LOVELY PREDATOR

She loves me,
she loves me not;
she loves me,
she loves me...
how can she not?
In our bed she's loved me
when I've given all I could.
She's loved our house,
our cars, my yacht,
and all the things
I've got.
But I am old and
and she is young,
and I am rich,
and she will be
if, not loving me,
she takes me
to the cleaners.

STRAWBERRIES

The strawberries seduced me to a surfeit
when we picked them in that field,
and lifting a laden stem I'd find them
clustered beneath its leaves;
hiding while they ripened;
ripenning to perfection.
Red and shiny tight and
luscious, whispering
seductively to lips,
and teeth and tongue,
with a husky invitation
to enjoy their
soft, sweet,
succulence.
Those strawberries seduced me to a surfeit,
and my memories of that summer
are filled with their delights.

GIRL ON THE STREET

What happened to her,
the girl in the doorway,
her right hand held out,
cupped, and you can see
the ingrained grime
and dirty finger nails;
and when last did
she wash her hair
or have a bath, or
clean anything at all?
When last did she sleep
in a bed or lay her head
on a pillow that didn't stink?
And can she recall
eating at a table
with clean crockery,
and no one swearing,
and food not crushed
into the floor, gone black,
and the reek from
a corner
of urine?

Was she beaten by her dad,
and made to drop her pants
so he could feel, and
if she breathed a word
he'll kill her?

Was she betrayed
by everyone in her life
who should have made
her feel secure, and wanted;
who should have shown her
tenderness and love?

Or did this girl throw her life away
on a whim, for a dare, or
because her boyfriend was throwing
his away and wanted company
on the road he'd taken
to self-destructiion?

I pass her by,
insultating myself
from her failure;
but momentarily
made guilty by it
because I ought to care,
but don't.

RELUCTANT EXPLORATION

Am I "me" because it was me
that determined
the "me" I wanted to be?
Or am I "me" because of what
others did to me?
Am I "me" because of all the genes given to me
by generations of ancestors who preceeded me?

Why am I "me"?
And who is "me"?

If finding out the real "me"
means having a gun pointed at me
and told its that stranger or me,
or that lady or me,
or that kid or me,
or it means hanging off a mountain
with a dead companion below me
and another one above me
and my hand dead with frost bite
and no prospect of anyone rescuing me
for another 12 hours,
or will I jump into the sea
and save that dog?
then I'd rather be
full of uncertainty
and leave the exploration of me
to someone else other than to me.

AND DID ANYBODY MOURN

Over the hill from Boulogne-sur-Mer, beside a crumbling cliff, there lived a man alone with his dogs in a relic of the War; a sunken concrete courtyard with subterranean sleeping quarters for those who manned the Germans guns along this northern shore.

We walked along the path atop the ragged edge, and those barking dogs unnerved us, as did the sense we got of pervasive lawlessness.

How came this habitation, so irregular, so remote?
What bureaucrat allowed it, ignoring all the rules?
And did he pay to live there, or had he just arrived, a homeless war-time veteran whom no one turned away?

A storm brought down a slice of cliff, and the footpath’s course was changed, and now where it passed that place nothing could be seen but a clump of hostile brambles; an entanglement of thorns.
But the dogs heard us, and we heard them
give vent to pent-up fury at all who dared come near.

One day we met their owner with provisions in a handcart he’d pulled across a field, the shops two miles away.
Though unkempt his appearance, he was courteous and engaging. Polite and erudite; a gentleman indeed who chose, for reasons of his own, to live in this spot - no power, no running water - his companions day and night, through summer’s heat and winter’s cold, and whipping gales and lashing rain, two fearsomely loyal dogs.

Later on we heard them, their tone toned down - or was it just our fancy they seemed less angry than forlorn?

Today we passed again that way, along the cliff-top path, and when we neared the bunker house all we heard were distant gulls and the sounds of rustling grass.

Curious and concerned, we ventured through the thorny scrub along a narrow path, and saw the devastation where that man had lived.

Abandoned, his belongings were strewn all around, picked over by a horde, it seemed, of those with plunder in their minds.
Vultures descended on a corpse, and all they’ve left’s a wreck.
It was a tip, that man’s redoubt, the concrete walls around. And along their tops bright flowers bloomed,
Not knowing he was gone.

THE VISITOR

I hear his footstep on the stair
and when I look I see him there
standing by my bed.
Silently he's crying now,
and his tears are blood.
He holds his head in his hands
and lifts it from his neck
and through his lips
a viper's tongue flicks
to taste the air,
and from his eyes
javelins fly
and stick me to my bed.

I wish I knew who he was.
I wish I knew what words to say
to make him stay away.

WHERE?

Where did the light go?
what happened to the sun?
I looked at where the sun
should be and there I saw a hole.
And in the dark I groped and found
nothing I could hold.

I'm lying down, in case I fall -
prostrate on the ground -
waiting here,
alone and lost -
silence all around.

WHAT WILL BE

There's a sliding and a slipping, a never-stopping falling down the slanting sloping from where my life began on that hazy hilltop seen through a baby's eyes.

Seen through baby's eyes, a blurry world of shapes and of dazzling light, and everything's a mystery, pieces of a jigsaw scattered everywhere; how they fit and what they make only to be known
when in the chasm yawning
I lie and wait to die.

A LOSS TOO GREAT

The sun sucked all the air away
and on the ground I lie with fingers
trying to claw it back
so I can breath again.

The sun sucked all the air away;
it pulled it from my lungs
and though I try,
I know I will
never breath again.

Yet clouds are moving in the sky
and leaves are rustling in the wind
and I can hear a favourite tune;
across the street a greeting's called,
and there's a child running by.

They're breaking Nature's laws!

The sun's sucked all the air away
and on the ground I lie,
my fingers trying to claw it back
so I can breath again.

CAT

In safety, so they thought, they peck with bobbing head the bird food on the lawn while watching them a cat from underneath a shrub.

Its muscles tighten, fed with blood by its pounding heart; a flood behind an earthen wall with dynamite inside so when the plunger's struck a blow, the power's all released, and God in Heaven cannot stop the sudden, surging rush.

We are aghast, on our seat, sipping wine and nibbling treats, to see that unleashed fury leap with claws and teeth with this intent: to kill, and then to eat.

They scrabble at the air, feathers like fingers trying to grip a wall of ice with death's blood-red mouth snapping at their feet¦ and they escape, the cat's high leap, its legs outstretched, is nano seconds late.

I built a barrier around the shrub to pen that killer cat and make it safe for birds to come and peck the crumbs I leave.

And then today, the sun so bright and birdsong in the air, I saw the wreckage on the grass, feathers everywhere, and they were white but stained with red, and then I knew that sudden death - a lightning bolt - had made my lawn a killing ground, a well-fed cat to feed.

THE RAIN WILL FALL

The puddles in the August sun record a summer squal and if it's not replenished soon, the water will be gone so when a passer-by, sitting on this public bench, sleeveless in the warmth, drinks in luscious greens on hills, and cows cropping grass, there'll be no sign of summer squals, stamping on the ground.

Yet come they will, one day for sure, and sheltering eyes will see the storm, and ears will hear the cries of those
pounded by the sky.

What's been before will be again, and all there'll be are bones.

ON THE NEWS LAST NIGHT

Before his time his face speaks of his past, without a sound.
The eyes not seeing now, and nothing grows and there's no change.

There was no sadness and no sorrow
until this image on the screen became the symbol of his life,
And his memorial.

We'e shown his picture on the News - a soldier killed in that parched land where death's the daily harvest
Beneath a burning sun.

Another name, another face, and tears somewhere are falling.

'WARE THE WEREWOLVES

This is where the werewolves are, here among the jagged hills beneath the roaring sky. They look like sheep - it's their disguise - in tatty overcoats and while they chew the shrivelled grass they eye the passer-by who knows that should the sun go down while yet he's in their midst, their eyes will glow as burning coals and up they'll rear, their fangs all white and claws as sharp as knives.
Should he be there when in the sky a spectral moon hangs full and round, he'll hear their rustling all around, their giant jaws dripping foam upon the stone-strewn ground.
Should he have lingered in these hills, perhaps exhausted from his march and quite unable now to find that roof, those walls and that fire where safe he might have slept, the werewolves which surround him now dressed like tattered sheep will rush upon him from all sides, and he, like they, will never leave these jagged hills beneath a roaring sky.

LIGHTS IN THE NIGHT

It's raining hard and lights seen from the empty road I'm on, unknown and hidden beyond the scope of headlamps to reveal - darkness all beyond - lure me on with images conjured in my mind: companionship, a blazing fire, laughter and "Come in!".
I would be encompassed, then, by all that I desire.

And here they are, the lights I saw, at a filling station, a solitary youth behind the till reading a magazine amidst the lit displays of fizzy drinks and snacks with sealed-in-freshness from someone's Country Kitchen that's actually a factory on an industrial estate on the edge of Birkhamstead.

There's bunting on the forecourt and it's rattled by the wind - bones on a yard arm - and standing in a pool of light I am a human breath
Inhaling desolation.

THE GAME

It's raining, and on a public pitch a kind of war's proceeding, it's rules of engagement known pretty well, and pretty often they're broken.

A handful of people, strung out in a line, are watching with close attention, and their voices are hoarse with yelling commands combined with imprecations.

