from your toes.

But to crawl
Anymore
Will keep you feeling low
And the profiles
Of the light
Will be hidden in shadows.

And if all
Is ignored,
Because of stature’s glow,
Then you’ll be filed
In the aisles
Of the fools who never know.

So walk tall
And accord
Your feet an ordered road,
And if denied
Then arise
And give it another go.

NEW.

It’s new,
With you,
Every time we do
The things
We do:

When our text
Stretches
Its legs
Along
The page,

When words
Surge
Purposely
Across
The Earth,

When spit
Trickles
From my lips
To
Your mouth’s tip,

When come
Thunders
And runs
Beneath
The sun,

When our love
Floods
And covers
Each
Other.

MIXING IT UP.

She was seconded to a second life
Whilst I backed my regimental first one,
And was certain that my choice would
Be vindicated by an ability to deal with it,
But she was febrile
With her friends and leant the weight
Of her personality to managing it.

The people she met and vetted
Were blessed by her nervous excitement
And delighted in her scatter shot comments;
Offering their own cajolery
And empowering her sufficiently
To rise above the misery of a life that had surprised
Her with its emptiness.

And although I had dabbled in mystical travel
Over the airwaves,
And become addicted to it,
I managed to winkle my fingers from the keyboard
For a pen’s length,
But unfortunately its ink was unable to grip
Sufficiently to a page and I returned.

And amidst the swirling surge of
Surface haze we grazed each other’s bubbles
And burst into the broth beneath;
Exchanging stock and locking in
The flavour of our ways until the soup we brewed
Was tastier than the single ingredients
That we once knew.

THE MIDDLE.

Some people make no sense
Whilst others make little else,
And I find myself
Trying to decide
Why neither of them are particularly appealing:

The artless farting in the bath
Can’t understand elan,
Whilst the sanctimonious
Posing in the shower
Are only too aware of how powerful they look;

The amorphous mass cast
Off society’s shapes,
Just as the structured
Rupture another vein
Trying to fit civilization into their version of it;

The hollow fall
Into the shell of themselves
A moment before the solid
Fill in the blanks for them
With their never ending explanation of things,

And it’s not my job to rob
The ignorant of their calling,
Or forestall the tide
Of righteousness
That will inevitably hit from the literate,

And I’m certainly not
About to pick a side,
Or bide them lightly,
So I wish they’d hurry up
And conclude their business and be on their way.

TAKING A BREATHER.

I want my tongue in your mouth
So I won’t be able to put a foot in mine,
Because however fine
We are
I can still jump the car,
And send things south.

The weight of pressing matters
Can be lightened by the industry of a kiss,
And the marked ellipsis
That it
Makes replaces the blitz
Of my chatter.

And in the moments revealed
We supercede the need of incidental words,
As anything that’s heard
Improves
The recent attitude
Of their appeals.

And you approve of the sounds
My newly muted mouth is now making with yours,
And can breathe in a pause
In which
To order and then stitch
Your own voice round.

WALKING ALL OVER ME.

From the shop I got an octopus
To keep my boy at bay
For I simply don’t have arms enough
To entertain his day,

You see he’s wandering around as if
He has the right to walk,
And testing my authority
With homemade tomahawks.

And his mind is quickly firing,
His legs propelling more,
And feeding him is tiring
Because he can’t be caught:

He’s in the corners, in the cracks;
He’s climbing up the walls,
And every time I turn my back
He’s breaking protocols.

And when I get my hands on him
He flashes me those eyes
That always are employed to win
A moment of reprise,

And I’m reduced to ripping out
The rest of my gray hair
And racked by waves of gripping doubt
That leave me in despair.

But after sleeping peacefully
With words of love announced,
I wake and take it easily,
Until he starts to pounce.

YOU.

Without you there
I would not have been able to contemplate
You here.

Without you here
I would be incapable of waking up to face
Another day.

Without another day
The ungrateful dismissal would abruptly
End my life.

Without my life
I would miss the changing face of my son’s
Beautiful future.

Without the future
There will be nothing to bother the atoms
Of tomorrow.

Without tomorrow’s
Inevitable recollection no one will sketch
Our yesterdays.

Without yesterday
I would be without the immeasurable blessing
Of you.

Without you
I would now wish for existence to have passed
Me by.

YOUR IMPACT.

Touch’s suction
May be too much,
But Christ I’d like it wringing
Out my life
Within your vice.

Sectioned on the edges
Of the world
As we have been recently
I miss your grip
Upon my sanity;

I long for your absorption
Of my thoughts;
Your drawing of my form;
Your soaking cloak
To reek of me.

I feel like leprosy
Has captured me in
Its withering attrition,
And I will never know again
The facts of contact.

I need the missing fence,
This lesser sense,
To cradle my unstable mind
Inside its hiding place
And make me safe.

So fetch me love,
And stretch upon
My soundless skin your blessing;
Compressing me
Until I’m squeezed enough.

BETWEEN US.

When we melt
Again
Into each other’s ghost

We gain a closer
Understanding
Of corporeal needs:

Sheeted on separate beds
At each end
Of the Atlantic

And thanking the lucky stars
That link us
In transmission.

My land line
Connected to your grapevine
And exchanging

The bravery
Of our relationship
Across such distance.

And once run,
And spun, and run back home,
The phone holds

Our conversation
In the ephemeral vault
Of its memory.

ROUGH PUPS.

The semi formed lad
I passed this morning
Leant over his shoulder
And yelled to a shape in the distance
That he’d burnt his head out.

Now I wasn’t too sure what he was yawping about
But I guessed he’d been wheezing away
On illegal seeds,
And by the look of his ubiquitous
Crumpled track suit
It was probably true.

And I don’t want to disapprove
Of another’s lifestyle,
Or how he whiles away his workless days,
But surely there must be something
Better for today’s youth to do.

There has to be a path
For them to follow that doesn’t involve wallowing
In narcotic dead ends,
With necrotic comrades,
Who as such are more akin
To swindlers than friends.

And I don’t want to sound
As though I’m out touch,
Being partial to a pinch of snuff now and again,
But these young men have no centres
When they venture from themselves.

OUR CALVARY.

There is a space
With our name along its deck
Where we can lay
Upon a bed of our choosing,
And stay until the few who matter
Ask for our attention.

I will place you face down,
With your arms outstretched,
And crucify myself
Across your back;
Tacking myself inch by inch
To your skin.

And there we’ll remain;
Still in keeping with
The honoured time we’ve caught
Or bought with our labour,
Until our heart beats
Seek the rhythm of each other;

And covered by my contrition
You’ll wish for me to move
Into you and delay
My sin a little longer;
Stronger now we’re bonded
On a hill of our own.

BLOODWORK.

Blood goes forth
And finds its way around the body’s route map;
Capturing the beauty
Of system views
And bringing news back
From the very edges of its universe.

Return journeys
Are immediately planned and executed
And salves are sent
To restore damaged
Or deteriorating slip ways;
Rendering the tender spots where possible.

And in the North,
Where thoughts wander in and out of random
Alleyways and lanes,
Support is offered
Where requirement is found;
Drawn from the deepest wells of common sense,

And, once deposited,
The crimson stream continues with its work;
More joyful that
At least the reed beds,
Where mistrust matures,
Have been flushed of their uncertainties,

And blood goes forth,
Oblivious to its own mortality unless a rip
Spills it over sills
Or dread stretches
Further south and drowns
It in a fear that even tides cannot repair.

TRANSMITTING OUR WISHES.

The usual forms of communication
Seem to be making
Us irritable;
We’re either defensively sensitive
Or aggressively callous,
And we can’t seem to get the balance
Right
In words or type,
And it’s beginning to hinder
Our speech.

So maybe we need another form
Of discourse in order
To survive:
I could burn London Town down,
Whilst you work on New York,
And the boasting smoke will do our talking
For us;
Filling the already
Flush skies with our rebukes
And apologies.

