In Amsterdam in transit you have to pass security a second time  
(You do not belong here
     you do not belong)
Short of precious minutes I had the urgent answer to his question ready
‘My mother is in hospital’
He asked (have they been trained?)
Is she ok?

Time notwithstanding, keen not to let this opportunity slip by
of putting border policing in its rightful place
next to human suffering
I answered No.

She’s dying.

It worked.
He shifted in his seat and looked uncomfortable, a bit ashamed
The ground I’d occupied and thought was safe sloped suddenly away
(Don’t feel it.
     Do not let him in.)
Hairline cracks appearing everywhere I said
‘But no one lives forever, right?’

Uncertainty.
Dark hesitancy in his eyes.
The thought of what to lose a mother might
perhaps be like.
Not good.

I glimpsed then the significance of mother to a man.

And then I ran.

My mother’s nurse’s eyes :
two suns from another universe
I do not comprehend them

I think she likes my mother
How can it be so?
Her stubborn angry upset
Her absolute determination not to take her pills
Everything is upside down and back to front
her head is lower than her back
Yet still her backbone bristles

The taproot is long

My mothers nurse’s eyes
hit me like a truck
a shock
I think she likes us
I do not understand

This sad, difficult and grey-haired daughter
This confused and angry, crying mother
half the size she was
battling with her fate
The struggle pulses all around
the cord between our hearts pulses also
this unfathomable tender twine

Perhaps she noticed
perhaps she heard the twang
perhaps it’s what was singing, dancing
in her eyes
This unfathomable light
in spite of all

I know - now - the winters of your soul
how long, how cold
how your dog still barks plaintively
     for your return

Yet still you kept a pitcher at the gate to slake the thirst of travellers 
Your nightwatchman still tends his flame
The hearth lit
The table decked  
     for my return

And now at last
    - the all but very last -  
I have the measure of your pedestal
imprisoned there on high
any move would break you

But serendipity has granted me the key
I know the craft, I have the tools, I will not rest
until I have you.

Come gentle soul, come fiery soul, come soul of alabaster and of platinum
    It’s time.  
        Let’s sit.
You have this table so very richly laid
in welcome

You stole the gold
Your coins were counterfeit
It was no fair exchange.
To say the (very) least

Off with his head, they say.

Not the head but the tongue say I
Those golden words that promised all
delivered none

And so: The tongue

It is that time of mellow fruitfulness
when all your acts of care and love
not few and far between but clustered, sweet and pregnant
are ripened
to the point of no return
about to fall

Your tendrils did their youthful seeking
sensing and encircling
quickening the pace they grew a scaffolding for life
latching and attaching
to the people, places, pleasures that made sense
and held you up
so love and life could ripen

In turn, all the moments of encounter
with the vine of your being
The thing not said, the turn of your head
to the side
when privacy is kinder
Your phrases and asides
The way you never see the beauty
of your profile  
The way you even think it humdrum
     (How strange.
         How very very strange)
These moments of encounter hold me up

And so we wove the scaffolding, the tapestry
entendrilling each other
in the reach for life
savouring the moments
before the final fall
But what a view from here
What a view
from

here

When you splintered
shards of your glass lodged in me
I can still feel their contours

The heart is a muscle
Every beat has accommodated these sharp edges
At first it hurt so much
I thought I would die

Perhaps I did
Perhaps there is no one at home
but my lodger

I was ravenous
I thought the sea was bottomless and dark
I thought the deep went on forever
But now I know
Your soft green fingers grow
everywhere the light falls
And when you go to sleep forever
      as we all must
some while from now
      not yet not yet
these tendrils will intertwine with mine
and softly line the seabed
of my cavernous heart

If I write you a poem it will be too much
if I don't it won't be enough

If I give you something it will be too open
if I explain it will be too closed

If I mention strength and beauty you might run a mile
if I don't I won't have shared that inner smile
that might light your way a while

But if I name my dilemmas
you might see them as true
as true as I see you

Perhaps true
will do

I found a piece of China
said my son in his sleep
he was only little

Last night I found a piece of China too
under a Pisces new moon
I dropped into the cellar of my soul
under those dank dark vaults
I was surprised to find an ocean

It was all your doing

I thought my sorrow would drown us both
water lapping at the high Georgian ceiling
barely air to breathe
but you found those little orange armbands
and as the water started seeping under the old sash windows
past the poorly fitting door
into the streets below
you taught me how to swim

It is slow here
under the surface of a sunlit sea
seaweed swaying
and there on the bottom is my treasure chest at last
gold glowing
pearls trailing

If only I could show you
what then....