The keeper stands in the goal mouth mud which he's got on his shirt, his shorts, in his hair, and the ref's blown his whistle for a foul that's committed, and awarded a penalty for it.

The spot's been obliterated, and the ball is placed horrendously close to the goal, but stoic the keeper stands his ground in the mud, while others are loudly complaining.

This is his trial, and the moment of truth's a few moments away.
He dives. He saves, but the ball's slipped his grasp, and there's a thud as it's kicked and comes of the boot with the fury of just indignation.

He's saves it again, and after the corner and a fierce little fracas,
the defenders are on the attack.
The play's moved away, and for the moment, you'd think, the goalie can sigh with relief.

But relief's not what he wants. What he wants is to be
On trial again for his life.

It's the only reason he plays this game;
The reason he fights this Sunday war
On a public park in the rain.

THAT MEMORY

I wanted, oh I wanted,
To sink into that memory,
My senses woken, once again,
As it washes of them.

I wanted - how much I wanted! -
To live in that time again
When petals and butterflies and sun light and birds
Danced upon the breath I felt -
Your face so close to mine.

Your face so close to mine,
And now a thousand years away,
While on this endless sea I ride,
And sink I will,
My senses drowned
As it washes over them.

CATTLE

They wait, observed with concern and calculation just as their ancestors have been since first corralled by Man,
In every sense, meat on the plate, whether sold and slain elsewhere, or finished on this farm.

They wait, with no idea what for.
And when it comes, they'll still not know:
A curtain quickly drawn -
The cut-off point -
And then oblivion.

They wait, not knowing that they wait,
But waiting all the same.

And standing at this gate,
My busy life stilled a while
In this tranquil scene,
I know that beast and man alike,
Are playing a waiting game.

THE BOOK

The book lay closed on the table,
and opening it I read the line:
"The book lay closed on the table,
and opening it, I read..."
but so appalled was I to see those words
I shut the book and stood away,
my shattered thoughts
in that moment blown across the room.

What more might I read,
printed in that book?

My hand reached out,
though I begged it not to move,
and as I stared,
it let the pages turn
until the very last
from whch sprang out
the image of fingers
closed around my heart
and from it fell tears of loss
for all it knew and all it loved -
now all turned to dust.

NO REMEDY

There's always dirt on the floor.
I sweep it up and throw it out,
And when I blink my eye
It seeps back in -
Or so it seems -
and there it lies,
just as it did before.

There's always dirt on the floor.
I cannot keep it out.
I built four walls with iron doors
And windows sealed quite shut.

The air I breathed was purified -
Triple filtered, I believe -
yet still the dirt was on the floor,
And I was mystified.

I broke the walls and smashed the doors and flung the windows wide.

It didn't seep in from outside.

It comes, I know, from me.

THE VILLAIN

He came on the ward at twenty to two, when night time's tightening its hold.
Stubble smeared half of his face, and tattoos smeared his hands and his arms.
A policeman sat all night by his bed,
and there's a record of violence on his head,
to be read in its dents and scars.

He's weak, now, from bleeding;
bleeding too long from somewhere he doesn't know where,
but in his eyes, as he scans the ward, there's the look of the perennial hunter.
We're stupid. we're weak. we ask to be done.
We're sheep in the fold being eyed by a wolf -
a potential meal for one.

But he's weak.Too weak to pounce, too weak to bite, and he's trapped in this bed and couldn't escape even if given the chance.

He's hated or feared most of those in his life,
and he's hated or feared most whom he meets -
but no longer, here on this ward.

He's tended by nurses and wheeled, helpless, by porters, and no one's trying to tame him.
They speak to him gently, are soothing and kindly;
he's a human, a person, he's weak, may be dying,
and he needs all the care they can give,

STOP

At the end of the path the gate was open, open to the road beyond where my love had gone.

I had been trifling with some little thing I'd thought I ought to fix;
A screwdriver was on the table, a tube of glue also,
and the pair of specs I have to wear when doing something fiddly.

I suppose I heard the door when my love turned the key;
I suppose I heard it open, and closing when she'd gone,
But being otherwise engaged,
I senselessly carried on,
And only sensed I was alone
When silence awoke my senses.

I saw the gate at the end of the path, open to the road.

I had been trifling with some little thing I thought I ought to fix,
But as my life clung to the wall and slipped
Inexorably to the floor,
I saw, too late, the broken thing
I'd for far too long ignored.

I KNOW

I felt the shadow of that dread reach into my mouth
And when I tried to speak, it silenced me,
Gulping down my words
so nothingness spilled between my lips
And spread across the ground
Emptying what's beneath.

If I had moved, the crust on which I trod
Would have caved in
And standing where I was,
I heard it cracking all around.

Sure it cracked.
Sure it fell,
And all of it has gone.

Sure, I am all alone.

This is a pillar that I'm on,
A hundred miles high,
With no one now to touch,
none to say my name,
and none to call my own.

THE FLOWER

The flower opened in the sun
And flung her petals wide.
Passing by, I knelt
And in my hands
I cupped their bursting colours
- too much for me to hold -
And overflowing, filled
All the air with sweet delights
So when I stood and stepped away
They shone on me,
And shine they still,
That flower long since gone.

IMMORTAL

Oh yes, he's here, right here, right now
In those lives that still go on;
In their memories, in their minds,
In their warm, embracing love.

He did not go so very far,
Though when the curtain fell between
And there was emptiness
Where he had been
It might have seemed the unseen hand
Had flung him into farthest space;
That he was gone, untracked and lost,
That just a husk remained.

Not so.

The 'he' they loved has never gone.
The essence of his very being
Is here, right now -
A burning light,
Brilliant, bright
Reflected in those tears
That fell -
Reflected in them still.

THAT LOSS

That loss before the light
The sun still yet to rise.
I did not know
How much the darkness hid;
Nor what there was to see.
I did not know the shape the
Landscape took;
the hills and valleys,
Woods and streams,
And where the cottage stood.

And now I'll never know
The loss before the light -
And all my world in mourning now;
All my life in tears.

THE MAN I AM

Why this heaviness?
This foreboding sense
Of something missed,
left undone,
Forgotten -
Somewhere along the line
A failure?

Is there in me a criminal
I glimpse at these times
Which others do not see -
Or if they see, do not say?
And if they did, what would I do?
Cry "mea culpa",
And sink into despair?

I think I'd say they are mistaken.
I think a rage in me would
Blind me to the man
They say they see -
The man, at these times,
I suspect I really am.

A BRAND NEW LIFE

There is a life, a spark, a gleam that came into the world
And precious there that little gleam lies and dreams of
Things beyond that shine upon the flowery glade where
In the arms of love and smiles
She lies asleep while deep inside
The business has begun.

COPING

They're coping, though they didn't know how they would or if they could when first they heard the terrible word that opened up the ground, and blackness lay beneath.
The results, he said - his tone hiding anguish, his mind focused on causing as little alarm as possible while conveying the news that no one wants to give and no one ever wants to hear - had shown there was malignancy.
They're coping and she's put her hand on his shoulder after wheeling him into reception to be greeted with a smile by someone who's seen it all before too many times to count and gets through the sadness that comes in waves through the door by shutting off her thoughts and putting on that smile like a picture on the wall.
How are we doing today? she asks, knowing she'll be told Not so bad, thanks, but anyone can see in that grey, tired thinness - a scarcely-covered frame of bones - that Not so bad, thanks, is code for what's unspeakable, and even here is never said.
There are others in this room, and all have seen the ground open at their feet - empty, black, and sucking down all they'd thought would be.
So yes, they're coping best they can, each day with its rays of hope, soon smothered by the clouds.

THE DEPARTURE LOUNGE

Time trickles past the feet of people in the Departure Lounge and the carry-on bags so recently X-rayed for bombs and guns and knives and excess quantities of mouth wash.
It trickles past their eyes and down the information screens flickering news of late departures and the gate for Buenos Aires.
It trickles over the floor and into where the girl is sitting in her abandoned electronic gadgets store, across the faces facing shelves of perfumes in the Duty Free, and through the PA system's warnings of unattended bags, and between the sips taken in the bar, and mouthfuls of tasty treats made dreary by the boredom.
It trickles, reluctantly, clasping each transient second as though it were the last.
Then all at once it's in a rush because the flight's been called, and minutes, which just minutes before had hung around like loiterers underneath a bridge and nowhere else to go, are in a headlong charge - and can I find my passport in the time that's left?
The frantic moments pass and now I'm seated in the plane, time settles into trickle mode - and life goes on "hold" again.

PICTURE THIS

In that dream
As quiet as snow,
The crack of doom shook the ground
while roaring red burst across
The night time's blackened sky.

In that dream
I held her hand,
softer than the snow,
And we would be together
When
The power we'd seen unleashed
Would sweep our worlds away.

THAT TIME

That time I saw your face
That time you said "hello"

That time I touched your cheek
That time you touched my hair

That time we found each other
That time we spent together

That time we lay beside
That stream
That soft sun-shiny day

That time our lips met in a kiss
That time we were complete.

YOUR POWER

I walked across the rippled sand
Beneath the sovereign sun
Who gives and takes away
Our shadows as we pass.

I looked upon the rippled sand -
No footsteps had I left;
I looked upon the rippled sand -
No shadow did I cast.

In the light of day
There was nothing to my life,
And so I slipped unseen
Into the depths of night.