Or I could use the moon’s blooming,
As you fumble with
The sun,
And with sufficiently large carpets
We’ll flash out in hardiest
Morse code the thoughts we once wrote
Down,
Or spoke to each other,
Via the sky’s incandescent
Messengers.

Or still in old codes we could transmit
In sound waves a similar
Pitch;
Me with the suspension ropes of
The Humber Bridge
As an instrument to strum away with,
And
You with the Golden Gate’s
Harp strings to bring them to my
Attention.

Alternatively we could send letters
To each other through
The postal system;
I’ll start with ‘A’ and see how that goes
And if I receive a ‘B’
Then I’ll know we’re onto something,
But
If you skip straight to ‘Z’ then
I guess we’ll spend eternity discussing
How to pronounce it.

And if all those fail then I suppose
We’ll try your most recent
Suggestion,
Which you brought up this evening
As the strain
Was starting to drain us of alternatives:
With the
Straightest possible face
You mooted the use of sign language
Over the phone.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN.

There was an idea,
Discussed in the midst of midnight ticking,
That inspired a mind
To proclaim it the finest theme since design
Conceived of such concepts,

But unfortunately
The analogist who sifted the grist of the thought
Did not think long enough
About keeping its seeds safe for the morning’s
Rendition,

As no pen was to hand,
And the notation application of his cell phone
Was too cumbersome
To wield with one thumb at that time of night
Whilst on the land line,

And subsequently,
When dawn came calling, the previous evening’s
Visionary insight was lost
Amongst half remembered drops of dreams
And screened details,

And even props of
Soda pop, chocolate and cigarettes couldn’t
Get to the mettle of it,
And one more gem of wisdom was tossed into
The locker box of time.

And so was mourned the
Passing of what would undoubtedly have comprised
The finest writing this side
Of the last highlight that he should have fucking
Written down at night.

WHATEVER IT MAY TAKE.

Take heart from the fools
You once knew
Who made it to the
Top table when all
Around them thought
Inability would stable
Their ambition in the barn
But who had the substance
To rub up to the right
People at the right time
And turn circumstance
To their advantage.

Granted they made
The best of another’s hand
But you have real talent
And no need to gamble
With it in games of
Chance or balance
Precariously on the
Swaying words of
Charlatans or family
Members who you
Wouldn’t willingly
Lend a shilling to.

You must believe in
Yourself and if necessary
Measure that against
The achievements of
Those thieves who have
Stolen a march on
Time’s tutelage and
Waged war on decent
Peoples’ good faith,
Even if that means a
Slight compromise in
The light of requirements.

AN EVENING AMBLE.

I went for a walk
Round the block
And took the baby,
Whose recently counted
Twelve spring teeth glinted;
An amount officially confirmed
By yesterday’s dental appointment.

Strolled down the
Cobbled back lanes
Where leaves had started
To gather in the cracks and
Tufts of grass splashed the creases,
And river bank trees were seasonally
Thinner as they prepared to greet winter.

The river towards Hook
Was mud flat low and,
Although I never believed
The talk of walking across it,
I guess anything is possible when
The neap tides begin to bite as tightly
As they do when the moon is cycling by.

The red brick glittering
In the distant green told
Me the official path would
Soon run out and so I dismounted
And headed down the slopes again;
The baby getting restless as I called my
Lover and approached the old roads home.

THE VOLUMES INSIDE.

There’s books in us
That are waiting to be baited
From the pages
They exist upon
In the lowest depositories of our souls;

Where they sit on walnut shelves,
In velvet jackets,
Stacked to the rafters
And laughing at us
As we scramble around to reach them.

But we’ll delve
A little deeper one of these days,
And breach the caves
Where they’ve kept themselves
Sheltered from our territorial centres,

And when we do
We’ll strip the literature
From in-between their bindings
And ring the finest
Meaning from them for our own devices:

Stories of pornography,
In calligraphy,
Or mysteries ripped from time
And slipped into
A crime rate’s infrastructure;

Rhythms and rhymes
Shivered and shined
To catch mercurial modern eyes,
And shake the dust
From the crust of poetry’s current roost;

Or picture books
Struck from ice sheets
Which look quite innocent
Until heated
And melted across a manuscript;

Missives mined from memories
And rendered
At a pen’s length
Then sent upon their way
To plant greener seeds elsewhere;

Romantic novels
Exhumed from the tombs and hovels
They felt safe within
In this age of date raping
And gossip columed glossy magazines;

Children’s tales and fables,
Tabled in leather bound cases,
To be found
And placed within
The finest palaces of the rich and famous,

And biographies
Of apologies
For all the wrong doings
We’ve done
Whilst trying to run our marathons alone.

Oh there are books in us baby,
Which I will write
And you’ll provide images for
To dazzle the dimmest sights
And finish what was started in our minds.

TOGETHER.

Every night we try to meet in moods,
And most times we do,
But occasionally
We fail to be
In the same place,
And obviously distance plays a part,
Or finances raise their dirty face,
Or families grate,
But mostly it’s our self defence mechanisms
Kicking it and wrecking things,
And our humours bruise us,
And then we have to delicately deal
With feelings,
And fragility’s kiss,
And a wish for future’s fortune
To fall soon.
And sometimes little things may wink
And tinker with our thoughts,
And ride roughshod over us,
Or dizziness rushes
And we must spin in the opposite direction
To straighten up,
Or strengthened tensions
And torsions
Try to force us further apart
And by the time you want me to stay
I don’t know where I am,
Or I demand a perfect trance from you
And stamp my feet when greeted
With the opposite,
And then we have to remember,
Our friendship,
And surrender our selves
To each other.

A WORKING PERSPECTIVE.

When nothing remains to be said
I’ll be sad,
And likely as not
Dried up
Without a weapon
To bend
To my will’s use,
As I find that other tools
Elude me,
And leave my outstretched
Hands clammy.

And not for want of trying
Have they denied me,
And not for chance’s parity
Have I tried,
For a fare share of circumstance
Has danced with me
But I seem to have been born
With two left feet,
And a capacity to partner those
People with two right ones,
Or who were invariably wrong.

So when silence
Fences me within its stockade
I pray
For the return of words
To urn me
A further stay within the world
That sometimes turns
Clockwise and sometimes spins
Otherwise
Depending upon whether
You look up or down.

A GRAND DAY OUT.

Went to York today
To see the trains;
The diesel and steam
In the Railway Museum,
And the first one we saw,
As we walked through the door,
Was a type Thirty One
Like my Father rode on
When he drove them in Goole
At the end of my school.

Then we headed outside
And made for the pride
And joy of Yorkshire’s crown
In the centre of town,
But the Minster was billing
And I wasn’t willing
To pay up and enter
It’s magnificent centre,
So we went for some fudge,
And bought way too much.

But we did take some snaps
Of the Minster’s stained glass,
And the streets that surround it
And people dumbfounded
By this beautiful city
And it’s glorious history,
With it’s columns and walls
And birthplace of Guy Fawkes,
Then we made our way home
From the world’s second Rome.

MY HEROINE.

She walks
In smocks
And wears a stethoscope
To hear lies with.

She talks
In shocks
And dares the misanthrope
To cheer crisis.

She lays
In love
And tempts the competent
To perch beside her.

She stays
Above
And lends the impotent
A church to guide them.

She climbs
The sides
Of cliffs still unsurpassed
And adds a transit.

She mimes
The ride
And lifts the ancient masks
That had me stranded.

SPRING COLLECTION.

Apparently next spring’s been cancelled,
Due to cut backs,
So this year’s leaves will have to last;
Its plants must be set fast
And colour cast
In order not to loose their hues
Through winter’s cruel rule.