I do not know
the winters of your soul
or how your dog barks
at the end of a long night
on your return

I wish I did

I do not know what dawn looks like
to you
or if it has yet risen
The thin rays do not reach this far down
in the long grass

I only know
the beauty of the world under your gaze
and the weight of the crack that will form
when it goes

I'd like to get to know you
I'd like to gently knock upon your door and see who answers
I'd like to know if we are dancers you and I
I'd like to see us try because I'd like to get to know you

I'd like to get to know you in a different way
I'd like to take your hand and
I'd like to know your eyelashes against my lips
I'd like to know the contours of your hips
I'd like to trace those contours with my fingertips

I'd like to know the veins flowing up your arm
I'd like to cover the territory of your back with my palm
I'd like to get to know how you speak in your sleep
I'd like to know whether you look before you leap
I'd like to just drop down into the deep with you

I'd like to know the rhythms of your sea
I'd like to know how you might reach for me
I'd like to feel your eyes beyond my collar bone
I'd like to get to know what it's like for us to be alone together in a different way
I'd like to get to know your skin beyond the room we're in and be a capsule in your blood
not just sit here day by day and chew the cud

I mended an old nightshirt yesterday
white cotton, cuffs worn
frayed and torn
It came with me to hospital when you were born
fresh from its maker then too

It was such a shock
a complete surprise: you had my eyes
And a tiny heart attached to my soul
the midwife forgot that bit

For years it still held the scent
of newborn You
embalmed in a brand new being
your animal smell earthy and ancient
christening white cotton

They travel light cats
no one took much notice
tired from the week
the TV on
it's only a cat

Caged and wailing
a low strange hurt
an infant's cry
en route to his end
naked, covered in fur
that's all

A bag of food a litter tray
not much to his name
Plucked up and put down
in another home
where nothing remotely smells like Home
where nothing, nowhere, no-one's the same
or familiar
recognisable
known

Unmarked, unspecial
the departure of a cat
from all known
worlds

It didn't happen all at once
First they took my mother
I didn't feel it
she'd already left

Then they took my brother
That was harder

Then they took my land
First the mountains and crags
the elbows, the knees
then the branches and roots
the arms, the legs
all of it gone
just like that

Then came the invaders, the gropers, the raiders
they took the rest
maybe the best
How would I know?
I didn't even know it was there
I'd no time to take an inventory
I'd never seen the place

And so I became a floating head
dead
mid-air

It didn't happen all at once
But pray tell me how
rebellion
is not the right response

If you were a song
I would sing you

If you were a song you would be a lament
a hymn with a jaunty refrain
a ballad, an ode
a collection of sounds
truculent, tentative
terse
verse

If you were a song
you would follow the valleys
the lakes and the wooded glades
If you were a song
you would bounce off the clouds
and be whisked away
by a passing stray

If you were a song
you wouldn't need to make sense
you'd have pockets as deep as enough
and always have change to help with a fall
you'd always have pockets  
for chocolate

If you were a song you would smell like the earth
like the rain, like the whistling wind
If you were a song
you would howl like the moon
and run with the wolves
If you were a song
we'd be down by the lake
and you would be still
If you were a song I could hear you.

If you were a song
you'd be the crackle of flames
the sound of the crowd
the rustle of silk
If you were a song you'd be the echo of souls
If you were a song
they'd have cut out your tongue
and I'd have to sing for you
If you were a song
I would never stop singing

Now we have started there's no way back
no absence of sound
no way to refrain
The song and the singer must reach for the earth

If you were a song
I would sing you

It may not be safe
it may not be that one stone follows another
as night follows day
it may be that you lose your way
it may be you who slipped or tripped
and was caught in the cross fire
it may be that the bullet does not whizz past
it may be that the crack
is your back breaking
it may be your body shaking
it may have been you who was too tired to fight on

It may be that your mother does die
for the second time
it may be that you do care
that she's not there
it may be that your heart does break
that you can't take the ache

Not everyone comes out alive
it may be you who does not survive
it may be you who was lost in the blast
This moment
may have been your last

Have you ever asked
I asked them
each in turn
What she really, really wants ?