Or so it seemed to me,
But as I lay alone and lost,
I heard you call my name.
There were kisses in your eyes
And caresses in your smile,
And what had been my emptiness
You turned into our joy.

I looked upon the rippled sand,
And saw where we had danced;
I looked upon the rippled sand
And saw our shadows there.

HOLD MY HAND

Hold my hand as I cross this stream
My feet on slippery stones,
And fast the current rushes past
To where the water falls.
The wind is blowing loud and hard;
Above my head the branches shake
And birds are carried on the air like
Rags caught up and swirled away
Towards a distant land.

Hold my hand as I cross this stream;
I fear I'm going to fall
And then the water, cold and strong
Will take my life away

It was, I'd thought, a shallow stream,
And not so very wide,
The water in it tame and smooth
which I could play in as I crossed
But it's grown wide - so wide I cannot see
The farthest bank at all;
I would turn round, but where I've been
The bed's been washed away
And there the fast dark water flows
Too deep for me to tread.

I must go on, and on and on,
Reaching for your hand
Because I fear I'm going to fall -
my feet on slippery stones -
And then the water, cold and strong,
Will surely wash away my life,
And strip me to my bones.

THE BOGEY MEN

There are no ghosts in my house -
Only bogey men.
They lurk beneath the stairs,
They hide behind the doors
And when I'm in my bed at night,
They make the floorboards creek,
Stamp up and down the stairs,
Raid the fridge and on the walls
Scratch with their finger nails.

I know they're there all the time;
They never go away,
And though they hide when I'm awake,
I know at night they play.

The bogey men who share my house
Wait `til I'm asleep,
Then through my open mouth they creep,
And sometimes I can feel
Them playing with my tongue,
And kicking out my teeth.

The bogey men have staring eyes,
Their heads are full of tricks;
The bogey men mess with my mind -
To them it's just a game.

ON THE ROAD FROM ASWAN TO ABU SIMBEL

Across the ancient wilderness in this ancient land, each day is seen a miracle; and so we stood beside our coach on that empty road to view, just as the ancients had, the birth of majesty.

A feather dipped in light had brushed the eastern sky;
and night's retreat began at the desert's rim.
Wrapped against the cold, we watched it from the roadside,
spilled there from our coach.

Its dawning power now lit the sky,
Yet you might have sensed some trepidation
As the infant sun raised its fiery head
To peep across the desert
At its spreading realm.

There we stood in silence
And its glory grew,
Until, established
on its throne,
It overwhelmed our world.

THE CLOUDS

"The clouds" I said. "Look at the clouds"
and held him up so he could see,
but how was he to know what out there
I meant by "clouds"; how could I have explained?

One day he'll know. One day, no doubt, he'll learn as I have done,
but holding him and pointing up I had no thought of that,
and now I wish he'll never know how clouds
can hide the sun.

BROKEN

A curtain of tears is being drawn across the window on my life
And through it I had seen the sun; I had seen the light
And though I fought to stop those tears,
I am in darkness now.
What I see is what I touch, and as they grope around this room,
So familiar to me once,
my fingers feel its emptiness -
The empty space where love's torn out -
The cold where your warmth had been,
The gloom where your eyes had shone;
The shattered wreck of my world
Now that you are gone.

ALSO HUMAN

I walked beside the rushing stream between the sodden trees along a slooshy, splashy path and saw the greening growing things and how the falling rain tickled sullen puddles into silvery bubbles and made the glistening, dripping leaves bob and dip and dance.
Solitary as a panther I strolled through that wood; and innocent as a panther that's comfortably replete and not on the look out for something to eat.
Ahead on the path I saw a figure approach, a wet hairy dog keeping close to her feet.
As we neared I sensed her wariness, and pointedly studying the trees I passed, signalled if I could that my disinterest made her safe, for was I not a man, and because of that a threat?
But when we passed I glanced towards her face, and the smile I gave met hers.
And so we went on our ways, not as a man and woman, a dividing wall between, but as two human beings - walking in the rain.

MY FRIEND

At first I saw his footprints
on the path where he had been;
then I saw the flowers
and the smiles he'd left with them.

In the air I felt the warmth
of his very being,
Then I saw how tears
were falling from the sky
because he would no longer pass
and bless this world we're in.

THE DREAM

  The Dream I dreamed dreamed as it strolled
of castles in the clouds
with starlit halls made of gold
and glorious voices filling them
with blissful songs of old.

The Dream I dreamed dreamed as it strolled
that it would never end,
but when I woke from that dream,
dreams, I learned, are dreams.

I did not dream - I wish I had -
when on that rock-strewn path
I walked across a desert land
with eyes that wept and mouths that cried
around on every side.

I did not dream - though dream it seemed -
that in the distant sunlight,
true glories could be seen,
and whether I am wide awake
or fast asleep in bed
there is a distant sunlight
though storms are over head.

PRESENTMENT

Outside the shops dressed for Christmas, movement everywhere - a confusion of coats, shoes, bags; of "don't-you-run-away" holding hands, and here-and-there a bustling urgency pushing past gawpers and dawdlers outside the shops. On the street beneath angels and candles strung overhead, thick traffic moving jerkily through the town by the river in that far-off valley.

The road I'm cycling on is climbing still, its steep inclines forcing from my lungs a harsh, gasping rhythm and filling my legs with aches until flattening out somewhat it brings me to the top, and here I stop, my eyes, in long slow drafts, drinking all they see. And I had been so very parched - more than I had known.

On the moorland beside the road are sheep, tough as the grasses they chew upon and seeming to be set in this landscape as though they were outcrops of rocks left exposed by eons of erosion.

The Solstice sun paints pale greens and patches of dark browns, all spread across the rise and fall of these billowing hills, and way down there, where leafless woods cloak a curving slope, a sudden lake reflects the sky - a gleaming, flawless jewel.

There is another side.
A sun that's low casts but half of what you see in a certain light; turn around and face that sun to see the world transformed, and so it was when now I gazed and was entranced by what I saw on that high and silent place.

I looked towards a massive shape, its details in that light no more than dimly hinted at; a lump of land dropped from the sky and spreading out like dough, or, if whimsy took my fancy, a giant lying asleep on that dark horizon.
Threadbare clouds half hid the sun whose light, escaping through some holes, shone in pearly beams, and where they fell upon the Earth there was illumination; a pool of colour, and rising from a lonely house, a smear of filmy smoke - all else mystery and gloom.

These images imprinted on my mind and, I felt, enriching me, I rode towards the town.
Ahead, a crowd of crows had gathered round some dead thing in the road, their flapping flight as I approached heavy with resentment.
What, I wondered, had they found?
Had I died on that hill, and was I now reborn?

THAT ROSE

The rose commanded my obeisance, and accordingly I bowed my head, acknowledging its beauty and perfection, and taking - when my face was close - a memory picture in my eye to take away with me.
Such impertinence, for while I leant and gazed, the clothing I wore brushed against its stem and though I would have stepped away, I was held in its embrace.
The petals, soft and soaked in colour, smiled - and smiled still though a thorn had made my fumbling finger bleed, and round that rose my blood was spilled - and fed the rose I loved.

EMERGENCE

I had thought to carve from the stone a face
of beauty and of grace.
I set about the task with energy and purpose,
Utterly lost in the act of physical creation;
The hammer that I held, the chisel that it struck and the slow,
un-pealing of the stone with each
Flake-creating blow
Possessed my concentration so
All sense of passing time was lost.

A shape emerged, shaped - I thought - by me,
But what I saw when I stood back
Were violence, flames, hate and death,
Entwined around a child's face
Whose mouth was opened in a cry,
And eyes were weeping blood.

THE TREE AND ME

To fell a tree with a felling axe is an exertion without parallel as the blade sweeps into the tree's trunk, sending shudders with a thud that at the start do not disturb that living thing's equanimity.
Barely does it move, and unperturbed it stands, but each succeeding blow removes a little of its strength.
I aim each stroke with care, and sometimes land a cut that sends a wedge of wood hurtling through the air, while next the axe head's stuck, or leaves but just a crease.
With sweat now running down my face, the gash I've hacked is widening, and deeper in it goes, and now that tree, so mighty, begins to sway just slightly, each succeeding judder greater than the last. Faster I heave the blade into the shelving wood, the crescendo demanding my utmost strength until...the final, fatal stroke that sends the tree falling in a mist of leaves and a cracking, splintering cataclysmic climax of destruction.
Ah! The primordial sensation of a triumph wrought by muscle!

Yes, that was me you saw do that.

And tenderly I set the sappling in the ground, tread the soil firmly to help its roots take hold, and in the coming weeks and months ensure the moisture's right.
The shoots in spring, the leaves in summer as year by year my tree grows masterful and mightier - that glorious living thing, against whose life I am but dust; against whose worth I am a parasite

THE HOPELESSNESS OF LONGING

There came a fairy through the night
Bringing on her wings the waking light
Of day, which when it broke upon the hill
Brought thoughts of you to mind.
I saw you in that dew-dressed dawn
Felt your breath upon the air,
And as my thoughts soared
With the birds, the scent of you
Was in the clouds. It filled my heart with joy.

Oh to hold your hand.
Oh to see your face.
Oh to lie down on this grass
in your close embrace.

Longings fill my dreams of you;
they cling to me all day,
I'm helpless in their grasp,
but when I call your name
in hopes that you will come
I know I might as well
be calling from my grave.