And the perfumes of the garden
Must be net protected from the bees,
Who themselves will need
Collecting and keeping
In the spare room if we’re to save them
From freezing,
Or at least sneezing off their pollen.

And other insects too
Must be hoovered up and stored indoors,
Along with seeds and spores
And all the other yearlings
Shed by nature’s
Beds and hedges
That have set themselves already.

And steadily we’ll capture a picture
Of summer in case this is the last allowed
Due to the penury caused by this young
Century’s gross indulgence,
And then when winter ends
We’ll spread our botanies across
The world’s virgin canvas on its behalf.

LOST IN THE LANES.

Some things pull you
From your own mundane tasks
And ask
“Hey,
What the hell are you doing with your life?”

Shuffling in the cracks
Between one relationship and another?
Or wallowing in the swallowed pill comfort
Of one more attempt at it?
Maybe neither trial sticks to your vigilance;
Maybe you’re one of those individuals
Who don’t need people in order to sleep well,
Or fiddle with yourself continually
Or simply can’t get on with folk and so poke fun
At them for eating out when their kitchen cupboards are full.

Whichever flavour graces you
It might just be time to
Lift the heavy lids from your eyes
And see why
Life’s shouting at you.

Maybe your memories
Are etched in sand at the tide’s edge,
With a full moon due and no cement left,
And you’ve forgotten how rocky
The road from the shore can be if you leave too late;
Could be debate has favoured more
Worthy causes than the shape of your sunglasses,
Or the state of your finances or the fate
Of one single soul who doesn’t have a hole
Or a shell to treasure and perpetually dwell in.

THE LITTLE DISTANCES.

In a supermarket car park
I bumped into a friend I’d not seen for years,
And we chatted about those years,
Long gone,
And the people who wore them,
And then we went our ways
And the day continued.

But for those twenty minutes I was elsewhere,
Sharing time with him,
And laughing at the luck
That had befallen others,
And ourselves;
Comparing hair and work
And circumstance.

And where we stood had once been
The grassed and muddy fields
Of the school where we first met;
Now bettered by development,
Apparently,
But still able to project
Our recollections.

And it felt like we were kids again,
As we stood discussing our own,
And made me realise how far
We had travelled
Even as we
Unravelled a story started
On that very spot.

IRRIGATION.

Your mouth sounds dry
Now the cries have subsided;
Now that ecstasy has tested your saliva’s ability
To fill it,
And has eventually
Swilled away your words.

I wish I could water it for you again;
Make rain drain down the gutters of your tongue;
Plunge from your lips
And get my skin wet
Within
Your dripping sentences.

But your words are stuck to my fuck billed face
And the taste of them is leaking from my cheeks
To my throat,
And coating the sheets
With sleet
That blends with my sweat.

I wish you could lean over me and lick up your last
Spitten pips from the rest of my neck and sprinkle them,
Inch by inch,
Into my own pinched speech,
And teach me how
To revive you more quickly,

For I want you to be as thick with me as I am with you;
I need you to know how much your noise means to me when
You’re poised on the edge of heaven’s
Best kept secrets,
And how your strength
Drenches me.

THE LAST DAYS OF SUMMER.

There’s smoke in the air;
In the rays of late August sunlight sliced
By a street corner’s house;
In the mist that crowds the early morning
Sounds of mice and men;
In the shimmer at the end of the lane
That earlier in the year would have been a heat haze;
In the shadows and shade where the daze
Is made even greater;
In-between the leaves that soon
Will loose their greenery
And the far distant scenery
That glistens.

There’s smoke in the nose;
From a fire now tired of re-igniting
The fuel of burnt offerings;
From a coffin of moss that a fool
In his kingdom’s garden just had to incinerate early;
From the remains of a late
Barbecue that didn’t know when to end;
From the ruins of a chimney
That still stains the neighbourhood with coal dust;
From a building that killed
All its occupants in their sleep
And yet simmers to keep
Us uncomfortable.

AN ILLUSIVE INNINGS.

These are the adventures of a self centred
Individual in a world full of benevolent druids,
Who,
To their credit,
Never asked for the truth of altruism
To materialise in front of them,
Or be pulled from top hats,
But,
Nevertheless,
Wrestled with the macabre arts
Of generosity until mastered enough to floss with,

And whilst they were at it
Batted a little longer at the crease
Until they beat back the bowling attack
Of the fractured,
Who,
Like me,
Kept at them
With sufficient line and length
To dent anybody’s defence,
But never bowled them over
Or sent them willingly to the pavilion,

As team talks of walking
Are balked at
When there are partners to chat at,
Or associates to boast with,
And,
Although it may be lonely at the top,
It’s still more social
Than the solitary bottom of the barrel
That still trammels me
To this side of the line
When I long to make magic amongst them.

THE OLDEST ANTHEM.

The wood wind brings a phrase to me
And the hairs on my arms bristle
And stand as straight as trees,

And music weaves over my pimpleing skin,
That rises to receive the news and
Sings upon my limbs a simple tune;

Transmitting it to finger tips
Which flicker in anticipation of
Laying down the sound across your face,

And as the trace of nature’s song
Is touted by my touch along the life
Lines of your body we are synchronised

To time’s old signature which drums
To the accompaniment of hearts
And minds and spirit’s lyrics;

Mouthed and grounded to the
Melody of memories contained
Within the framework of our ancestry

That once ran and danced around
The world in harmony with calmness
And calamity and managed both;

Betrothed to wood and stone
And known by all before the storm
Of evolution muted most of it.

ON THE EDGE OF AUTUMN.

I see us sat
Upon a porch,
A cool breeze sliding by,
I watch the seeds
Of autumn spread
Themselves across the sky.

I notice how
Your features suit
This season’s new veneer,
Observing that
Your skin restores
Itself this time of year.

You estimate
The hour’s name,
And offer it a cause,
And I agree
Your venture’s case
Is worthy of applause.

You lift a hand
And place its palm
Upon my own upraised;
Together set
Into themselves,
In prayer and in play.

And in the fall
Of ev’ning light
We set our wishes free
To mingle with
The world’s campaign
And its crisp scenery.

BELOW THE WATERLINE.

When you scrape the late shift’s lost hours
You might be surprised by what you dredge up from
Deep down beneath the receding surface of an earlier tide,
Whose buoyancy bides its time.

There the surge is sturdier,
And urgent for your tired mind;
Desperate to bind it to thankless anchors
And plant you on its fluid bed,
Where no rest is possible,
And comprehension’s leaden sense is mentored
By primary colours
And simple contours,
And you bob along the bottom
Never once dotting I’s or crossing T’s,
Free to flounder
As it sees fit.

And when delved into at the behest
Of braver bathers determined to save you from
The sediments of selfishness you might find more than
What you thought trawled there;

Where purchase is worthier
Because of the determination needed
To purge settled footfalls of their stilted silt,
And getting a grip of your ship
Wrecked decks merits
More effort than forgetting how they were submerged,
Or who sunk them,
Or succumbed to drunkenly
Sailing into gentle tempests
That switched the minute they hit
And left you listing
This long.

INDOLENCE.

There’s an untapped potential,
That often goes unmentioned,
And it’s assembled
In my mental space,
Though whether I have the attention span
To handle it
Remains unknown.
I have the capacity
To be fascinated by possibilities
But I’m usually too slothful
To engage them,
Or not brave enough to face
The stuff of everyday arrangements,
And unlike a flight test’s frightfulness
The more ordinary an event
The more likely the extent
To which I’ll omit its entertainment,
Or turn tail altogether
And bolt for the nearest hole;
Insisting all along I was quite right in doing so
Even as the walls fall in.
But the only archaeological certainty
In England
Is that you’ll find bones in Towton,
And I know I’m not amongst them,
So unless I want to rest in peace
I’d best recompense
Common sense
And address my laziness.

EXTENDING.