She turns with the wind
I hear them say
What she wants tomorrow she won't today
We're losing ground, we're losing score
we're not really sure
how it happened
She just moved in
now we're here to stay
She feels the cold
We thought we knew

We continue as normal
it's okay in its way
Arsenal's playing tomorrow
she's agreed to get Sky
and we're off to Dubai - Bruges, Paris, Texas
to rekindle this thing
just the two of us

We keep on going, it works in its way
almost there with the mortgage
the pressure is lesser
This year's bonus eases the onus
it'll pay for the annual ski trip

But it's like when you're ten and your shorts are too high
above the knee
and you know they'll see
blue-white thigh
What do you do?
Slit your wrists in a ditch or just carry on?
None of us knew
So you just carry on
You weather the weather

But I'm still not sure
If I wanted more
or whether it might
have been

different

My beautiful mother so warm so soft
my mother is off
I'm only a baby
I cry too much:
she's gone

We're on the quayside
I'm going away with my daddy and brother
she's tall I'm small
my baby brother is in her arms
she smiles at me
the baby cries
I'm a big girl now
I cry on the inside only

We're at the airport
she's tall, I'm taller
I'm off to study another life
we smile and wave:
Goodbye

I'm leaving again
now I'm holding the baby
she tries to smile but she misses my baby
she's crying inside
I smile and wave:
Goodbye

I'm leaving once more
she's frail and small
her bent and beautiful frame still bearing it all
she smiles
I cry though I still try
not to

An age-long leaving of those you love
where does it leave you?
It leaves you bereft
what meaning is left
for the tall or the small
what meaning is left
at all

A sunny summer day
white butterflies were dancing
we were playing in the park
Lene and me
We were more than four
less than ten
six perhaps
but even then
I never told my mummy

The man was kind of funny
it was a funny kind of picture
naked men and ladies in a great big ring
doing this thing
I see it even now
He had a light brown leather jacket and
orange ***** hair
he wanted us to touch him there
I see it clear as day
then we ran away
But I never told my mummy

Lene's mum and daddy made a great big fuss
They made my mummy hectic
and my dad called the police about the light brown leather jacket
I don't know what the fuss was
It was just the grown ups talking in their
funny kind of voices
They thought I couldn't hear
I wasn't really there

A sunny summer day
We were going on a day trip
Merete and me cycling to the sea
with her little sister
We were more than ten, less than teens
The sunlight was sparkling on the sea
We found the perfect spot and made our little nest
packing out our things and getting changed
But the changing kind of changed things
When we turned around there were
One two three
******* men
I was used to it by then but three in one go?
that's a lot you know

So we had no choice we had to pack it all together
and push our bikes back up the hill
It made me really cross
because of Merete's little sister
so I filled my water bottle in the sea before we left
I caught him by surprise
I snuck up behind the trees
I shook the water on his head
You're disgusting!
I said
Time stopped turning
My tummy stopped churning
I could see his eyes were sad
as he caught me by the wrist and said 'I know'

So
Here is how he bound me
That is all it takes
to take a child and bind her to your shame.
He shackled me forever to the knowledge that it wasn't him
it wasn't him to blame
There was something in him that he couldn't help
It must have been my body then
my horrid stupid body
I wasn't even pretty
If I could only get it off me
I want to tear it off
do you hear?
I'm screaming in disgust
I'm ripping it all off me
You think I asked for this?
You disgust me! I said to my stupid horrid body

For it just kept happening
one way or another
I wasn't even pretty
But I never told my mother
I never wanted her to know
It was too horrible for her
I didn't want to spread it
What's the use in that?
So I never told my mummy
At least I managed that
I never told my mummy.