THE OPPORTUNITY

I held that thought in trembling hands, not daring, as I looked at it, to contemplate where it led.
Uncertainty and cowardice made me let it fall, and at my feet it lay.
Resolve, in a sudden surge, turned my fears away. At once I knelt to scoop it up, but when I looked at what I grasped, the empty air laughed in my face.
Too late: the hope of transformation had seeped into the ground,
It was forever gone -
and waste was in its place.

SEARCHING

What do I look for, my fingers groping inside?
Searching for something to hold on to,
And I am blind?
Did I expect to find
A nugget of pure gold,
A pearl, a diamond
A sense of satisfaction?

My fingers feel a coldness.
They close around an emptiness
And search again for the
Treasure I think lies
Somewhere there,
Beyond good sense and
Everything my life has taught me to expect
Because I know by now
- know by now I should -
the air I draw from this world
Fills my lungs with
Broken glass, thorns and
disappointment.

But still my fingers search
For that nugget of pure gold,
A pearl, a diamond
Or at the very least,
A sense of satisfactiion.

BEREAVEMENT

Bend me through the curlew's calling
far across the slow brown hills
Where my footsteps break the bracken
off the beaten track;
where my footsteps beat
the game birds
into startling startled flight.

Bend me through
the deep trough winding
of the fast brown stream
Where I see the sky in glimpses,
And stones beneath the sliding
silver of the twisting
water rushing.

Bend me to the crumpled clouds
Crouching low on slow brown hills
And darkly hide the sun's round burning;
I hear the wind up rough slopes sailing -
shaggy as a storm at sea -
On whose sides, against the howling,
I remember sunlight shining.

Bend me to the dark day, raining,
Where a hole lies in the ground;
And there are whispers
and there's weeping
for the life they'd longed would be.

A WOMAN

She stood on the balcony, looking down on the passers-by; the sigh in boys' eyes, the longing in their loins and the envy of women softer and looser and become over-ripened while she, a dream of delectable curves, is firm and pert, long dark hair lying softly on her shoulders, large dark eyes gazing down on the passers by.
The world at her feet; her life, a landscape of untrodden snow, awaiting her pretty footsteps.

They saw her then.

We see her now, quite bent, her hair still long and lying on her shoulders, but straggling and grey. You might say she had become a hag, her beauty utterly corrupted, so though we see her, we do not look. It's the figure on the balcony makes us glance there, and curiosity detains our eyes for a moment or two. She seems perhaps, to be muttering, and our step quickens imperceptibly as our eyes hasten away, lest they meet hers in an awkward, unpleasant encounter.
And with such ease we slice through the ties that anchor her to the world at her feet, and away she rises upon her balcony, a solitary passenger adrift in loneliness.

CONTEMPLATION

Where the fire? Where the flames?
Where the serried ranks of saints?
This craggy gorge engulfing me
Is dark as smoke in which the cries
Of martyrs shake the stars
I cannot see.
Nor ever will, until they fall
And all
Their tears dissolve the rock
From which our hearts are made.
Lying here I fear
The smile I'll see upon that face
When, with a bloody axe raised high,
The life I love is shorn away,
And all that's left is endless space
Where every light's burnt out.

DREAMS...DREAMS

Night set free the dreams
Trapped behind his eyes
That only glimpsed the light
When he lay asleep.

They are on wings,
Wide as eagle's,
And high among the crags they soar,
Through golden clouds of make belief
- thorns and stones
And wilderness
In darkness far beneath.

AUTUMN LEAVES

Falling leaves slip silently through the autumn air from their autumn glories,
And in that graveyard which I passed they'll lie and fade, as do memories of the dead.
On tombs and headstones names are carved which now are long forgotten;
"John" and "Jacob, "May" and Mary" who died so long ago.
Above the graves where lie their bones and who and what they were, fallen leaves cover the ground
- gay today and stirred by breezes but not for very long -
Saddened by the winter rains, then they'll be a mourning cloak for those no longer mourned.

AUTUMNAL SUN

That sun lying low behind the trees
And making two-dimensional monsters
Stretch across the grass of the grazing sheep;
That sun so fiercely bright I can but glance at it,
And am blinded to all the world around me when I do,
Is playing make belief -
A lion that roars to cower the realm
It's now too old to rule, and soon must die -
That sun is slowly slipping into winter's wane;
He's in the evening of his year,
And lays Autumnal wistfulness
On meadows, hills and hedgerows -
A gentle touch that strokes
The colours towards their winter sleep.

SO NORMAL

"Look at me" he said. "I`m proud of what I am"
I'm honest - often -
And if I lie, it's only because I have to.
I do it less than some I know
who think they're relatively truthful.
I'm not unfaithful to my wife -
Not in any normal sense
When "normal" means
Sleeping with her friends.
There have been times,
I do admit,
I've been obliged to oblige
A friendly "bit of skirt" -
But always most discreetly, mind,
And with the understanding it's
Strictly "entre nous" - with absolutely
No strings attached - is that understood?
I haven't stolen anything since I was a kid,
OK. Yes. When my house was broken into,
I did inflate the losses;
Everyone does the same -
I mean - you beat the system if you can,
Or the system will beat you.
It's what you learn at school.

"Look at me" he said. "Do I look abnormal?"

DID YOU SEE?

Did you see, I wonder, where I put my heart?
Full to overflowing with my love for you?

I carried it so gently across that rocky shore
And all the way I bore it `til
I reached your door.

My heart and I climbed mountains,
and watched by beasts of prey,
we stumbled through dark woods,
uncertain of our way.

I wanted you to have it;
I kept it just for you.

Your smiling eyes were icy when you turned us away,
And in my confusion
I put it down somewhere.

Now I cannot find it -
Blinded my my tears.

THE FIGHT

You sent me hurtling to the ground,
and here I lie,
quite broken.

Your words,
flung so quickly
off your teeth
were spears with poisoned tips.

Your eyes had no remorse
when they saw me
fall
and everything inside me
die.

IN THE CASINO

Playing Brag or Vingt-et-un?

So my dear, toss the coin and pray its heads you win.
Cross your fingers and just may be you'll get the cards you want.
Oh yes, my dear, Fate will deal a winning hand - if it's on your side. So study hard what it wants and how you can provide it. Ensure you never tempt it, though, nor ever disregard it. Observe, my dear, the many rules Fate lays down and wants obeyed before you get its blessing.

The storm waves came across the sea, whipped to foam by the wind, and dark with frenzied fury. We would be drowned, our boat capsized or smashed against the rocks, and shouting loud, "Good Lord!" we prayed, "save us! Save us! Save us!"

The child lay dying by the road, and gathered all around, her brothers, sisters, mum and dad and passing sympathisers.
How could, some asked, so terrible a thing have happened at that hour when the world had seemed so measured and so normal?

I went with a rifle into the garden, and seeing an apple at some distance swelling on a branch, for amusement shot at it, and unwittingly sent a speeding bullet to make a deadly assignation with a hare, lurking unseen by me, beyond the hedge and in the ditch, its sudden scream quite startling me.

How far into our pasts stretched the paths that brought us both to this sad coincidence? Was it always to be, since time begun, our fates to meet that day?

And what of the child dying by the road and the driver whose car had struck her?

What of the storm? What of the waves that swamped the boat and sent it to the bottom?

Did Fate deal the cards we hold in our hands minutes or hours or eons before we get to play them?

Is it ever on our side? Does it even care?

CONTEMPLATING DEATH

Death is like a roller-coaster ride.
Or it is to this extent:
When I climbed into the car and took my seat with all the rest, I considered, while we waited, what awaited us.

What awaited me.

Then I thought: "Well, I'm not the first. Everyone who's ever lived and is now no more has sat in these seats before, and hurtled through the crazy ride which I'm about to share.

THE SWEETEST THINGS

Reading my favourite book whose pages are thoughts of you.

Strolling along my favourite lane where the trees are thoughts of you.

Looking at my favourite view, and the hills are thoughts of you.

Enraptured by a setting sun lit by thoughts of you.

Dreaming beneath a velvet sky, and the stars are thoughts of you.

The sweetest things I know in life are
my thoughts of you

IN THOSE FOOTPRINTS

There are footprints in the sand which I follow through the mist
And wonder if the mind that left them there for me to find
Is dreaming too of somewhere else that we can only reach
On ladders made of stars, and if her tears
Fall as hard as when she was a child, and all her love
was broken glass,
splintered on their lips of stone, and
Hatred spilled between.

ON THE FIFE COAST OF SCOTLAND

How many sailors and how many fishermen
have ridden this bitter sea
which tares itself to shreds
on this iron shore?
How many fishermen and how many sailors
groped at hopes stolen by the wind?
How many have scattered their bones
across this ocean floor?
And how many tears were shed for lives that are no more

And then today the sun shone bright
from out a cloudlets sky
and it made
a dazzling lake
bounded by the sea,
and breezes stroked the silvered grass
along the coastal path
where walkers,
hot inside their coats
gave smiles and nods
to passers-by,
and no-one thought
of storms and tears
and shattered lives
on such a smiling day

THE ONE I LOVED

There is a beauty that a I know,
in form and face and grace;
Its iridescent glow
lit my life and gave it warmth
and filled it with delight,
and now its flown away on wings
into the setting sun.