She wishes she could stretch her legs forever,
Having had a bad day
Trapped in her tree-house,
And car tripped across the countryside,
And I wish I could join her
And help to loosen her limbs.

Laying beside her I’d lend her my own frame
To unwind within:
It being longer,
With more unreeling room,
I’d fill it with the fullness
Of her love and feel her focus ease.

For I have space inside and a reservation card
With her name upon it,
And I yearn to turn
It over to her exposure;
I hanker for her landing
In the alcoves that have always been abandoned,

And together we’d meld ourselves to its shape;
Our minds would drape
Its walls with all we are,
And our branches thrive,
And with life uncurled
We’d reach further than the edges of the world.

A BRAVE NEW PROMISED LAND.

So after the Western mind
Had subsided into the pits of history,
It ascended
To Heaven,
Where,
With typical attention to detail,
It proceeded to strip the place of its resources:

Feathers were plucked
With gusto from the wings of angels;
Various ambrosias
Consumed
With greed
And harps were harvested
For their parts and turned into slings and arrows.

After a while a particular faction
Arose whose leader usurped the previous,
Treating Him
Disdainfully
As he left
The place to wander amongst
The remaining clouds that showered the Earth;

And upon one of them He wished
He’d been more honourable to the Eastern fringes
Of the World,
But when
The deities
Of these realms also arrived
They concluded they’d wasted their time in the first place.

WORDS OF LOVE.

Somewhere in the great pantheon of man’s language
Resides a word,
Or phrase,
Or ideograph shape;
Or glyph
Or guttural riff,
That once uttered,
Or grunted,
Or otherwise tumbled from tongues
Will reduce a woman
To crumbling knees,
And make her freeze in ecstasy,
And I know
That better men than me
Have sought the centuries
For its patronage,
But I’m prepared to look longer
In order
To discover
This lover’s idiom,
And once attained
Will claim it and tame it,
And bring it back home,
And use it on you,
My sweet paramour,
And make your orgasm
Talk back to me
In a whole new vocabulary.

IN TEN MONTHS.

From the first moment we spoke
Across the screens
Of flat panels

To the actual audible tones of
Land lines and
Cell phones;

With pictures flickered from
The farthest
Hearths,

And fragrances sent in cards
And kept
In wallets;

From a meeting in April heat,
And confirmation
Of first thoughts,

To a sad goodbye before
An airport’s
Unforgiving walls,

And with cameras installed
On return to see
Each other daily

We have raised love from seed
Into the hardiest
Of gardens.

REVEALED.

Open your soul to the old world
And piece together its stories;
Peel back the blackness that
Has trapped them.

See the scores of heretics
And martyrs starting out
Along the paths that captured
Their attention.

Watch them fall before the
Sensible hoards who swept
The corners of religion free
Of truth seekers.

Look at the ruptured masses
Grasping what was given
By the living word of books
And crooked bishops.

Catch the light that scatters
From the cracks that crept
Into the august mess left in
The Lord’s name.

View the cleanest scenery
Beneath moth-eaten cloths
Once lifted from good gifts
Initially given.

Then close your soul knowing
That its purity is surer now
The crown of love has finally
Been enthroned.

MORNING STORE RAGE.

This morning,
In the shop,
I went into a strop with the mop
Behind the counter,
Who wouldn’t allow me to return
A set of baby clothes without the label,
Although I had the receipt,
And they were neat,
And,
Initially,
I was sweet.
But this bitch
Made me twitch,
And I consented to my temper’s request
For a mention,
Which it did,
And I shouted that she may as well keep them,
As I didn’t have time,
On a day like today,
With it pissing down and me being late,
To stand and debate the intricacies
Of her store’s policies,
And the jobsworth’s posture she presented,
And she smiled facilely,
And maybe I made her cry,
But on reflection
I don’t give a shit for her position
As she should have found a better occupation
If she didn’t want to deal with
Dicks like me.

UNDER OBSERVATION.

Eyes need stalks
And ears the ability to recognize a tuning fork’s twitch,
For when he pitches
I’ve got to try and catch him
Before the floor does,
And splits his lip,
Or bumps a brow
Or allows a bruise the room it needs to bloom.

And I know these trials
Are the same for all the contestants who bless them,
But my little guy
Seems to be trying more than most
As he staggers to stand
And grasps at thin air
Between a table and chair
And misses and slips forward a little awkwardly.

But so far I’m quicker
Than gravity’s grip and am able to save him
From any grave harm,
Though occasionally he evades me
And lands with a thump
On his well padded rump
Or more worryingly
Falls hurriedly forward and causes misfortune;

As his own sprightly sight
And rabbit keen hearing mean he’s speeding up,
And soon this toddler
Will be wobbling all over the house
And he’ll look like
A boxer’s whose just tried
To knock seven bells out of himself
And I’ll have to train my senses to lengthen their reach.

BALANCING ACTS.

Sleep fueled by the energy of day
Proved rueful
As my last
Conversation with you
Continued long after you left,
And when I woke
I found I was still talking things through.

I called you
And told you how much we’d said
That had remained unspoken,
And you mentioned maybe
I’d overstayed my welcome
The previous day
And should have rested earlier.

It could be I need to seed
Each segment with more integrity;
Maybe relax more,
Or impact more,
Or call for help when helplessness
Betters me
And a welcoming hello settle.

Maybe I expect too much
From the structure I’ve put in place
And should allow grace its favour;
Make dinner in a minute
And not when the clock says so,
And unwind when the time arrives
Instead of busting a gut to find it.

WRAPPED UP.

Steaming in this cellophane skin of mine
That seals in the tissue of youth
Whilst peeling to prove
Age has no respect for freshness;
Eager to be released of the duties
That no longer suit the beauty of its function,
That once lunched at God’s table
When all were able to see a brighter future
Upon the new planes made;
When angles played card games
And Lucifer wagered a new planet
Against the perpetual void that sustained them.
A hand of course lost by the boss
Who, being a bad loser,
Cast out the winner for his sin,
And damned us all in the process.
The fallen seraph danced with Pan
And made pacts with Man
And came to understand our needs
Much better than He who was beaten,
And as our meat took shape draped
Us in a cape of his own image,
And gave us eternity in which to wear it,
But God and his defeated pride
Took one look and cut our hide time
Down to 3 score and 10 revolutions of the sun,
And abandoned his own boy to
Compound our joy and command
Our wandering minds.
And now, forty four years within my covering,
I sit well passed my pelt’s melting point
Considering the fact that maybe
We should have been more certain of Satan.

THE NIGHT'S TIME.

In a corner of a room,
Where moonlight breaks through
The cankered glass of a painful window,
A shadow grows over the faintness
Scraped on the walls and arthritic
Door frames.

Upon its cloak,
Illumined from within,
A face appears above the borderline
Of sight,
Below which no legs suspend
Or bend seated,
And no other support is visible.

Hovering in place,
As shade traces across the floorboards,
It looks for those with
Wide night eyes
To see it with;
To frighten and inform,
And call forth the morning faster from its bed.

Dreadful sleepers reap its fear
And wake relieved to be without it,
And out of their bunks they leap
To lunch with day’s sweetness
And keep from wandering
Around the haunted houses of their minds.

THE RIVER BANK.

The river bank ran wild
With the wind’s cries,
As the watercourse smiled its way around
The bend towards the Humber Estuary,
And summer filed another thin return.

But conditions usually fit for sailing in
Were somehow graced with a warmth
Drawn from a different climate;
Heating the torrent with incongruous steam
That kept people attached to the tarmac track.

And those that clung to the top,
Dog walking or pram pushing,
Were cushioned by the sun’s late surge
And fortunate enough to find themselves
Sweltering beneath the sky’s contradictions.

