You are so ready to help others
Escape their dark labyrinths,
Only to be abandoned
On a lonely island,
Where you wait
To fall into the arms
Of yet another drunken sot.

Daughter of a cruel king,
High Priestess
Caressed by sacred snakes,
You gave all this away
To follow a man
Who promised you everything,
Then used you heartlessly.
Now another approaches,
Will he give you what you want?

No! You must recover your lost snakes,
Your mysteries and power,
Begin to believe again
In your sacred rites,
Re-build your temple
On your solitary island.
It may seem bleak,
But it is yours.
Do not give it away yet again.

Have you ever tried to sail
against the tides?

Heeled into the stiff wind,
with the jib straining,
the rigging humming,
the bow cleaving the waves
and spray cascading over the fore-deck,
you seem to be making great headway.

But a glance back to the shore
confirms the truth.

Something about that island
you are trying to leave
seems to be holding your ship
in its thrall,
as if an invisible rope
stretches back to the shore.

But it is not the island's gods
preventing your escape.

It is nothing more than the tides.
You have started your voyage
at the wrong time.
You must give up this vain attempt,
furl your sails, drop your anchor,
and go below.

You must sit this out
and wait for the tide to turn.

When you said the awful words,
What I thought was real,
That beautiful sky
Which seemed to stretch away forever
Into distant poetic and dreamy landscapes,
Began to crack,
And the Abyss,
The dreaded pit of nothingness,
Broke open with a terrifying shriek,
And as it gaped
A wind rose up,
And all that was beautiful,
All that was joyful,
All that was lovely to the soul
And delightful to the eye,
Was swept into the hellish maw
Leaving only dark despair behind.

When you said the awful words,
What I thought was real
Was revealed as nothing
But a beautifully painted surface
Covering the too grim truth
Of emptiness.

If only,

I could find a crack in that canvas,

Pry it apart

Peer through,

And see the other painting

I know must be there,

The painting that has to be more real

Than the one in the gallery,

The one you painted,

That deft piece of forgery,

The painting that everyone passes by.



If only

I could find a crack

In that canvas

On which you painted my portrait,

Maybe someone would stop and take notice.

The danger of writing...

allow a single word

to appear on your blank screen

and it will call up its associates, 

many of which will not be your friends, 

and like mobsters, 

may take you on a journey 

you would rather not be having. 



The danger of writing...

especially at certain times,

times of vulnerability,

when a particular  image,

like this image that now confronts my mind 

- that of an empty double seat overlooking a river -
might evoke a provocative word.



I know where this is going...



Do not allow a single word to appear! 


Keep staring bleakly 
at the empty screen.



But the word appears

on the screen of my mind,

impossible to avoid

at five o’clock in the afternoon,

the winter sun descending, 

the biting edge of cold dusk

settling into my soul.



Emptiness... 

Life passing relentlessly, 

second by second,

a river that never stops. 



The curse of consciousness... 

its inescapable loneliness. 



The river...

painful past to the left, 

anxious future to the right, 

the present 
moment
drowning in its cold swirling waters.



The emptiness of another evening

of another empty day...

the comfort of a drink, 

and then another. 



Mindless chattering of TV voices...

voices of ghosts, 

illusions,

disconnected 
from the warmth of a body.



The warmth of a body...

the empty double seat. 



A passing car...

silence.



The cat... 

padding across bare floorboards

wanting food.



Wanting...

the empty double seat, 

needing the warmth of a couple. 



Needs...

harshly exposed, 

like a line of naked corpses 

waiting on dissecting tables.



Longing...

for a woman to sit beside me, 

to contemplate a shared river. 



The empty double seat...


The river flowing away
as relentlessly
 as a poem of desolation

started by a single word.

Our books are mingled,
Hers and mine,
Messed up
Between each other,
Some never opened,
Their pages still pristine,
Some dog-eared and *****.

My biography of Plath,
My Byron,
My poetry and art,
Are hard to find
Between her ****** fictions
And coffee-table tabloids
In lurid colours.

Her crimes and her romances,
Lying evidence
Pushed hurriedly
Out of sight
Between the covers,
On which is inscribed
The name of the one
She nominates
To take the rap,
As if 'She'
Had never authored anything.

And these left
Lying around the house
For me to pick up
And put back
In the same place.

One day I'll bin the lot!

On a windswept beach
Someone has been tied to a stake,
Abandoned to the sea and the elements.

His eyes are squinting
Against the harsh light.

He has been stripped naked
And his skin is burnt and raw.

His lashings are biting into his flesh
As his body is battered by the ocean winds.

Scourged by flying sand and salt,
Every gale blows something of him away.

Every day, there is less of him...
Soon, there will be nothing left
But the stake and a tattered skeleton.