At two he said
Baby can’t catch the rain and throw it back in the sky
At sixteen she said
You’re all form and no function
He said I love it when you mock me mum
It makes my day

I love you
he said
What does that mean she said
Exactly?
It means he said
I know you he said
And I like you
She laughed
Not all of you of course he said
But even the bits
I don’t like
I’d miss them if they weren’t there

Am I lonely?
she thought
If I am lonely she thought
it´s with the loneliness of a rowboat
ice fast on the shore
Made of wood
with a talent for burning

You.
she said
Yes.
I said
You’re like she said
Yes?
I said
You’re like a glass ornament she said
Yes
I said
Thank you for noticing I said
Thank you
for saying

Hammered
Happy
Raising a smile
Having a hoot
With four men to boot

Apologies, I'm out of change
Why should there always be a price to pay
for making hay
even
when the sun shines

Are the bees disappearing because they're so busy?
In the daily battle of everyday life
Missing in action:
busy bee
That's how you were lost to me
and I
I was lost at sea

Always things more important to do
than me and you
Always things more important to be
than with me
A house to hoover
precautions to take
tickets to book for the theatre


And lo, here we have come full circle
I have gone missing too

My children howl at the moon

I grant you
three overused words
can never do justice
to the way my heart depends
on the continued beating of yours

But why, **** you
could you not have gone hunting for rarer birds
taken a risk with words
Netted a guillemot. A tern, a crane
even a toucan
Written a second rate poem
if I can you can
Conjured forth that secure base
with a bedtime story
for your empress of penguins
your queen of hippopotamuses
your borrower girl

One day, even soon
that flock will have lifted
not to fly south, not to return
and there'll be no more lifting and swooping, no joy
in the swerve of a turn mid-air
no undertones, no attempts to colonise
no smiling eyes

I'll be standing alone under an empty sky
there'll be nothing to look at in wonder or borrow
or any asking why

Doing justice is what murmurations are for
how you've done them and more
You showed us the world and the joy of flying - and look
here I am trying to do it too
but three little starlings will do
A starling for each of your little darlings
Three overused words in a league of their own
I know it's beneath you but see I am
beneath you
I'm down here, just here, I'm no longer hiding
and red herrings are cheaper.

Red herrings are still only
two a'penny

On the fir-clad hill of my childhood
rocky outcrops grew where roses should
green with moss
lit by lichen

Solid ground tumbling steeply
Past the painted white shadows of a large wooden house
the silky feel of a best friend's hair
Past the shop now closed
where we bought milk and sweets
past the beer by the till with its ****** aroma
Past the station still quiet in dark before dawn
bundles of newspapers ready and waiting
Past the sharp fresh cold
then my soft warm bed
Past the lingering scent of soap and of newsprint
Past these sensuous delights

Past even the smoke of my first cigarette
how nauseating, how hard to inhale
how hard I still tried
for smoke rings

Past smooth warm stone gliding into the sea
phosphorescence glinting in silky depths

I still see the world from my cherry tree
a blue expanse of fjord and sky
my generous tree and I
its darkening buds kept their sweet scarlet promise

How steeply solid ground can tumble
barely stopping to catch the yellow leaves in fall
barely solid ground at all

You ask Am I lonely?
Not so.
But my waterlogged oars and my arms long for landfall,
for an old oak with a swing in its wing
rooted in rock and years,
for the sleeping quiet of snow-laden pines
anchored, tethered, still.

I accepted my charge with grace and resolve:
Uniting these distant shores.
I commandeered fleets, armadas even
of ships biscuits, canons and men
I made the journey again and again -
I travelled the earth for what it's worth
and repaid their investments a hundredfold
exchanging trinkets for gold.
But now I am almost old
and still I've not done as told
For a good anthropologist always goes native
The landmasses slip and slide
Setting foot on one shore makes the other recede,
widening the divide

So if I'm lonely it's only for want of a winch
explosives, groundwork,
iron

If I'm lost it's just the absence of feathers,
a flight of ideas, an arrow, a bow
a quill and the will
to use it​

If I'm surly it's purely for want of a fire
crackling with promise, a raging pyre
on which to cast
wet wood.

I know how it feels now
- Home

Hens pecking
sunlit earth
lazy shadows on familiar journeys
I know those hens
I know those walls
I know how slow Time can be
when shadows and light linger together
in smooth, warm stone

I know how Home feels before it is gone
before all this was undone
the ripping apart
the tearing asunder
the plunder
the going under
I know places where Home is not.