And a final pitch for short sleeves
And bare legs is still likely,
Even as the August Bank Holiday approaches,
As it has been known to glow so brightly at
This time of year and foreshadow an Indian summer.

But over here we’re not dumb enough
To rush too far into that future,
Or take much heed of weatherman’s chart,
We’re just happy not to be blown off
The paths that lacerate the river bank.

HER ART.

She makes a shape organic;
Whether granite
Or synthetic
She abets the living process
With a root
Or suit of colours meant to liven.

And she widens the horizon
Of what’s possible
With canvas
And acrylic and the bits
That other people
Would leave in the street.

She creates a synthesis of what is
And isn’t given;
Taking forms
Distinctly hers and turning
Them to represent
Your deepest unknown wishes.

And she never misses the connection
Between cause and effect;
And what’s next
Only she knows when set
Before a virgin space
To generate new life upon.

RAISING HER NAME.

Valves make weak links
When hairline fractures map their surfaces;
Scratched into them by a bull beaten pump
Whose sump is overflowing
With runoff
And dottle
Not coughed up.

And when I leave my lover
With her blood still swilling in my mouth
There’s no doubt why my heart starts acting
Like a fairground attraction
That’s had its
Shafts cracked
Once too often.

And there’s really no way
To soften the news or alleviate the bruising
On my ticker’s skin once its mettle
Has been wetted within
And pulsed
In Morse code the
Letters of her name;

No wonder the thunder that
Heightens my drum beat is lightening fast;
Cast in the forges of passion
To smash against
A rib cage that
Sags and crashes back
To make its lasting mark.

OUR BOOK.

Words leave the tip of my tongue
And touch her cheek

Painting pictures on her face

That she breaks into shards

To construct images of us
On treated canvas sheets

Spread upon a bed of Heaven

Scented with the breath of Hell

Fetched from deep within the
Fusion we have used there

Where our elements spread apart

And came together settled

In the sheaths that only our words
And images could have created

Mated in a single mass of flesh

Stretched and bound and captured

In a covering of walls until
We rise and start another page.

NO MORE MONOPOLY.

Never will his mother earn the right to see him,
Wallowed as she is inside
Her mind’s recital of the reasons he’s not with her,

And blame’s a great game to play when you’re
The only participant,
As the rest of the protagonists have cheated throughout.

And if she’s drinking on and off then it would appear
She’s more upon
The path to the edge of her particular board,

And likely to fall further before she passes GO,
Although she’s
Still collecting money every time she rolls around

With which to fuel her addictions and add more
To the fires
That burn within and sunder any hope of finishing.

That winning is even an option has been forgotten
Along with
The rules that were approved before the start,

As if building a bolt hole for the heart on free parking
Mattered more
Than shoring up the relationships at home,

And that is where the heart lives and not at the
Bottom of bottles
That she has used to replace her kids with.

THOUGHTS OF YOU.

Another day without you
To hold onto;
Only the
Velvet steps
Of my memory,
And the desire to provide more.

Even the inkling of another
Encounter
Would
Caress the
Bare stairs of the
Corridor at the end of each day;

Carpeting one more footfall
Upwards;
Parting
The curtains
For me before I
Enter my central chamber.

But life has a habit of trashing
The rare bits
That matter
More than average,
And the steepness grabs
My balance and flatters it;

Calling me further from
The room I wish to take;
Making me
Stumble a step
To the next where I
Inevitably sleep without rest.

OUTSIDE.

I went to the other side
Of these four walls
To see what all the fuss is about,
To discover where the action is;
What the buzz does on my day off,
As the baby’s with his family,
And all the meaningful people
Are either asleep or at work,
And I’ve become accustomed
To hustling after them
And can’t quite find the impetus
To keep amused without their presence.

Sure there are books and films
And tunes to be used for entertainment,
And I’ve caught a bit of sleep myself,
But my concentration can’t maintain
A duration these days,
And there appeared to be more
Options searching the breezy streets
For easier treats to distract me.

But upon a wander to explore
The corners of the compass’s hunting ground
I found just as little fizzing there
And returned home with a bag full
Of unwanted fare from the store,
And now sit with a cigarette
Penning the story of my morning
Wishing for my son’s return to spur me on
And my lover to rise and once again surprise me
With the richness they bring to my life.

SERVING THE WORLD.

We’re going to lure everyone to Antarctica
With promises of paradise and fish,
Then murder them,
And keep them in the deep freeze.

Then we’re going to live off them;
Serving up regional meals
And specialties out of the relevant
Occupants of regions renowned for cuisine.

Indian curries and Chinese chop sueys
Will use the finest specimens of flesh,
Whilst Mexican tacos
And Italian ragus will be equally well dressed.

Obviously American helpings will be
Generally oversized,
Whilst British dishes will be battered
And North African platters piquant.

Regrettably there’ll be nations we’ll struggle
To accurately represent,
And whole continents whose culinary
Contents will elude us completely,

But we’ll breathe more easily knowing
The population problem has been solved,
And will remain eternally sustained
By the varied tastes the world has to offer.

ABOVE THE TUMULTUOUS.

It’s quiet
In the sky
Where giants thrive;

Idle seen
From the green
Of ground’s beat.

Bound
And surrounded
By sound proofed space;

Yet sure
Enough to know
Of its own audio.

Often flown
Beyond the brow
Of gathered crowds;

Yet paths
Remain that maps
Have still to capture.

It spills
In silent frills
Across the wilderness

And rests
The best of us
Beneath it’s breath.

MOTHERS.

We have grilled pancetta
And scrambled eggs baked in the microwave;
Hash browns bathed in fire light
And pancakes drizzled in maple syrup,
And surrounding this attempt
At an American breakfast
Are barbeque seasoned beans.

Half an hour in the kitchen
And finished in minutes,
And another combination
For the menu that fills the hills
And valleys of his body;
Padding out his middle ground
As he waddles to a knee for a sleep.

I’ve found the last few weeks
Keeping me awake and aware
More than any in my life,
And discovered a deep understanding
Of the role of the mother,
Who for centuries has leant her
Every minute to bringing up her kids;

Without commendation, or expectation
Of such, and what I thought was natural
Actually requires a General’s attention
To detail and the will of a battle hardened
Veteran to get through the day.
So here’s to you woman,
And all your uncommon valour.

HOME.

I’ll take my chances with the tramps and vagabonds
Who belong to a different age;
Where pages made fine blankets
And trinkets were exchanged for songs.
When a bench was a sensible berth for the night and
The blight of middle-class life
Was reserved for those high born
Who had fallen upon hard times themselves.

I’ll make my bed in a working class palace where
Bread is abundant and coffee
Comes tumbling from tin cups on
Sunday that are used in a snap box all week.
Where tea is twice squeezed from its bags and a biscuit
Is dragged cross its surface
In case it should fall to the cold
Greasy liquid below and have to be left there.

I’ll learn my words in a school room long pulled down
From a teacher from town
Who remembers me still and
Has born time’s mantle better than I ever will,
And where every lesson bled into the next except
Woodwork and we had
To change clothes for PE in
Front of each other and no one gave a damn.

I’ll cut my teeth in the streets where I was born and
The neighbours knew when
And how old I was because they’d
Been there to see me fall on my face in the lane;
Who had known my parents forever and when anyone
Left they did so feet first
On a gurney and everyone’s
Curtains were drawn in respect of a lost friend.

I’ll break my back on the tracks of the rail that
My father and his father
Braved in order to draw coal
From the graves that other souls dug.
With a smile on my lips for a good day’s graft at
The pit head or dock side
Where a fairy could serve as a
Bride and a groom could find room for his mind.

I’ll make my love on the settees and sofas that were
Shoved to the back wall
In summer but pulled closer
To the fire place in winter to save fuel.
With a girl I schooled with who no longer wears
Short skirts and a woman
I’ve found in another playground
Half way around the world who I wish to die with.