Through my tears I saw her smile
and holding out my hand
I found
the treasure box
her life with me had filled;
a treasure trove of priceless gems
which now adorn all my thoughts
of the one I loved.

MOTORWAY RELECTIONS

I'm on a six-lane highway at 80 miles an hour and unaware of what's beyond the trees and fence that line this road; it is my world - all of my world - I am cocooned in it; and while I drive and gauge distances and speeds and consider the other cars and how they compare with mine in terms of what they cost to buy and run and how they perform, never do I think of what their destinations are or what awaits those who travel in them when the brake's applied and the key is turned that kills the engine dead.
One sight alone drags me from this roaring artery where speeds are so flexible, ranging from the whizzing by of vehicles heading headlong into landscapes which are glued into my past, to the ever-so-slowly creeping towards the car that's just in front; it's the sight of vehicles taking to a slip road, and at its top, waiting to make a right or left on a country road.
That road always seems so filled with mysteries to me. Bending away and taking those who travel on it through towns and villages I've never seen; past woods and fields, streams and spires and ultimately, I always think, to a home with kisses and tea, and a sitting back with shoes kicked off - and not another thought of the six-lane highway I'm still on; the world of bleak intensities, filled with noise and speed
where I`m stuck.

CURIOSITY THAT KILLED THE...

The two-year old squats down and with diligent intensity and small, precise fingers, picks up a woodlouse that had been under some debris - now moved - and is hurrying to find somewhere else that's damp and dark and edible .
The child brings the little creature closer to his face for a better look, and then with careful deliberation squeezes his fingers tighter, observing how the pressure creates a kind of crusty pulp which he then shakes off, and gone, that moment`s curiosity.
And gone an inconsequential life - though not inconsequential to
the woodlouse that possessed it.

HERO

He is her knight, ready to slay dragons,
Hurl himself in front of trains,
Stand between her and the drug-maddened teenager wielding a knife and with a single blow, send him reeling to the ground.
She has always been his to protect;
a precious life,
A jewel for him to guard.
And so it was that night they met
And when they danced he felt the very heart of all he was
drawn out - the essence of his being, he thought -
and in utter wonderment saw her tuck it in her love,
And cover it with kisses;
Then smiling, she handed hers to him, and in utter wonderment he heard her whispered words:
"I've looked all my life for the man to give this to;
I've found him now, so please, my darling; please take care of it".
Each now the guardian of the other,
they faced adversity together,
endured a loss so great as to tear down city walls,
Hopes and expectations turned to disappointments
Yet their love flowed on through the
landscapes of their lives - a powerful stream,
Never once abating.

I saw him take her arm and guide her gently off the bus.
At 78 he's frail now, sees the world fuzzy round the edges,
and as for slaying dragons,
- not much chance of that even though
He'd stand his ground
And staunchly face the danger.
She knows it too
She knows, too, he`s all she`s got,
So she holds his arm the tighter.

OUR FATE?

Is human society doomed, I wonder, to be like the teenage boy whose body outgrew his brain? Whose strength and ability to destroy grow greater, his wisdom still that of a toddler?

REMEMBRANCE

Is it possible to do sufficient honour to the young men whose blood stained the desolate battle fields churned by the violence of World War One?
Is it possible to imagine how it was to be flung by the arms of your homeland into the inexorable advance of that roaring machine of death?
Is it possible to imagine the deprivations of life at the Front?
Is it possible to imagine how men, with hopes of an orderly life chipped smaller with every passing day and every comrade`s death, could smile and joke and laugh, and momentarily forget?

I have viewed the cemeteries where they lie, accompanied in their graves by the ever-lasting tears of those whose worlds were shrivelled by their loss; row upon row, and neatly kept, of mothers' sons slain in their thousands, falling hundreds at a time, some dying now, some dying yet.
I cannot comprehend the scale on which these deaths occurred, yet here it is, at me feet, for my eyes to see.
I have a sense of guilt because they, not I, endured the test which tested so many to destruction.

THE STREAM

The rain thickened the air so that when looking down the hill, I saw the wood through a haze. The just-varnished leaves glisten and gleam and here and there one makes a quick curtsey as a drip from somewhere above blesses it with its touch, while hidden from view, the stream is making its presence heard.
It's swollen - gorged, in fact - and higher than I've ever seen, and mean; it'll wreak all the havoc it can, and should you slip and fall, it'll teach you a lesson you`ll be lucky to live to learn.
Then in due course, when it has emptied its bowels into the river and is hungry again for more rain, it'll seem quite harmless and children will play safely in its trickling, tickling flow and think it doesn't mind.
But come another storm, it'll catch and snatch - and pass with utter indifference the flowers in mourning on its bank

SORROW

The sky has been crying all day.
Don't ask her why.
All you will hear are her falling tears
And feel the touch of her sigh.
Perhaps she cries for all the lives
She sees broken by stupidity.
Or does she weep
For the grief of a
Broken heart?

Does she see from high above
The hollow in the ground
and kneeling down beside it,
A figure bent with sorrow
As with gentleness he lays
The one he loved
and will always love,
Even in her grave?

DRAMAS

They stood in their coats against the gusts, watching the bathers out in the breakers and suddenly a wave on the rising tide forced them into a skipping retreat when it raced towards their feet.
It was, though, a diversionary tactic because behind their backs insidious fingers, foaming at the tips poked and prodded and crawled a-pace in a pincer movement across the beach.
The sea was silently filling a shallow groove it had sculpted in the sand in preparation to catch idlers on the shore, and seeing themselves about to be cut off, they had to make a hurried escape, while out in the waves, the bathers jumped and pranced among the dramas kicked up by the wind.

Somewhere else, someone else was drowning.

THAT SILENCE

I fight the silence of the moon
When shadows crawl across my room
And stones lie scattered on the floor
Begging me to give them more.

But here I lie, my strength all gone,
And no one knows how deep the well the longing in my eyes.

No one knows how hard I fought
The silence of the moon
when falling from my tears - the stars -
it shatters into dying sparks.

FRACTIOUS DAY

The day was fractious and difficult and likely to throw a tantrum, but beguiling all the same, so we sat out in the bright hot sun beneath a sky of glaring blue, then wondered where we'd put our coats when a sudden gust sent paper napkins cart wheeling across the grass and waves flowing through the wheat. We knew there'd be a squall - it was that kind of a day; over excited, exuberant and showing off, and sure enough it sent us scuttling for the car when we stopped paying it attention and talked about the price of fuel and should we stop to get some wine?
Later we heard there'd been flash floods and trees brought down and someone killed, and we all agreed the Chardonnay was really rather good.

THE VISION

Flames lick my face with velvet tongues
As lying in their hot embrace,
All that I am, or thought I was,
Seems to be consumed.
Yet, mysteriously I watch this scene
With vision sharper than
Ever human eye could see.
And with that sight I looked and saw
A spirit rise, clothed in white,
Dazzling bright,
And as it rose, it spoke.
The words I supposed I heard
Shot through me like a bolt.

"What lies utterly destroyed below
Was precious to you once,
Yet unbeknownst to you, it weighed you down like sludge.
You've seen it burn, and now you're free
To rise with me to where the real treasure's found-
The thing you value most."

And when I woke I thought of this,
And knew it spoke of love.

FLIGHT

So, you found your wings?
Tumbling as you fell, you spread them
wide upon the rushing air
And suddenly it bore you up -
As loving arms bare up a falling child -
And standing far below, near blinded by the sun,
I watched your silhouette against the brilliant sky,
As your new-found wings took you higher and higher

I had a sense of freedom which I think now is yours,
Yet hardly had I felt it than regrets weighed me down,
For why, now you've taken off and so much can see,
Might I suppose your wandering thoughts
Will ever return to me?

DAYTONA BEACH

We hurried from the car, bending against the spitting August rain, on slabs shiny from the wet, through a throng of dampened spirits on miscellaneous errands, and gaining the department store, we waited for the lift.
"Doors closing" said the mellifluous automated female voice when we'd pressed the button, and "Doors opening" when we had arrived.
Sunlight flooded in, and the third floor, where we'd expected Household Goods and sundry items, had turned into Daytona Beach, Fla.
Well yes, we were surprised, though the Boy, two and a half who we'd brought into town while his mother, our daughter, was having a snooze at home, took it as part of every day when every day brings sights and sounds never before encountered.
The heat was astonishing, and as we stared we wondered how we'd managed to enter the US without passing Home Land security and having our photos and finger prints taken and been asked ferociously why we'd the cheek to come and commit indescribable crimes against the people and institutions of the greatest freedom-loving country on the planet, and been made to feel in imminent danger of having all our
bodily orifices minutely examined by a very large and unfriendly individual. Then we took off our coats, and walked back along the pier, which we'd found ourselves standing on, to the shore and then the beach, the Boy holding our hands in both of his and insisting on being swung as though on a fairground ride. Despite the unforgiving sun and metal-melting temperature, the sand was speckled with here and there semi-naked bodies. Most looked as though they lived on the Mark Phelps diet of 300,000 calories every 60 minutes, though some had made it into muscle and others into fat.
We gaped in wonderment, then made our way back up the pier to where we had arrived, and stepping into the elevator, heard the mellifluous automated female voice say that the doors were closing.
When they opened on the ground floor, we were in the department store once more, but now the clouds had blown away, and in the sky the sun shone down, and it was laughing - but not as loudly here in Leeds as on Daytona Beach.

