As I gazed at the flames of the fire,
It rekindled a childhood vision;
Memories of a chill winter morn,
Wrapped in a blanket, I watched
A daily ritual unfold.
Cold, dead, grey ash was removed.
Wood, coal and paper then placed
With pious propriety. A sacrifice offered
Of one single match.
Drifts of dark smoke and crackles of wood
Nurtured cold coals into life.
The fire was fanned until roaring
With bright yellow licks that leapt up the flue.
A welcoming warmth would draw us together,
Working and playing in a radiant glow
Of orange incandescence.
In the evening we would always make toast
Before the dying embers were lost.
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 6:39 AM UTC
I have looked towards a million worlds tonight,
fearful that there might be more like ours,
where despair and anger rage and reign,
hiding between hollows and sea slapped shores.
Land lust.
Territorial.
Imperial.
From lizards to lesser beasts and higher mortals,
there is an extreme decadence in achieving life;
primordial slime where time is irrelevant
and chance, they say, defies the odds of a God.
Needs must
Territorial
Ethereal
Exploring to exploit and crudely anoint
another New World is the genome dynamic.
This surpasses mere survival and squats
with dictatorial ardour in the heart of our universe.
Feb 8, 2012
Feb 8, 2012 at 4:40 AM UTC
We are halted on the path
where a small amphibious mite
has sprung headlong into an unknown world,
its river home now out of sight.
Fingernail-size it shrinks on the path,
absorbing the colours of the gravelled ground
and somehow surviving
the rigours of walkers and riders around.
Its freedom now moves it from riverbank hollows
to find the instinctive role that it follows.
Cradled in cupped hands it is carried to water
but I explain its life lies elsewhere.
These precious moments shared with my daughter
are but part of the time which may see it grow
and spawn in the seasons yet to come,
while we witness a cycle that’s just begun.
Jul 19, 2011
Jul 19, 2011 at 9:54 PM UTC
The sun slides from the sleek red western sky
and the dew-damp evening air
dissolves the coloured confetti,
strewn like some abandoned paper chase
upon the ground.
The sound of the wedding
party flows from the function rooms,
where harmony grits its teeth against all odds.
Where will they be after those heaven sent
seven years?
The tears of happiness today
may turn in time and turning back is always all too late.
The froth, the tulle and tux must just be packed
away. This wedding day seems captive but need not be
kept in a cage.
It should be free to age like fine wine:
a marriage robust, fragrant, full-bodied and forever fruity.
To be sipped and savoured frequently
in memory of the love of that first
and finest taste.
Jul 19, 2011
Jul 19, 2011 at 9:49 PM UTC
Slack canvas bends with the first strokes:
brush and paint scar a waiting whiteness.
Others follow of less distinct pressure
but now with an affected swirl
a life emerges.
Colours are selected with random thoroughness,
outlining only what the eye believes it sees.
Shapes conform to break the rules and innovate,
where bright arrays can glide through blundered blobs:
ochre, umber, raw sienna.
Sable is saved for finer life forms
steadfastly fixed in oil.
Tentatively mixtures are blended
to blur the more familiar with
darker and darker hues.
The creator remains anonymous.
Jul 7, 2011
Jul 7, 2011 at 11:48 PM UTC
The wood chimes are clunking
with each sweep of breeze,
lending melody in this space.
This is where I dig,
dividing root from soil,
time from life, and us
from everybody else.
Squirrel scampers the border,
raising hackles and creating a
two-legged dog and mayhem.
This must be his habitat,
passed down through generations
until the brick and concrete conspired
to break the oak stronghold.
The view from the decking
throws itself through other gardens
to the far distant fast lane.
Noiseless here, with only
the high haunting whistle
of the slow circling
red kite.
Jul 7, 2011
Jul 7, 2011 at 11:46 PM UTC
This unkempt spread of damp, bedraggled lawn
Presents a sorry sight. And there, forlorn
In rotted heaps, the summer’s fruits decay,
While winter winds still strip the trees that sway
And scatter yet more leaves to sodden fields
Of mud and nettle. Each proud meadow yields
To colder days, and beaten tracks are churned,
Where baking summer sun had burned
The brittle grass and bracken. Gone the sound
Of insects. Idle stumps and logs are crowned
With moss and patterned lichen in the hush
Around this woodland scene: the brilliant blush
Of russet splendour (always all too brief)
And gilded floor of leaf on silent leaf.
Nov 15, 2010
Nov 15, 2010 at 5:09 AM UTC
autumn dawn
breaks once again across
this wide expanse of fields
on which the dewy mist hangs
heavy like each doubt that shields
my muddled mind: this kind of day
this kind of year in which these pangs
of fears will all be burned away as the
warmth of rising sunlight breathes new life into my soul and makes me feel reborn.
Sep 7, 2010
Sep 7, 2010 at 4:46 PM UTC
Coarse granite slabs split the earth
glinting at the fractured sunlight.
Sly winds whip and lash the grass and gorse;
disconsolate skies weep upon the land.
Rain rushes in to bloat the meagre streams,
and gulleys slash the sinewed clay.
Pulse and sluice. Erosion fashions
new forms of contoured legends.
Ragged crows snag the horizon
blasted and cursed. Little else
between the walls of weathered stones:
hand-laboured one on one.
The moor muscles its independence,
frowning at the low land,
bragging to the skies
its ancient splendour.
Aug 17, 2010
Aug 17, 2010 at 6:56 AM UTC
The night before was one of magic
Mystery and a moment in time,
When neither knew the where or why
For this affair.
Simple silence seduced them both
Then worthless words tumbled
As random as the clothes
Discarded without care.
Limbs entwined and body heat
Defined the pitch of lust
And dreadful desire
The two would share.
Morning mouthed no meaning.
Shame did not shown up
For breakfast and left
An empty chair.
Jul 25, 2010
Jul 25, 2010 at 10:23 AM UTC