I’ll raise my own son in the borders of Yorkshire
Where the truth is replanted
Each year with the wheat and the
Chaff laughs at the fact that even it’s worthy.
Where my boy can grow into a man surrounded by
A land that has been pivotal
In this country’s history and no
Doubt once more will shore up its softer centre.

I’ll make my peace in the North of my England
Where the blood of its kin
Was first spilled by William
Who should have stayed his violent hand;
For he made in its name a way of life that cannot
Be named by the crowds
In the South who are still afraid
To venture beyond Watford’s stillborn walls.

COMPROMISING.

The spiders must be striking
As the flies have multiplied,
And they appear to be fearless
As they dive into our eyes.

And no matter how you swat at
Them they make a great escape:
Digging tunnels into bread loaves;
Hiding safely in the grapes.

They will swarm up in the morning
And invade throughout the day
And when a kitchen light is switched on
They parade for us again.

So we’ve dangled sticky banners
From the ceilings to appeal
To their fortitude and haughtiness
And hope to seal the deal,

But the bastards are elastic,
And prepared to loose a leg,
And so we’ll have be more crafty
If our tactics are to take.

So we’ll enter arbitration
With the critters on the picket line
And put up with them jumping
Out whenever they decide.

TWOFOLD.

A blow to the head
Removed the friction from the soles of her feet
So the distance she moved was the same
But she had to work twice as fast to meet it,

And the blur that
Greeted people gave them the impression
That the mission she was on was impossible
To sustain at such a pace.

And her aim was
Maimed for a moment so that when she made
To mark her target she arrived at it before
It was ready to receive her heart,

So as she blew
A kiss to me it missed the Irish Sea and ended
Up in Dublin where it was last seen hunting
For lips to attach to in Grafton Street.

But her groove
Increased in depth and improved the lengths
It trenched whilst shedding the effort she always
Knew would always be rewarding,

And the partnerships
She cherishes were nourished by more love
Than expected and double draughts can leave
Weaker liquids thicker for it.

BENEDICTIONS.

How can the night reduce its reach
When all are stretched before it:
Afraid of blundering
In the blindness that defines their
Frightened lives from their first steps.

Brought to book between the nooks
Of days that oscillate
Unsteadily throughout the year;
Darting through the colour charts
And seeking light’s approval

Whilst the dark remains unfazed
By seasons;
Amazed that the uneven
Wanderings of rays are so important
To the planet’s habitants

When its displays are fixed,
And pin pricked,
On a roulette wheel that only seems
To change when viewed
From blackest vantage points

By travellers unravelling a journey
That they haven’t planned
As well as thought,
And brought significance along
With packaged goods.

But then who would assume
To touch the void
When variable and vivid noise
Suffices their requirements
Except the tired and praying.

HER CHRONICLE.

She’s working the night shift
In conditions unlikely to be seen outside
Of a bad film script
Where the protagonist
Is exploited by a despicable despot
And the plot
Is so unrealistic
That the audience walk out.

But unfortunately it’s true
And she having to do work unfit for kids
Who used to sweep chimney flues,
Or scrape coal from a hole in the ground,
And I can’t stand the thought
Of her been
Squeezed into the story
She finds herself in.

It doesn’t sit well with me
That I haven’t yet lifted her clear
Of the crowded South
She’s found herself floundering in,
But give me a mystery writer’s insight
And I’ll pen her a suitable ending
Where the sunset beckons
From a seat to the East of her grievance.

A PAUSE FOR THOUGHT.

I need a restorative moment;
A logical governance to hold me over
Until my shoulders broaden to bear my own burdens,
And thirst is worked into my words;
Parched of the sparks
That create agitation in the alleyways of debate
And shape the pace of surrounding streets.

Dried fruit rooms crowd
The houses where my less than rousing
Verse once grew,
Now pressed of any juice worth brewing;
Over-stewed and mashed passed the point of news
To elucidate an aim
Or paint a picture on once eager walls.

Dehydration peels
The ceilings of the echoes they once stored
Or amassed upon the door jambs
For when renditions were wished for,
And slates of crusted sentences collect across
The warped floor boards
Or fall beneath to keener ears,

Where the desiccated
Congregate and reach to catch the hatchlings
Of a hopeful mind
That sighs a little higher every time they fall.
So call me inspiration and I will fill
Your pit with thoughts fit for orchestration
Once I’ve been soothed by time’s renewal.

HIS NEW WORLD.

Reaching out
And stretching for vegetation
I rejoin the race I came from
And pass this knowledge on
To my offspring.

He feeds upon
The leaves and fronds that
Brush his knuckles as his
Chariot passes fashioned
Garden verges.

Colour emerges
To peak between the green,
And I halt our progress
For him to fold a bush’s
Pages open.

Texture vexes
Him momentarily before
The next one is held a little
Longer and on his eyes
Wander amongst it.

And back home
Pictures of floras flicker
In front of him as he searches
Weekend supplements
For sign of them,

And in his green
And pleasant hands a
Secure future for this land’s
Lanes and countryside shall
Evermore reside.

US.

There’s an assembly
Of our parents
And children;
Family,
Friends and their kin;
Recently deceased loved ones
And more distant victims of living.
An assortment
Of previous acquaintances
And maintenance crews.
The many we admire,
The few we revere;
Our heroes
And sponsors
And those who’ve longed for us.
Advocates,
Doctors and clergy;
The magicians and wizards
Of pictures and words;
History’s speakers
And seekers of truth.
Sporting immortals
And lesser know athletes;
Matinee idols and
Movie producers.
The wholesome,
The homely,
The ones we wished we’d known,
And the innocent
In womb or tomb
Who do not wish to be,
And they’re always
Here,
With you
And with me.

BENEATH THE SURFACE.

Out in the countless battalions
Of foot soldiers,
Elbowing their way through the ranks,
I stand,
British bulldog straight,
Debating whether to stay and take them on,
Or step aside as they advance
And announce the victory of circumstance.

Every second that passes
The masses increase,
And I need a cease fire from this line
As soon as possible
In order to cross the immeasurable
Space that separates us;
The one that cannot be gauged by knowing
The paces to the end of town and back.

Every face is yours my love,
Every shape and size,
Every eye, every fleeting expression;
An army of clones
Reminding me that one more day
Has gone without the dawn
Of your status replacing the autonomy
Of mortals who are but visions of your divinity.

And although fate’s game
Has got us together
It keeps us apart at the present,
And resentment
Can’t be used to crucify its actions;
It’s up to me to break free
Of the gathering and lift the iceberg
Tips of our touch out of the world’s water.

PACK DOGS.

The lecherous collect in
Separate trenches;
Strengthened by a tribal style.

You can tell them by the lengths
They go to
Get at you
When they wouldn’t want to know you otherwise.

They snigger behind fingers
Used for bruising;
Slapping as they dish out blame,

And can mingle in plain sight,
But should you
Catch their eye
They become the feared ones your peers warn against.

The act of inquisition issues
Innocently from them;
Gathering the data they require

Then turning it upon its head
When what you’ve
Said has sparked
To life their coldness that’s emboldened by desire.

And you’ll feel akin to meat
Parading by them;
Ordered for a private appetite.

But not all men are treacherous,
And even some
Of us are victims
Of the lust that courses through the human mind.

OUT IN THE FOUNTAIN.

Craning my head at a forty five degree angle
And standing in the middle of the back lane
Looking for match strikes against the night;
Catching a flash
In the corner of my eye,
A tearing of sky,
And unsure whether I’d moved too soon
And smeared a star’s mark,
Or whether it was a spark of dust
Pushing the atmosphere nearer.

Uncertain if the world had been hit by residual
Bits of a greater comet’s journey or if I’d just
Learned to see what I wanted;
Either way I wished
Upon its passing
And threw desire
Vast distances to bid for its attention;
My petition worded perfectly
Before another could enrol its gifts
On behalf of their own lists.