The light of a slowly-sinking sun stalks the evening sky and here a stream entering the sea slithers across the shore, rustling the pebbles quietly at its journey's end.
I just could hear its murmurings and the gentle hiss of sighs as, tired now, it feels its way towards the great unknown.

Or is it a lullaby, and the disturbance it is making, the disturbance of gently rocking arms?

In this still air the sea lies calm, distantly reflecting a glory glimpsed as through the open window in slowly-moving clouds.

I would sleep on that sea, sleep for eternity, and in my dreams
melt through the gauze in which I am enshrouded, and melting,
all my being merge into tranquillity.

THAT DAY

We waited in the Surgical Decision Unit, a small, quiet community of people in pain. Need leaked from our glances, filling the corners of the space we were in and dissipating out beyond, unnoticed and diluted. Nothing was said as we waited all day our turn to be examined; a timeless time, minutes dissolving pointlessless, and nothing accomplished except enduring discomfort.
Unlikley as it seems, events do inexorably move on. Verdicts are delivered and treatments are proposed, and the conveyor belt, as gradual as a glacier since first we arrived, suddenly speeds up and you'd better hold on tight.
Now it's droppd me off and I'm looking from a light-filled room at trees, a lawn and a hedge in need of trimmming, and in the Surgical Decision Unit, pain oozes from the glances from another group of people, filling the corners and dissipatating out - unnoticed and diluted.

ON OUR WARD

What will become of him - the nurses around him, coaxing and cajoling, and a procession of specialists in making breathing easier?
Is this where his life runs out - tracks leading to the edge of the cliff, each mile passed marked by a sometimes-small but always irreversible decline which brings that gasping engine and its train of rattling trucks inexorably to the instant of oblivion?

Or not?

Will his wife, in months to come, tell visitors to their home how nearly the crisis ended his life, and holding out her hand, reach for his and smile and say "but now he's never been better - isn't that right, my darling"?

I left him lying there, and I think I'll never rid my mind of seeing him on his bed, and beside him in a chair his wife, utterly drained, hollowed out and become a husk where hope had been and now has gone, and all that's left is loneliness.

ON THE EDGE

Blind-man's-bluff is the game I'm at; groping in the dark.
I can picture the room; picture the faces; I think I know where I am, but...
But the laughter could be devils' squeals; the floor a grid of narrow beams, with rocks a thousand feet below.
I cannot see the walls jut out, and from them curving knives, sharp enough to peal tomatoes, and points to pierce my skin with ease.
I cannot see the gaping mouth, the monstrous teeth and gleaming eyes of the nightmare beast that waits for me.

Blind-man's-bluff is the game I'm at - just groping in the dark.

UNRIPE APPLES

Apples are falling from my tree; small, green and months before their time.
I kick them aside with my feet,
Those little disappointments,
Those many little failures;
Each a promise unfulfilled;
a tear my tree has shed.

THE LIGHT

I awoke to see the sun today. It shone in through the walls of the room where we lay.
It cast its light across our bed and bathed us in its warmth.
I saw it dance, I saw it sing; I saw the darkness melt away.

I awoke today and felt the sun when in your arms we kissed.
It shone in through the walls of the room where we lay.
It cast its warmth across my life, and I am bathed in light.

THE UNSEEN GIFTS

So much I didn't ask for!

A sack suspended from a tree into which the gods have lobbed their birthday presents, addressed to me, and locked in boxes to which I only have the keys,
and only I can see.

I look around and watch the others opening the mystery parcels which are waiting their inspection and see starvation, rape, torture, poverty and injustice leap from the wrapping paper and stick to them with claws.

So much they didn't ask for!

The gods lob out their presents, and most of those I've opened because they were for me have smoothed away unpleasantness, and I have wandered through my life with a certain ease.

But what's inside the presents the gods have lobbed for me; inside those wrapped-up presents I have yet to see?

Yes, my fingers: tremble as the wrapping papers fall!
And yes, my eyes, remember: that sack still has presents you'll never want to see.

ILLUSION - DELUISION

"Grandpa!" the child calls out.

A stream in flood gushing down a slope, from his smile love rushes out - and I catch it in my arms.
I am his grandpa - and in this one respect
so very much more
than the man
I truly am.

YOUR GIFT

You green my hills with your smile
And your laughter
scatters them with flowers.
The trees reach to the light
That is shining from your eyes,
And all my world is dancing
In the sunshine of your life.

FATE, Part 1

There's a fly in the room and in a moment or two I'll have killed it.
Or perhaps too lazy to make the effort I'll open the window wide and encourage it to escape, and so its life will not have ended in that room at that time -
But end it surely will.

FATE Part 2

Do I savour this sunny afternoon; the myriad leaves in the sun-lit wood in a myriad shapes and shades of green, and the trunks of massive trees silently holding up the living, vaulted ceiling high above my head?
There's a flutter of wings and a blur of colour,
and later, walking across the green I pass murmuring voices and sometimes laughter and in the warmth, friendship and tranquillity.

Though there's much I love to see and much I want to see as my children and their children journey into their tomorrows and from this summer through succeeding seasons,
I note these things dispassionately.

My life did not end in that room at that time.
But end it surely will.

FOUND!

I looked for you in the wood but all I found were thornes.
I looked for you in the stream but all I found were stones.
I looked for you in the crowd and found I was alone,
I looked for you in the clouds and all I saw were storms.

I looked for you in the setting sun
and there I heard your voice.
I looked for you in the rose
and there I felt your lips.
I looked for you in repose,
and there I found your love.

THE BEAUTY

Small, shrunken by age, and her paper-skin face that every night was crumpled into a ball and thrown away and every morning rescued from the bin and carefully she smoothed it out as best as she was able, forlornly patting powder on the wrinkles and with the greatest care painting on the eyes and lips where she guessed they ought to be.
Her hair quite white.
Granny Woods.
Not our granny, but "Granny" nonetheless, and old as mastadons.
She gave us orange squash, a bit too watered down
in cut-glass tumblers more antique than she,
and biscuits on a bone china plate decorously decorated
with delicate roses,
and someone said "who is that?"
We and she followed the pointing finger to a portrait on the wall,
to see a young woman in all her bounteous beauty,
her auburn hair a harvest home of riches
reaped when at the peak of their perfection.
Ringlets framed a lovely face and fell upon
a bosom where a plunging decolletage
revealed the beginnings of a hidden valley
between two perfect breasts.
Her expression was confident as a conqueror
surveying a defeated army,
and in her hand a riding crop.
"Oh yes. I was a beauty" said Granny Woods.
"Young men, handsome and of faultless pedigree
came a-courting me.
I could have had any one
of more than a score."
Her eyes drifted towards a distant time, still vivid in her mind,
but invisible to us.
There were, we thought, two lives,
and two distinctly different people,
but had we tracked back through her life,
we would have seen, in reverse,
a gradual transformation;
a merging of the two:
we would have seen that many,
many lives
spring from a single source.

BROKEN NOW

Why didn't I see the storm that came and sank my boat?
Why didn't I see those clouds blackening out the sun?
Nor hear the winds that tore my world apart?
And if I had?
Could I have changed my course?
Or done anything at all?
The storm rushed on
and hurled me on these rocks,
and all I am and all I had lie broken
all around.

ANOTHER LOVE SONG

Bright the wings in your eyes when over the depths we fly.
There's sunlight in their feathers and
rainbows when they soar;
Their song is carried on the wind,
And where it's passed
gold dust drifts
And shimmers in the night.

I think it floats for ever there,
on the gentle breeze.
And when you breath,
I see it dance with all the joy
your eyes, your smile,
and your life
bring every day to me.

TRAPPED

Held hot in the grasp of the picture she painted,
He wrestled through tangled colours
And shapes, gasping to breathe
But drowning within the frame
She'd thrown all around him,
And hammered together with nails.

DESTROYED

How was I to know that when time ran out between my fingers into a heap of lost moments on the floor, you'd come by and kick it with your foot so now there's nothing left at all?

VISION ON THE SHORE

The tide was out.
On the shore below the layered, crumbling cliff where the fulmars rattle, raise their chicks and make stiff-winged sorties out and back for no good reason I can see, a thin mist veiled the distant coast, and all was grey, shiny wet and still.
So still. So grey. So shiny wet. And not a soul in sight.
I fancied, on that deserted shore, a shape approaching, slouching and bedraggled as one who had been drowned. Bloodless now, completely white, with bones beneath the threadbare flesh, and eyes - black eyes - huge in that skull-like head, and lips as soft as pulp.
As the phantom neared, it raised its arms, and whispered as though its voice were waves dragging pebbles down a beach and turning them to sand.
The words it formed were hard to hear; the sound was indistinct. Then all at once I understood. It said: "Go back! This is not the way for you. Go back and save your life."
Was that my father's voice! My father from his grave?
I cleared my eyes. The layered and crumbling cliff loomed high; a thin mist veiled the distant coast, and not a soul in sight.
And no: I won't turn back.
It's too late now to save my life.

OYSTERS

The oysters on the plate, their shells wrinkled, gnarled and impregnable, hold a secret which you might, with skill or brute force, prize out of them.
Not a pearl, but a life.

And what is of greater worth?

The one adorns her ear or in a string lends lustre to her skin.
The other is all the world; the entirety of everything,
And swallowing that life, I think
"that was very nice."
I discard the emptied shell
Anticipating already the pleasure
Of devouring another.

