The cup gleams gold in the light
Golden liquid overflowing
Round bowl on a slender stem.
On the table beside it are apples.
Red, yellow, glowing,
Globed sunlight bursting with juice.
Outside in the meadow, the cows
Brown and white, gentle eyed, lowing,
As the calf pushes and pulls on the ****,
Staggers a little and suckles.
Warm milk for the jug.
A blue and white bowl holds the cream.
Blue and white is the sky above
Brown and deep the buzzing of bees
Making the foxgloves bend and bow
Under the coolness of trees
Where the earth holds the richness of leaves
And the bones of the ancestors rest
In the land of the ever blessed.

impatient for your arms again i rise
to sit and watch your secret sleeping eyes
what dream is this that keeps you lingering there
with smiling parted lips and tender sighs

what joy in sleep fills your so captured heart
while i wait here alone, to watch apart
and gaze upon your much loved gentle face
more lovely than a work of perfect art

i wander in the garden late at night
to gather perfumed roses, pink and white,
while I my patient lovers vigil keep
to bring your morning wonder and delight

the dark, the stars, the moon are gone away
across your sleepy pillow sunbeams play
in this new world refreshed, renewed, be mine
awaken to another golden day

I saw a space empty at the top of the elevator.
I will get everything that I deserve,
no power can stop that from happening.

This whole life will end in the blink of an eye
will come to an end in the snap of a moment
Why be troubled. Just wake up!
You are already surrendered
Finished! Do not question that even once.
Do not demand. This is the law of Nature.

When a river flows, quickly or slowly
dry leaves, twigs and branches falls into it.
We get caught up in things.

Diamond and charcoal are so similar.
Our skin is like a mosquito net.

Was this a pleasant dream or a nightmare.
If you have a dream cake,
you need a dream knife to cut it.

Best to eat it all before you go.
Dine on a dream.

The Miner, Absolom
(a haibun)


green hill where sheep graze
white bones and coal, buried, held
seasons all the same
  
My grandfather worked in the mines from age thirteen to seventy. His life was closed in by mountains, the green one at the back, the dark looming one at the front and the pit head along the valley., winding the men in and out of the shaft, day after day, dawn until dusk when they came home singing  

boots ring on the road
deep valley voices echo
backyard starlit smoke

.
They worked on their bellies or crouched, often in water for days, water that undermines rock. Shaft collapses where frequent. Life was cheap. He came home covered in coal dust to his wife and two sons, sons he was determined to keep out of the mines. Yet he loved that coal - coal that he always polished with care before lighting a fire, brushing dust off black diamond surfaces.

water breaks through rock
with wood and straining shoulders
man becomes the beam

He saved twenty lives that day, men he had known from boyhood. When his lungs were affected they laid him off, no pay, no pension, no life. He bought an insurance book with the money he had and every day he trudged over the mountains and valleys gathering pennies that would help to secure some livelihood to the widows who lost their men in the mines. He never told his wife that when a family couldn't pay he put the pennies in for them rather than leave them unprotected.

winter, summer, fall
the mountain hangs over all
tired to the backbone

When the mines were nationalised my grandfather went straight back to the coal face despite his age. He wasn't going to miss those days of glory. Safety was suddenly the watchword and changes were made very fast. Hot showers were installed at the pit head and the miners came home clean at last.

men stripped to the skin
hot water, steam, baptised
brothers singing hymns

it's out there somewhere, hovering
at the edge of my mind as i turn
it's out there somewhere, that haunting
form, a musical note, a flute

it's out there somewhere, in the glide
of a kestrels wing above the moors
it's out there, somewhere it's waiting
just beyond my reach, in light

it's out there somewhere calling me
persistent, it pulls me, always
out to the hills, the woods, out there
somewhere on the blue horizon

it's out there somewhere, I call out
asking it to come for me now
it's out there somewhere, answering
follow me, move, get up, come, walk

it's out there, somewhere inside me
in every dream and whispered sign,
footfalls to follow, blown open doors
i live with it, out there somewhere

i knew it all so clearly once
high on a rock strewn windswept Tor
i saw it spread out across the land
a flying shadow, a glow, a gleam

i heard it in the forest close
tracking my every cautious step
smiling behind my back, laughing
it's out there somewhere, i saw

it's out there somewhere, I know
i smelled that scent of old, ancient,
it's out there somewhere, primordial
lobe, in the depths of memory

it's out there somewhere, alive

******* the Tube

through hot walls  
echoes of balconies,
city of hushed shimmering steps
flying limbs, jumping, crashing,
a ***** animal noise in the haze,
imagined necks,
stretched out and glistening,
metallic clatterings,
misplaced booms and magnolia,
floating bicycles, no air,
impersonal muffled faces,
hearts, feet, sharpness,
meaningless cheap *** hotels,
sweating relief on the stairs
under the river

i saw a girl
with the eyes of endless clear days,
a stranger,
the curve of a rose,  
she stood, awake
by a door painted blue,
plain and complete

she must be new here

i was walking around
in the Tate
on the Thames Embankment
London that day
it was hot hot hot
the heat haze
shimmered
above the river
like the sweat
that rose off my back
i saw you
all mixed up
with Picasso's
misplaced eyes
in Malaga blue
long necks,
curved limbs askew
morning balconies
the sculpture of a goat
made of a basket
***** ram
with a bicycle seat
we weren't allowed to ride
i kept thinking
of painted naked flesh
Velasquez, Degas, Matisse
and flying to Malaga,
Barcelona, Granada,
Paris, Venice, New York
all the cities we could **** in
over and over and over
if we ran off
together right then
any cheap hotel room
with a bed
and a shower
would do
we could give up
on looking at art
completely
screaming
meaningless
poems
words
endless
passiona­te
words
consumed
by life

A Question of Numbers

In one year we travel four billion miles around the Sun
Without even stirring a limb.
We dream fifteen thousand dreams,
Remembering almost none,
How significant those that we do.

In a lifetime we may see nine hundred New Moons
Twenty-five thousand Sunsets,
Twenty-five thousand Dawns.
How many do we really see?
How significant those that we do.

How many times might my love smile at me?
How many times will we kiss?
How many dreams can we make come true
Before time flees and is gone?
How significant those that we do.

If I thought I'd be gone tomorrow
What would I say and do?
Nothing significant.

The light comes and goes across the earth;
A clock hand that sweeps us away.

Butterflies, unaware

See Me

there’s always the sad fiction of not wanting
whatever it is one needs, but let’s just say
we miss our opportunities for lack of bravery
fearing rejections, we turn our faces away

misinterpreted words and glances
cast shadows over the day
when wishful love draws forth a sigh
boredom is all you hear

the moment passes us by
words spoken with an open heart
are only heard as a trap
hopes and dreams fall apart

this is my want, my need
my wish, my desire, my dream
look into my eyes, see me clearly
see what I am, not what I seem

At least three times a week
Thumps, bangs, a loud crash,
Doors slamming, metallic echoes,
Bumps, thuds, sharp edges, smash
I hear shouting, muffled, no words,
His voice booms and beats against the walls.

Hushed stillness after, as i wait to hear him slam out
Clattering feet on the stair to the street
Airless, exhausted relief as they fade.
Everything echoes in empty impersonal corridors
Magnolia walls, polished floors, plain blank doors.
The room behind one containing locked fear and silence.

I sense it there
Hear it breath through the walls
It enters my room, far more than the noise
A pounding, held in fear
So loud that it keeps me awake
As I listen, long after.

Next morning, so aware of silence,
When I hear a sound near my door
I jump, as alert as a hunted animal.
I hear her heart clench
So linked to this stranger by sounds
Though I have never imagined her face