For you I proofed my heartfelt future hopes
Before these universal coins and stayed
A little longer to be certain they’d been heard,
And when another flint
Struck at the planet’s tinder
I sent a second
Mention for my son to hang his name upon,
Then came inside to see him sleep
And rest myself as peacefully as
Promises are possible.

NURSERYMAN.

The floor’s been landscaped by a baby
And trying to decipher its arrangement
Will likely strain your patience:

Soft toys tussle with the tassels of a rug
And have been imprisoned in a ring
Of building blocks thicker than bricks,

Whose vivid colours clash with a mat
That resembles flattened grass and has
Been battered by a xylophone dragon;

A tree barked leather chair has been stacked
With last weeks charity shop haul
That is threatening to fall on his head,

As sundry items of out grown clothes
Compete with recently bought statements
Of fashion’s waste of time.

A climbing frame has been made
Out of a mobile and a travel cot
That he still hasn’t got the hang of it,

And an overturned turtle is being used to scale
What furniture cannot be removed to
The safety of an eye line’s height,

And as night creeps over the scene
Long forgotten battery drained robots
Stand rigidly attendant in the corners

While the gardener starts to weary and,
Fearing he’ll disappear amidst the moss,
Is tossed over a shoulder and set in his own bed.

SUMMER TIME?

Getting ready to go uptown
In summer time
And the rain comes down
In summer time
And they’ve proclaimed drought warnings
For summer time
And it hasn’t stop pouring
This summer time.

So I’ll break out my overcoat
For summer time
And hope that my boat floats
In summer time
And if folks down south mention
Their summer time
Has been gorgeous and lengthened
This summer time

I’ll direct them to Northern lands
Where summer time
Has had bi-polar symptoms
This summer time,
And soon we’ll be Daylight saving
British summer time
So I’d best brave the remaining
Summer time.

SPACE.

There’s a singularity
At the heart of our shells,
Constantly seeking
And leaking
New fluids;
Eternally burning
And returning fresh matter;
Permanently turning
And churning the chatter;
Forever shattering
And scattering thoughts
Along the course of life.

A black hole in the soul
Sucking at sensible things,
Puking up pools;
Plucking at strings
And rebuking the tunes;
Stuck in a cycle
Of death and renewal
While making and breaking
The rules of natural law
That pour in to feed
Its needs and board up
The ruptured order.

NEW.

To read it
As if it
Has just been written;

Letters still dripping
And words ill-fitting
As it’s not yet
Been edited
And isn’t quite hitting
The right notes:

Rare beef still raw in the middle,
A carefree kid not yet bitten by love’s bug,
Sluggers submitting a piss test,
One mitten missing,
A vest half knitted,
A gift remitted,

An artist exhibiting
An unfinished masterpiece
Because of a dumb belief that
It’s art for art sake,
And the making that matters,
And not the taking of time
To wade thru the tatters and smooth them out.

Still I guess it’s better to dip
The unscripted
Into the well of best wishes
Than to leave them with the rest
Of the unused dishes
In my closet.

ALL THE VARIED BEST.

Good luck with everything you strive for,
With who you aspire to be;
Good luck with what you make,
Or take
From others’ industry.

Good luck with morning’s awkwardness,
With afternoon interviews,
Good luck with sleep again,
Or when
Awake with evening news.

Good luck with love’s new flutterings,
With hate’s old lifelessness,
Good luck with sole endeavours
Weathered
In the skins you’ve dressed.

Good luck with life’s last judgement,
With trials on the road,
Good luck with gauging wisely
Prizes
Garnered by your prose.

Good luck with destinations,
With the next one’s terminal,
Good luck when starting over
Slowly
With the soil you've tilled.

Good luck today and evermore,
With friends and enemies,
Good luck with you and, when
You do,
Good luck with knowing me.

MY CHAMPION.

When words are sent
They tend to take a while to land;
Whether posted,
Or toasted,
Or opened in the hand
By palm held candle lit phones
On a stroll to the store
To shore up the cupboards,

And they can often make you notice
How a far off broadcast
Can achieve a closer impact,
And stop you in your tracks.

And yesterday
Such a remark sparked life
Into my mobile,
Which I combed through
Until found:
“You really are my best friend,
The best friend I ever had”
And instantly I froze,

And this simple little phrase received
Has magnified significance,
And further words breathed into life
Will never mean as much to me.

WARDS.

Though we may gravitate towards the tin opener
I still believe we can tell the difference between
A giver and a taker,
Even if some people can’t tell their past
From a smouldering wound,
And are incapable of moving on.

My play list is littered with bitter critics
But I’m still prepared to watch the clock stopped
Action again and be objective,
And realise I didn’t always perform
With the skill of my abilities,
Or with their best interests at heart,

But some just can’t, or won’t or simply don’t want to
Respond to the obvious judgements
Time has made against our cases,
And insist they were not responsible
For their half of the time share apartment
They once invested in;

They believe they were controlled by a scullery’s rota
In order to force through cleaning schemes,
Or weren’t afforded enough rest
In which to stew their futures in,
And are left with a mess that simply settles
When they finally get out of bed.

And that’s fine and that’s cool and their rules
Will no doubt still apply to other rooms
They will eventually inhabit,
But my stab at it was fatal and that’s that,
And now I’ve evolved and am attached to the thatch
That covers my new lover’s kitchen.

YOUR SKY.

For your sky
I’ll take the truest sun,
And turn it to the smoothest face,
Shed of spots and solar flares,
And daring birds
To draw across.

There placed against
Azure skies,
Soft focus hung
With lightest wisps below,
And at each side,
As bridesmaid like,
The brightest belly rolls
And highest curls of sharp edged clouds
Will proudly wreath the centrepiece.

And when you wish
For colour’s kiss
I’ll drape the littlest rain mop
On one side
For sunlight’s stare
To look right thru a fine tuned corner,
And corona white
Will dive into a rainbow’s clothes,
And all the paints of creation
Will be applied
To your picture perfect sky.

YOU.

I want to make you blush;
To roughen up the colour of your flush.

I want to make you move
And open up the covers of your love.

I want to make you feel
The urgency that bleeds from my appeal.

I want to make you touch
The tender places mentioned by my lust.

I want to take the time
To wander in the forest of your mind.

I want to take your aims
And park them on a target that’s inflamed.

I want to take a knife
And cut away the buttons of your life.

I want to take your skin
And broadcast to the character within.

I want to shake your frame
And break the mould that made it fold away.

I want to shake your brain
And bruise the views that you have entertained.

I want to shake your soul
And free it achieve its greater goals.

I want to shake your world
Until its still and you’ve become my girl.

CONTACT.

Touch is missing from the portrait of us,
Strictly reserved for up close and personal,

But feeling,
Ah, now this can be accommodated,
Even by the cold mistress of distance;

A mixture of pictures
And sounds,
And occasional perfumes sent for special events,
Create a shape
That can be extruded through the portals
That separate our places.

Screens and phones and lip laced cards,
Arranged in thought’s bullring,
Are linking sentence to sense
Until centred
And leant on for comfort,

And then the fullness of you
And unkempt length of me excrete
Their meaning,

And what is felt
Is identity enough to
Console until we’re put within
Each other’s hold
Again.

LOVE.

At the end of each day
You leave me
With love;

At the break of the next
You greet me
With love.

Over shadows of dawn
You orbit
With love,

And as morning stonewalls
You vault it
With love.

In the afternoon hills
You escort me
With love,

And through evening’s trees
You haul me
With love.

And as night closes in
You feed it
With love,

At the end of each day
You leave me
With love.

NIGHT AND DAY.