DRAGONS

There were dragons in the sky that night, with tongues of flame that licked away the day and fiery breath that smudged the air with smoke.
People in our little town, their curtains drawn, their blinds pulled down, sat watching television.
There were dragons in the sky that night that swooped across their roofs, and did they hear their rushing wings?
Did they smell the fire?
And in their sleep do they dream of dragons in the sky?
Do they ever dream of how
the dragons have been freed,
with tongues of flames to
sear the world,
and fiery breath to
choke its air with smoke?

BLISS

You stood in the open door and your smile called my eyes.
I saw surrender in your lips, but it was I became the prisoner
when our heart beats shared their secrets
in that lingering kiss.
The clouds were shaken from the sky and the trees thrown to the stars, and then the storm sank into sleep,
and calm envelopes us.

TEARS

I found a tear on the ground
which had fallen from your eye
Then I saw, looking closer,
your tears were all around

I'd seen you smile and heard you laugh -
the sound of sunlight, so I thought;
and flowers in the spring.

So why, where you've passed by did
tears fall
from your eyes?
What made the sunlight turn to night;
what made the flowers die?

WELCOME

If you’re passing by, the gate’s open so please come in. This is my garden,not offlowers, weeds, shrubs and trees but planted with a variety of ideas, Some grew haphazardly into spindly things without much form, but others I tended and coaxed into bloom. I hope as you wander among my verbacious borders you may see something you like, and when you leave, you feel you didn’t waste your time here.

GROWING UP

Hurry little boy
down the garden path
Hurry little darling,
through your childhood years.
The love that
attends you
would keep you safe
from harns,
and it would
keep you
tight within
its arms.
But hurry little boy
down that garden path.
Hurry little darling
through your childhhood years.
Your manhood
is awaiting
and we must let you go.

But oh our little darling,
it's sad to see you go.
So sad that just the
thought of it
bathes my cheeks in tears.

STORMY

It is a world of foaming tumult out there on the shouting chaos of the sea.
Are the waves tormented by the gale which blasts the flattened cliff-top shrubs and tries to lift me off my feet; or are the wind and waves in dangerous, wild revolt - Bonny and Clyde holding up cross-Channel ferries and battering everything in their way?

Sheltered, we stood and watched, enthralled spectators of the violent elements raging at the land with fists and feet, while scurrying clouds bore jagged teeth and spat at us below.
It would be death, I would have thought, inside the jaws of that ferocious storm, yet lying on the tumbling air were gulls with arms outsretched, casually proceeding against all odds towards their destinations.

BIRD

I too can fly like you, Bird,
I too can soar -
my feet here on the ground,
my body glued to earth.
But Bird, the "I" inside my head
has wings as wide as yours
and when I chose,
I too, Bird,
am just as free as you.

SUCH REGRET

There was never so gentle a blizzard as the storm of blossom petals that softly swirled about my head and kissed the daffodils, the grass and path before dancing into the air again and then to lie, little discs of white on everything around.
Startling in freshly-painted greens were the fields and hills and trees, and a blackbird sang on a chimney top against a cloudless sky.
So why, from all this loveliness did I look away and cry?
Why, when I could have held you did I turn and walk away.
Instead of saying "I love you", why did I say "Goodbye"?

THE ROOM

The door was ajar and pushing it I saw a room with flowers and sunlight in the windows and then you turned and smiled with jewels in your eyes.
I would have stood and gazed, studying the light on your cheek and in your hair and the way it defined your ear, and wondered how a room could be so abundantly filled with treasure, but you said "Come in" and held out your hand and I felt the softness of your skin, and bending, kissed you, your face upturned, your sudden mouth warm against my lips.

How often have I pushed that door and seen you sitting there?
Every day for many years I visited that room, but now the open door slams shut; and though I push and call your name, I hear the turning key. Before my very eyes, the door disolves into the wall, and there's no trace of it; the skin is broken on my fists, broken by the bricks, and all alone I walk away into loneliness.

THE SET THAT WILL BE SEEN

That tree whose bough we swung beneath when sweetnesses surrounded us, and every sweet was fresh as dew and every taste entirely new; the world was ours to play with, then; across the day were curtains hung which, drawing back one by one as though upon a stage, amazed us with what we saw lit in brilliant light beyond - oh yes that tree, its leaves a roof, green across our childhood days, and in its shade we played, and sweetnesses surrounded us.
I cannot find that tree again. There's nothing new to taste and when the curtains are drawn back, I've seen each set before - or so I think. But one I know is waiting, and it won't be bathed in any light; there will be nothing there to see, save sighs and shadows and sorrows cloaked in tears.

SWEET EXPECTATION

Virgin white but flustered by a nosey bee, the apple blossom blushes pink, and around her dance the leaves which will remain long after she has gone.
But while they see the summer through, where the blossom had made her pretty debut, and almost as soon had disappeared, a little dull something grows and greens and then begins to ripen.
I'll measure its progress with my eye, anticipating sweetness.
A bite into an apple pulled freshly from a tree is a taste of autumn that only in the autumn
is true to what it ought to be.
There's a sharpness on the tongue and a crunch between the teeth and smell sent straight from childhood when scrumping illicitly.
That apple was my delight; a reward I long hoped for, but when I looked one morning, nothing now was there.

IF...

If you were a book, I'd read you from cover to cover.
If you were a river, I'd explore every mile of your course.
If you were an ocean, I'd sail on you for ever.
If you were the sun I'd bask in your glorious light.
If you were the moon
I'd open my arms
and dream I was your lover.

THE GENT

Hair with a quiff, sculpted with care, darker than is right with the age of his face,
and he's still quite lean, like he cares what figure he cuts in the eyes of "the ladies."

Ah, "the ladies!"

His foible. His predilection.
He found at 15 that boldness paid off,
and at 18 that his town was packed with ladies who had no objection to his being in their knickers because
their men rarely were,
and he was "Stan,
the one-night-stand"
which was all he, or they, really wanted.
He didn't break hearts; just added a little acid to
corroding relationships, 'till he met June
who got divorced, had his baby and adored him, licking his footsteps for the sugar she could taste had oozed where he trod; a sight that boosted his self esteem and he laid a woman a night, not counting her, 'til she died, worn out by forgiving.

And now he's 70 and on this cruise, and cruising for lonely hearts.
Of which, of course, there're scores.

HER LOSS

I tried to imagine what it's like, but the difference between where imagination ends and the reality starts is too wide and too deep so I stand on the edge and see you over there, and I'd shout words of comfort, but I don't think you'd hear.
The most I can hope is that you'll see my lips moving; the most I can hope is that you'll know that I care.

SLEEPING

This little being; this little person
eyes black, hair on end
a headful of curiosity
a skinful of energy -
an electric motor vibrating,
switched off only at night
when lying flat out,
his always-grubby teddy
(washed once a week at least)
lying against his cheek.
  

This little being; this little person
eyes black, hair on end
a headful of curiosity
a skinful of energy -
an electric motor vibrating,
switched off only at night
when lying flat out,
his always-grubby teddy
(washed once a week at least)
lying against his cheek.

NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN

So what was the first day like?
And what was the last day like?
There've been a few;
first and last days at several schools,
(I kissed Annabel on a "last day" when I was eight),
and then the jobs, begun and ended,
saying goodbyes and settling in,
each departure, each arrival
a bit of life left behind,
another bit beginning.
How well do I remember them?
They've vanished, twigs on a stream
gone under the bridge;
I dropped them in, saw them fall
and then forgot about them -
except, that is, for one;
the one when I was eight.
and I kissed
my Annabel.

POINT OF NO RETURN

I knew a ridge of hills which, when it met the sea, curved grassy-sloped out of sight where, somewhere
the cliff began,
rising abruptly from the breaking waves 400 feet below.
You could have run down the slope -
wilder and faster the steeper it got -
until sudden nothingness took away your breath for good.

I knew each time we passed that place
on our walks across the downs,
there was a point of no return,
and sometimes,
lying in my childhood bed,
I sensed its fatal pull.

And now awake and more aware, I know I'm on that slope
and have been all my life.
It's steepening underneath my feet
and every step I take with care,
my eye marking out ahead a flower, a blade of grass taller than the rest or something else to signify a point that's reached and passed.
One day I will, I know, take a step and slip,
and fall,
and reaching out grasp the air to hold me back, and when my fingers close, the air will let them go.

Will the wind shout in my ears
that I'm dying now -
or will it be a whisper
I can hardly hear?

BROKEN

Where's my love, where's my heart, where's my longing to be with you?
They wrapped me up completely, once; they occupied my life,
and filled its every minute with sun-shine days and hills of hope
beneath a sparkling sky.
But now I lie beneath the floor, and all I see are cracks of light,
and all I hear is settling dust falling in my tears.

RESTORED

In filth and rags I lay at your feet,
crippled by fears, blinded by dreads,
while spikes of ice pierced my chest.
and all the joys I'd ever felt
ran out upon the ground.
Warm they'd been and now were
cold,
blasted by despair.

I felt your hand upon my arm;
and though I'm weak and wretched still,
in filth and rags I lie,
I sense a sunrise on my life,
and love enfolding me.

SO HELPLESS

There's a cold wind blowing in my head, and I haven't the means to warm it.
It chills my thoughts and and when I speak, icicles are on my breath.
They fall upon your cheeks and breast,
and where they pierce I see you bleed,
and I haven't the means to heal you.

