We are out
For a walk.
We cross an old stoney bridge.
Low lying flat stones
Hold its history.
We look at the water,
Talking of fishing rights and such.
There, resting,
Over a foot long,
A Trout!
Brown as the bridge
That saves it from the current.
Hanging in the water.
Resting in liquid silver,
You lullaby us
Our fast streams mastered for now.

How can I not walk the twisty path,
Sit in chairs away from everyone
To read about poetry
and drink hot chocolate
When your beauty is at every corner?

How can I not grow and flourish,
Like the long shadows of the early morning
on the path in front of us,
When I am nourished at all turns?

How can I not feel lightness,
Like the soft white flour sieved by a cook
Into a competition winning cake,
Baked to perfection,
When you stir my worries into treasures.

How can I not love you,
When you brave
Unmanlyness
To show me your soul.

Unwanted Shelves


When I fall down, 

Orphaned between two safe places,

Don't throw me a rope.

Watch me fall through safe space gently,

So I come back full grown.


When I rant,

Frantic about loss and death,

Hold back, wait

Let me ask you straight

For what I need.


If I leave your home

Like a frantic infant,

Dont put up shelves for me.

Or a child, not a woman will move in.

When we feel incompatable
and I search my choices for the wrong one
I find none.

I have worries that buss around my head
like the wasps who were nesting in our roof.
There one day, gone the next.

We are masters of the rational.
When heart is gone,
lets see how you fit, how I fit
like peices in a jigsaw,
to make a better whole.

Crows call to Roosters over the cracked earth of the fields between them .

Why I only write when I'm half mad with fear of betrayal is a mystery.

But here I am writing and dragging a burnt metal wheel hub out of a garden fireplace to make a sculpture.

In the corner of the garden, in a tree
A squirrel feasts on cobnuts.
It throws half to the ground to rot.
Selects the best of plenty.

The tree is so big now that its pushing against our stone wall, they say.
Slowly, over time, displacing it.
Exchanging its soft Cotswold boundaries with trunk and bark.

We have fattened ourselves on contentment.
The leaner times come in it seems.
I fear I'll lose you and no matter how much I relentlessly reshape,
I can't be sure or certain.

I dream of plain planks in a nunnery cell.
Rough grey blankets against my skin. Feet on a concrete floor.
I'm turned inwards and outwards
Searching for harsh comfort to replace egyptian cotton sheets.

Heights of delarious brightness are gone.
Where there was flesh theres only bone.
All our cushions turned to stone.

I go to your garden to plant trees
A nice day sings itself into being.
As we welly-up
A woodpecker arrives
On wavey flight.
Gets busy on a rowan branch
Its smart black, red and white message
Stops us
Like a catchy short story.
Holds us softly
In a glue of wonder.

When I walk a beach with you
The sea comes to know us,
Holds us,
Sees that we are lovers,
And tells all Oceans.

When I walk a road with you
Love poems, gentle in the trees,
By a breeze
Carry to the clouds
And tell the Sky.

She's found him.
She is home.
All is well.

I am wrapped in sameness, love.
You often ask me the names for flowers and trees.
I like to take you arm.
We always welcome the breeze.

When you reach for me,
On a path walking past familiar fields,
Noticing small changes,
Different fences, more land planted,
Or walking to a silent meeting,
where we might chat gently
To others who we are coming to know better,
Our bodies know how they best fit together
So that we can continue to move forward.
Its like a dance we perfect all the time.
I half turn to face you
Your hands on my waist.

Sometimes there's a tweek,
A small change,
An action more fluid,
A feeling of acomplishment,
Like a word used in a different language,
when its learnt,
and ours to speak.

When nothings wrong,
I dont write well.
I try and fail to think of a word besides 'filters' to describe the light coming through the wisteria leaves.
Soak up the light-filled air of the early morning,
And call this a day of few words.