If the night is awash with the colours
Splashed inside a child’s pencil case
Then the day is made to resolve the mess
And undress the images discovered there;
Stripping off the tracks and marks
Carpeting the sulphur background
Whilst peeling leaves of purple swirls
From trees of green barked randomness;
Chasing curls of blue and red that
Thread through spokes of orange wheels,
Whose axles attach to traction engines set
Beneath a carriage ride into the box’s corners.

Morning mist lifts from a sky board
Of the blackest slate scraped free of dust,
Revealing depths of colour left over from the
Palette that alighted after stars lost heart to live,
Giving the play beneath a stage to
Lay footsteps on and wander far beyond;
Placing sheaths of matter on the patina of
Planet Earth and planting strands of worthiness;
Pursued by every shade of breath that
Wrests itself from every chest of industry;
Holding you to infinity’s long promised ride as
You glide into the sunset of an ever changing world.

FREE TIME.

A breath of fresh air
For a lung full of smoke to suckle on

And a beer for a parched
Throat to be coated with;

A moment of tranquillity
And the ability
To run with it,
And summon the will
To be stiller;

A hustled heartbeat,
Sweetened by
Inaction.

These features
Are eked out
Of the doubting storms of the morning,
The swooning afternoons
And relieved evenings
Of day’s done deeds,

And I’m pleased
To have won its bliss
Again
In that proud and grounded way
That lays people down
Accomplished.

CAUGHT.

Stopped by a barred child gate
On the way to the kitchen,
Where, after entering,
I trip on kids’ things
And slip to the linoleum floor,
And am spotted by him on all fours,
Who trots towards me
Like a buffalo with clipped wings,
Snorting heavily
With the ripped stuffing
Of a Teddy bear dripping
From his fingers and laughing
At my impending captivity.

Once he’s cornered me against
The refrigerator I’m done for,
So I make to break for the back door,
But he cuts me off,
And scores a direct hit
In my midriff with his head,
Whereby I collapse on my back
And he has me,
And clambered and climbed
He plants a smile shaped kiss
On my lips and an imaginary
Flag of ownership on my forehead
To say that I’m his from now on.

RECOLLECTIONS.

Catching cracked memories from her
And pinning them,
Along with mine,
To the timeline we’ve attached to our actions;
Matching the facts and laughing.

A sanctioning of passion in an irrational field,
Where seasons shed yields
Of people,
And reaping them becomes more difficult;
Glowing as we sow another seed.

Where similar features repeat and you need
Ears in the back of your eyes
When sight is blinded
By an impulse’s convulsive stupidity,
Or an idiot’s fist.

Maybe we realise we liked a certain style,
And actively courted it,
And that’s why those
Who were handy gravitated towards us,
And those who weren’t we avoided;

Or we missed a crashing fashion altogether,
And our selective recollections
Are now best represented
By typed lists that exist in internet whispers,
Or hard drive fissures and silver discs,

And the photographs that were taken hastily
Are the scratches dragged
Across history’s face
That will remain to say
Exactly what we did when we can’t remember it.

THE SOUNDS OF AROUSAL.

In a whisper
An urgent orgasm passed her lips;

Pressed flatter
Than natural,
And through her throat posting itself;
Coating the roof
And floor
Of her mouth with the thoughts
That had brought it;

Spat passionately
Out of her grasp in unnatural sounds,

But none the less
Loud enough
For her breath to touch my face
A distance away,
And make
My own rage more forceful because
Of its importance.

Wretched it left me,
Longing for noise to take our statements

And shake the paper
From walls;
To make tiles fall from ceilings,
And express feelings
As raucously
As possible in the morning, afternoon
And evening.

FLOATING.

Sat cross-legged in the shallow end
With the little one
Learning the merits of the pool again;
How it future proofs us against
70 percent
Of the world’s perils,
But also heralds
A planet wide
Employment of all its joys.

This old friend of ours keeps
Trusting us with treading
In its depths and spreading ourselves
Horizontally, on front or back,
Across it cellophane,
And wrapping us
In the comforts
We once
Knew for nine months.

Though having said this I never learned
To swim properly,
And this is probably why I find
Most of the world uncomfortable,
Unfathomable,
Although together we
May both discover
The benefits
Of getting more than our feet wet.

BLUEBERRIES.

I bite it in two
And my teeth reveal
The translucent flesh of the fruit.

Deep blue skin
Leaves fingers bruised
As juice imprints its offerings.

I chew my half
Whilst he spits out
His portion hoping for another

Made of sweeter
Meat and less ruined
By the ripening of confinement.

And one by one
These partnered pieces
Equal more than two dozen,

All shovelled up
Just as carefully until
Chewed husks are roughly removed

And I know he’s full
Of super food to smooth his
Movement from one meal to the next,

And all that’s left
To do is see him off to sleep
Where dreams of further hues occur.

LAST CHANCE.

At the market place
I exchanged a minor headache
For a severe one,
And that wasn’t what I went there for,
But we seldom get exactly what we need,
Even when free to choose.

I thought little for careers
When I exited the halls of education,
Thinking I’d settle for
Whatever side the coin arrived at,
And make the most of the intelligence
I fell to Earth with.

I mused the future would
Arrive in time to discover the achievements
I’d have collected,
And the past would marry evidence
To common sense and between them
Cement my place.

And when encumbered
By animated stumbling blocks of polymer
I figured giving
Them the benefit of doubt would allow
Me to navigate a path around their
Billowing acrobatics.

Religion and science,
And the political appliance of both,
Would ignore me,
As I’d sear me a route between their cold notions
Or dig a hole too deep for their lethargies
To get at me.

If I excelled at sport
It would be in order to attract more batting,
And any discourse
With thought would benefit more time
To consider the rhymes I’d make to motivate
Its reasoning.

If a charity or cause
Worth fighting for poured scorn upon
My pride’s inaction
I factored in the silvered liver I’d leave them
When I passed regardless of the fact I chose to
Toast well my endeavours.

Governments would
Beg for my pencil mark and I’d skirt their
Flirting well
Whilst telling all who cared to listen,
And those who didn’t, how to vote their ghosts
Into existence.

And any mission
Undertaken to the warehouses of commerce
Would be so to endorse my worth,
Converting my particular brand of fancies
Into a vestment to plump my chest into
And compare against the rest,

But when I felt set,
And pleased to greet the coming storm,
I met, at the end of it all,
You, who through your determination,
Laced my palm with a two-headed coin
And a reason to heed it.

BRIDLINGTON.

The North Sea bleached the tan
From my sandals,
And glued the beach to their souls,
As it rolled over
The damp dunes;
Furrowing still further
The brow of this eroding coast.

And after dangling
My boy ankle deep
In the retreating tide
I carried him back
To the island of towels
We’d housed near the new concrete
Breakwater.

He was initially unsure
Of the golden grains
But after a while
He gently stretched his fingers,
And with sand clinging to his skin
He began to appreciate
The seaside.

We ate fried fish and chips
And dipped a little further
Into the silicon grit,
And the collective memories
Of holiday makers,
Before taking our leave
And returning home.

MY CHARGE .

Rolling out the heavy set:
The rubber wheeled carriage
With its grey velour seat and foot rest,
Where,
Nestled in its grip,
Sits the prince of the city
And pity any mortal caught by his gaze:
Those flashing,
Dashing eyes of crystal blue,
One pupil slightly larger than the other,
Smothering his prey
And daring them to shy away
Or fail to say how beautiful they are;
Larger than
Is the light that streams from them
And keen to shed enlightenment on everything;
Seeing all
And more than sight
Had ever sought before and thoughtfully;
Laughing at the
Patrons of the zoo met queues
And reminding them of feeding times;
Replacing strangers’
Angst with granted ease,
And seeking more to solace and console;
Tapering anxieties
And tying up loose wiring
Where worries have been hurried into heads,
And replacing
His coachman’s doubts
With the clarity of confidence.