"So, gentlemen," begins the chair
"Our star property is developing.
She's past the stage of 'Girl Next Door' charm,
and we need to know
how to sell her new album.
Suggestions?"  A silence.

"I know," says one, "she's very keen
on stage and theatre.
Perhaps a Shakespearean theme?"
There are murmurs,
but little enthusiasm.
Another pipes up.
"I understand she has an interest in ecology.
Could we be thinking nature?  Conservation?"
"I think not," says the chair, "though the subtexts
in her songs are clear.  No,
we're missing something obvious.
There HAS to be a way."

Chins are rubbed,
heads scratched.  Ideas rejected thick and fast -
Literature?  No.
Politics?  No.
One points out her skill as a painter,
but it is felt that art can be rather subjective.

At last, one young turk
slowly pushes his chair back,
the light of inspiration on his keen young face.
All eyes turn to him in anticipation
as he slowly stands,
spreading smile and spreading hands.

"I've GOT it!" he cries.
"Why don't we market her as a galloping *****?"

The board room collapses
in ecstatic applause,
and the young man seals his fate
as the label's next creative director.

No tribal scarring marks your face
no cinder walk or thorn-pierced tongue
to prove you are no longer young
but fit to take your rightful place

Your generation never fought
And you have wished that you could see
the selfless, brave camaraderie
of which you were so often taught

Alas for you to fetch ashore
when we had lost our appetite
for making children go and fight
and briefly grieved, and said "No more!"

Condemning you, unreconciled,
to shed no blood, as real men should;
to feel that life is mostly good
Oh foolish knave!  Oh hopeless child!

And saddled with this gross mistake
your quiet kindness gently spread
and harmless fascinations fed
and left no corpses in their wake

To think we looked to one unmanned
as children, hungry for a clue
of what it's right for men to do,
led, blind,  by your unbloodied hand

Sought thoughts from one who could not brag
of marching forth to suicide
for waxed moustaches' sense of pride
Nor bleeding dry beneath a flag

But you had naught to tell us, save
that life is hopeful and sublime
and we should use this precious time
And I'll be grateful to the grave.

I have come to understand things
in a rational way.
Even love, that endless mystery,
can be broken down
into respect, reliance, trust and patience
With ample evidence available
for each category.

But a blast
from your long-ago eyes
destroys the shelves,
smashes the glass cases
and smothers the labels
in cryptic Pagan pictograms

I have no words,
only a feeling
warm and welcome
that something remains
forever, unexplained.

It's fifteen years
since I let Jack fall.
I am unforgiven
by a wife who wasn't there,
who didn't see what happened
and who will never understand.

And nor will I, of course.
That slow-motion slip
from crested cliff to vanishing
replays before my desperate eyes
each night,
and each night I am as frozen
as on that wretched day.
A harmless walk gone awry
and a family forever shattered.

He was within my reach.
Another day I would have caught him,
effortlessly.
Another day I would have walked cliffside,
keeping him to the thrift-speckled verge,
soft and safe.
Another day we would have walked a woodland trail instead.

I don't know why that day
was the day I was distracted,
the day my reflex failed me.
I don't know why my brain misfired,
conscious enough to watch in horror
but not to propel me forward.
Sometimes we catch the cup as it topples,
sometimes we watch it spill to the floor.
Moments of blissful skill
followed by moments of dumb helplessness.

It was no cup that fell that day.

To her, though, there is no general flaw.
There is no explanation in biology,
no hormone or synapse to be blamed.
There is only me.  Her husband.
Jack's father.

There are no two sides to my coin, now.
There is only the man who let him fall.
She stays: she is dutiful.
But I could catch every falling cup,
remember to lock every door,
make never another mistake,
and he will still be dead
because his father was a careless man.

Ten years before Jack fell,
I,
a cautious man, untutored in love,
saw a beautiful girl
and inexplicably threw caution to the wind.
Another day I would have turned aside.
Another day I would have stammered my invitation,
lost my nerve.
But for that mysterious moment
There would have been no Jack,
and we would never have experienced
a limitless, all consuming love
which all the pain in the universe
can never staunch
or dim.

Victoria Falls
with all its mighty battering roar
was merely background noise
as I wondered what Camilla was thinking of me.

Machu Picchu from the sun-gate at dawn?
I was distracted by Helen,
and whether she'd keep in touch
when she returned to Britain.

Debbie eclipsed the solar eclipse -
The outback rolling into premature darkness
spectacular, sure
but nothing to what she was doing to my heart.


But you and I
feel the simple Scottish lawn
beneath our four feet
together, complete.

I am not wracked by doubts:
I am enlivened,
enthralled
and awakened by them.

In long
September light
Knocktinkle viewpoint draws
elastic shadows over rocks
and minds

Buzzard
like a hyphen,
a golden-feathered pause
between these eyes and everything
they see

I have
no thoughts up here.
They stayed below, waiting
while I saw sunset stripe the hills
with gold

This land
tells tales to those
who have not lost the tongue
But I, a stranger, look with love
and guess

A glen
where witches danced
and weary hunters trod
tonight rolls peaceful down towards
the sea.