I know cold walls
unlit by shadow,
defiled by iron,
umbilical chains I cannot escape
the Others fading
the absence of hope
I know what it is to know they'll be shot
whilst I will be spared
because my body is young
and strong
I know what it is to be granted life
so as to work
for those I abhor, despise, detest
I know what it is to be breaking stones
to be breaking bones
for Them.
I know it can not be endured
I know.
And yet it is so.

Surprise me, you say
What next?

There is more.
I know what it is to be Not yet Done,
not even begun.

The strange misty calm of peace in a field
slowly descending as I know I lie dying
The ragged, fist-size hole in my chest
unexpectedly large (“where is my heart?”)
snagging,
stopping me
catching the wind
clutching my mind
bringing me back
I repel
I resist
I reject
I rebuff
I shall never be taken
I will never give in
I will not let go
I have not yet finished
I've not even begun
Rigor mortis is killing me, gripping me, stopping me breathing
I am suspended forever in my own dying clutches
Every fibre refusing to resign to Love
refusing to return to those above
My work is not done
not yet.

I shall never abandon what happened here
in this field and in all the others.
It shall not be forgotten
I shall never resign
I will not let this pass.

I know too the gentle roar of 'No More'
The rising tide, the tiger's wave
gathering pace, gathering force
lapping the feet of evil.
One by one they all dissolve
drawn down - drawn up - by the surging waters
There is only one wave
There is only one ocean
roll on wave
roll on
roll on

I know the tug of waterlogged oars
and a raft that outlived its purpose.
I know the place where hens peck the earth,
where shadow, sunshine and stone are as one
An alchemical blending of rage and peace
I know dancing columns of a thousand flies
a thousand miles high
lit up by the sun
I know how it feels
When it's done.

It's in your eyes again:
Fear
O Betrayal
You fear me.
I am too much.
Too strong, too deep, too wild for a child
For a feral child has to be wild
It's cold, there's a harsh wind blowing
and nothing to eat
but what you fight for.

Yes
This is what I am
what I had to become.
You made me.

Make no mistake: I'm proud
Domesticity no longer draws me
I know what to fight for and how.
So the look of fear in one who should hold me so dear
makes it all come true
I will annihilate you.
Die, you nobody, for you made this happen
Die, weakling
Die

I lost my land
a beautiful land it was
how the earth smells after rainfall
the ants in the forest

I lost my land
a beautiful land it was
trails of phosphoresence in the dark velvet sea
still bear the imprint of me

I lost my land
a beautiful land it was
I cannot name it
its sounds are too soft for here

I lost my land
I keep it in my head
in a place named secret
I keep it in the pockets of my heart
the left hand deepest part
I keep it in my eyeballs
always

I lost my land
a beautiful land it was
I was my land
my land was me

I lost my land - but then I found it
they kept it all this time in the lost and found
they kept in the borderlands
in cold town
they kept it with a view to both the old and the new
they kept it with such care

I lost my land - and then I found it
I found it down an avenue framed in autumn gold
amongst the hills of old
I found it safely homed
I found it on the landing
between two people
between two worlds

I was with child
I am still with child twentyone years on
But I worry so
I worry for you

I fear the world
My worry is as big and dark as the moon
    ( darker
        bigger )
What might this world do to you?
what will I possibly do if it does?
I am still with child
I have not the words
for something as dear as you are to me
    ( Please keep safe
         please keep safe )

But - strange circumstance -
last night I saw
you are in the world too
A world all at once so much less menacing
You and World
have somehow become one
And home is where the heart is

My little white dog stops worrying his bone
Looks up
Carries the bone to the old old tree
buries it by the roots
His bone is safe now
white and free

He will return
It is a snug place there
warm earth
warm bone
warm world
with you in it

Do not say a word. Do not explain
Do not make it better.
Do not apologise
Do not voice a sound.

Just write down what you did.
just write

You will write and I will scream
You will write while I scream
You will do as I say
You will just write.
I will provide the soundtrack.

I will scream
just scream
until I’m unable to scream any longer

Then I will be quiet and you can rest.

Then I will scream again
I will just scream
till I can no more
Then I will be quiet

Then I will scream
and so it will go on
That is how it will be.

You will not leave
You will not move
You will NOT touch me.
You will not say a word

I will scream and you will sit
You will not turn away
You will not move
You will not sleep
You will stay
There.
You will not leave.

This is my scream.
It is all that is left of me.

Hear it.