MY MISTAKE

I thought all I had to do was say that I'm here
I thought all I had to do was say that I care.
I thought all I had to do was hold you in my arms;
I didn't know what you really wanted was to trail me round the shops looking at blouses.

MYSTERY

What can a shoe do?
Skinny with a long thin heel
and little straps and very shiny,
red perhaps, wild and naughty,
or sedate, be-suited black
and stockings for some reason
with a seam, doing something
to the mind that isn't seemly
- but oh, so very, very nice.

FLOOD

Rain pits the surface of the slowly rising river
flowing through the town,
each added drop sliding to the sea
with all the rest, but too many now,
falling far away on dim grey hills,
and closer, on roofs, streets,
hats and coats
for the river's course to swallow
and so the water's rising,
slowly, but rising all the same
and do what we might
with all our might and main
if the rain keeps on falling,
we'll be flooded out again.

MONUMENT TO CRUELTY

There is in the town of Roquetas der Mar on the Andalusian coast a bullring, opened in 2002, with a roof the colour of old blood, and on the plaza in front of it,
afficianados take photos of their loved ones with this killing arena in the background, and in particular a bronze sculpture of a massive bull, head held high in bold and bullish defiance.
More appropriate would be the animal lying dead in a pool of blood, with lances sticking from its neck, a reminder of a life taken down at the end of a prancing dance of sustained and much applauded cruelty.

IN THE MINSTER'S SHADOW

What had there been in days gone by, in these streets below the Minster's towers?
We walk, well shod and warm, on cobbled streets, "pedestrianised", through a gauntlet, assailed on either side by Special Offers! outfits slashed in price and cheap enough to buy two at least and shoes in serried rows and temptations to eat something fattening in cream with a bit of strawberry on top, and why not a cup at Starbucks?
Tourists, mostly, pack these narrow ways through York, with students in the general mix and sometimes, rudely, someone poor whose usually drunk and might be now for all I know, and behind nearly all the eyes, affairs that concern a modern mind. Take them out, lay them down and examine what we have; then put them back and wonder how different they would have been if taken from the passers-by of 400 years ago.
Love - does he, doesn't she? - and misbehaving youth and "things were never bad as this in my childhood days" would, I guess, be obvious, but nearly all the rest would be wondrously peculiar, the culture which had shaped them being an alien thing to us, and most of it beyond our comprehension. And 400 years ago what rags! What filth! What stench! What casual, horrid cruelties and how mean those boney faces! And how the eyes stare and dart and broken, rotten teeth disfigure nearly every laugh. And there are blackened feet, carts are pushed and there's a donkey being abused.

Such things had been in days gone by,
in these streets below the Minster's towers.
Inside its doors, where columns rise
and arches flow in soaring poetic motion,
the great stone walls were soaked in sounds
of throats incanting praises.

And still they are in this massive temple
which spans the lives of men.
And will they still when I am dead and have been 200 years?
What will there be,
in those days,
in the streets
below the Minster's towers?

THE DECEPTION

Where's the truth?
I had it, so I thought
in my office desk,
third drawer down,
and once a day or so
I'd pull it a little open,
not so far it could escape
to reassure myself
I'd got it safe.
But someone said
I might be wrong;
he tugged the drawer open wide,
and when we looked inside,
we saw that what I'd thought was true
was actually a lie.

LEFT

There's nowhere for my mind to go since you went away.
I'm sitting here against the wall, looking at
your picture stuck
inside my head,
and hearing, in the silence,
the voice you left behind.
This room is bare
and I am cold,
and since you went
there's nowhere I would want to go,
- nor anywhere I could.

ETERNAL TRIANGLES

"Will you be my Valentine?"
he asked on bended knee.
"No" she said, with level gaze,
"I fear I love another."

But oh her tears are falling now -
the "other" does not love her!

ANOTHER LOVE SONG

Just seeing you there enchanted me.
I watched your eyes, your smile, your hair
and listened to your voice completely in your power.
If, by chance, we got so close I could feel your warmth,
I was intoxicated; made quite drunk
and felt somehow detached, as though
we both were floating a thousand feet above
and yet secure, immune from harm
because we are in love.

SPANISH HOTEL

The hotel in the sunshine in the wintertime
where congregate the thickening and the slackening and the limping.
Some faces grown grotesque with age,
and some the roofless walled ruins of a slipped-away handsomeness,
a surviving cornice, ornate but crumbling, and a grand mantle,
chipped now, but hinting at what once had been.
White hair expensively cut and shaped and blouses flashing brilliantly,
and bodies preceeded into a room by a vast bosom or swelling belly,
and followed by a big derrier that would crush the life out of a small dog
if accidentally placed upon it.

People of years are here,
shrewd brains at work behind the wrinkles and the eyes struggling to see;
great mountains of experiences, of sadnesses, losses, laughing, successes and failures
and days and nights gone by in the twinkling of an eye
and they were young
and all their life ahead lay hidden in the clouds on the mountains tops
where now they sit
and stare, sometimes, into everlasting night.

ON THE LINE

(These lInes were provoked by a photo of a girl sitting on her siuitacse besides a railway line)
She got there when love had gone, leaving a disturbance in the air and a very faint aroma of something hot having passed.
She'd tumbled her hopes into a case, sitting on the lid, and her lipstick's fresh to greet her lover's kiss, but not on that sweet mouth will it make its mark.
So here she sits, in her head an emptiness where he should have been; in her eyes a look of loss and in her ears the sound of breezes weeping in the grass,
Loneliness is clawing out the substance of her life, and here she waits should love return, but sure it never will.

SNOWDROP

It hangs on a thread of air, white and so fragile that should you tread and break a twig, the snap
you just can hear will shatter it; a shower of tiny falling flakes that vanish in the grass, and nothing's left.
Don't even breath on it, this precious gentle jewel of life when all around it's dead or silently asleep. So delicate and demure that angels kneel before it to take their lessons from it,
and the beauty of its purity
bursts the shutters open and lets in the light.

TRANSFORMATION

Huddled, somewhat, she sits in her cold home, her skin so thin the grey shows through, and angular fingers feel across the plate for the last cheap biscuit to dip into her tea, and she shifts to change her weight to make the pain a little less, but the pain of grinding loneliness is only eased when in her sleep she dips fragmentally into laughter with rosey cheeks and skipping in the sun and loving of long ago.
She wakes, and if all her tears had not run out, comfortless she would cry again

ABOVE AND BEYOND

The cloud, endless, heavy, with beneath it
a wind cutting fingers and noses and
torturing clothes hung out to dry,
dooms the earth-bound day to its smeared grey gloom,
and bowing our heads we make for the plane.

And then its lost, that spreading world of make belief
where human life became microbial,
seen only through a miscroscope.

It was whispered out of sight by the fringes of a universe that's made of thick and bumpy air which might go on for ever; is this the last we'll ever see - a sea in which we wrecked?

We're riding on a flying fish that's soared above its waves,
from depths into the light,
and what a light it is!
Brilliant, sparkling, like nothing seen on earth
and here the clouds -
below us now -
are billowed blankets laid across a million sleeping giants whose elbows, knees, backsides and toes form lumps and mounds and valleys in between.

This would be a place to live,
to have your house above the clouds
and sing and dance and laugh -
and falling all the while towards
the bitterness below.

WELCOME

If you’re passing by, the gate’s open so please come in. This is my garden, not of flowers, weeds, shrubs and trees but planted with a variety of ideas, Some grew haphazardly into spindly things without much form, but others I tended and coaxed into bloom. I hope as you wander among my verbacious borders you may see something you like, and when you leave, you feel you didn’t waste your time here.

GROWING UP

Hurry little boy
down the garden path
Hurry little darling,
through your childhood years.
The love that
attends you
would keep you safe
from harns,
and it would
keep you
tight within
its arms.
But hurry little boy
down that garden path.
Hurry little darling
through your childhhood years.
Your manhood
is awaiting
and we must let you go.

But oh our little darling,
it's sad to see you go.
So sad that just the
thought of it
bathes my cheeks in tears.

CEMETERY THOUGHTS

This massive stone edifice, intricately carved, and commissioned at considerable expense,
and so very imposing that wandering among the lesser memorials in this garden overgrown with shrubs, brambles, grass and tombstones all sprouting from the earth I should, perhaps, be over-awed,
as might other passers-by have been who had known the power and wealth of the man who had it built.
What ego it displays for all the worlds to see, both of the living and the dead!
What confidence that in years to come his name would still be read with respect, reverence and - by some - a touch of fear.
But all who did
now dead around him lie,
and the only eyes which look upon the inscription of his name
do so out of curiosity because the guide book says the architect
was famed for many other, even greater works than this fanstastic stone arrangement which marks a life forgotten now,
and where lie bones just as those
in a pauper's grave

YOU

Sometimes you're just too much and I wish we'd never met.
Sometimes I think I'd be
better off alone.
Sometimes the things you say
are broken glass and bramble thornes.
Sometimes the things you say
push me from behind, and then I fall
off my wall,
graze my knees,
bruise my mind
and feel dead inside.

Then you pick me up,
and make a balm to soothe the bruise and heal the graze.
The broken glass is swept away,
petals grow where thornes had been;
love pours in,
and I'm alive again.