As I recall
we watched together,

turning off
the upstairs light

we huddled by our
landing window.

bundled
under burgundy

We stared across
the road, toward

that solitary
street lamp

both silenced,
by the wonder
of it all...



So when
the first flakes fall

I become that child,
once more,

my face behind
the curtain

forehead pressed
to freezing glass,

being careful
with the breathing..

living only
for the quiet snow



some part of me
expecting you
to be here

And I shall
flinch the brittle creature
from the rock face

proclamate,
proselytize,
with frightening
euphoria

to your glorious embrace,
I must comply,

perching
vulturine, delirious
impervious to pain

near that place
between excitement
and all possible regret

I will go by

looked
into the mirror

there was
nothing staring
back at me

could be
I'm free

could be
I'm free

Leaning more to
Winter now,

I set a silent
time aside

become a thing
crepuscular,

led in and out
of twilights.

This vintner's loss
of glass-blown height,

too intricate
to comprehend,

like promises
we occupy,

leads meaning
to an end.

As
if from
nowhere,

a dimple
of that far-off laughter

ripples through
the wavered spaces

fainter
than it used to be

indubitably
yours

In
our culture
of elusive truth

I
place
my faith
in doubt

And on this sluggard
mattress find me

slipping
from a cast
of frazzled intrigues...

A continental tiredness
has undermined
all frequency,
alleviated
monologues

and more...

Gone
overboard,
abating, freighting
ingots by the pocketful

To soothing leagues
of mazarine,

I

dolphin

down

invisible




While
off the prow
of Longships Road,

the morning wades in tall

A nascent scent of wet light glares,
cetacean skinned.

Invincible.

Light
is everywhere,

it is everything

mirroring off rock,
demolishing
ambit

cat pawed with downdraft,
blustered by gale
the channels scud havocs
of pyrite,

The sky, huge
an impossibility
of blue, defies
description

words are formed
tried and retired
tossed
on a blather
of gust,
unlistened.


A syrup of larks tongue,
-an ash of a song-,

Is all that is heard
on the day..

Is
not
these lines
just written,

nor
is it the
length of time
it took you
to consider them

Now,

is but
a slipstream,

a continuum
of reverb

a synonym
of echoes

in our vanishing
of space

When I met a girl
called Trixie

I knew
The World
was Godless

Her second name
was "Smith"

I had prayed
it would be

"Hobbitsies"

I
kept
dead flowers
in a vase

they
reminded me
of you

Rarely
can I make this
whole thing sober...

Historically
my tendencies repeat

The overbearing drudgery
not drug enough,
to satiate,
an Oppenheimer heart
diseased and dazed...

Descend/Ascend
to keep me keen and craving,

my acts of upshot mummery
beget the beg of cleansing

Unpack
the hounds that call me
by so many other names

Let them run
me down to sweet
disintegration

At the zenith
of sartorial sloppiness,
frittered loosely in my scruff,

I clobber,
combats, sneakers,
faux-fur coats and baggy t shirts
stuff that wraps me up,
and I'm OK..

You can keep
your first- world
judgement

see
I've always
been this way

part scarecrow, hermit,
vermin, pirate,

all at sea with
modern stylists.

                    

And by the circle of our
strange unwritten rules

for a season, once in twenty years,
I, somehow, become cool.

In the future
they may scrutinise
the age we mislaid wonder.
Evaluate the epoch
of our long-forgotten grace

Landfill
for the Burial Ground

Trolleys
for the River Gods

Spray cans
for the Painted cave,

and say,

"This,
is when they
lost their way"

Come the Hill
and contact notes
abound

arriving in their droves,
they'll sup the berry-blood
of hedgerows,
in the cheese-and-ale
mist that hove the woodlands
from their mooring

My love for this
remains undimmed,
if anything , intensified,
as in these clock-wise hands
I clutch,

both epilogue and origin..

..I'm
running
dry

stagnating
in these crude resides

too easily
this wind-farmed face
betrays my base emotions

As the alleyways incarcerate,

their nauseating politics
unqualify my
sympathetic
ear


Therefore..


If I appear
uninterested
its just
because


I am

A while to get the eye back in
reconstitute the faculty
for feeling without
touch

-the repetitious ritual
makes for cover on the open road-

A villainy of tree-lined habits
camouflage, dissimulate,
reject the townsmen fidget

and all must age inside the barrel,
thicken in its oaken recess

slivered for the minutes
of its instinct

The kirlian singe
of a kingfisher
wins me round ,

slaps me from
my prole malaise

his cobalt-button, blazing buckshot,
nervous surge of gaudy purpose,
willow- hurdled Catherine wheel
whirring ...

is something of the infinite
disposed in our positioning

both impish lairds of nook and fen
don hedge-smoke caps
of leafy tan

by coveting his oxygen,
I'm coming up
for air too quickly

bursting round
the cockling brook
of rain-sung river bends

Stop

       Writing


                     "Notes to self"

You

       attention-seeking

                     ******

Shingle shook,
these bookish handles
cove your head in herringbone,

It's sewn into
our standard-issue,

dangled under spinnaker

Here,
you and I
will come to terms
the terms of our endearment


a curvature of earthliness,
in miniature exemplified

the surfeit of our inadvertent
vertebrae declined
toward

the wave

Overcome
by strange remorse

the sun-dyed pomp
of plaintive hursts
immerse
my soul in colour

Saint Lawrence
sheds his vehement tears
the axis
of the year is shifted,

watched our Swifts
on their way out

the charging weeks
are done.

No such
thing as weeds,

only wilderness
where you don't want it..

We were only ever
moving through..


A transient
encounter pinked
in sprinkled serendipity

had synchronised
our step

and having met
before the bested peaks
of all that seemed unlikely
we stayed close.


Through
needless plays
of problematic metaphor,
we laughed and wept,
deplored enforced morality,
embraced a great unknown,

explored the cultic
sympathies, arrested
in our infancy
and swore an oath
eternal to the greenery
regrown..



..while knowing
well, the day will come
when one moves on
alone

Throw
me down
the ropes

I'll see it
that they're
put to purpose,

taking up
the slack, I'll choke
the life from all this nonsense,

Be sure
to leave a note

make it something
inappropriate,

on outcomes
and inconsequence

to show
we're killing time.

No wonder
ants have flown

a ***-full of this pitiful metropolis
has seen them blow
their savings on a thermal

made them dinner
for a ministry
of manic snapping mandibles
who,wheeling on the gables
of the capital amenities

cannot believe their luck..

reeling high in my eleven
is a one-stop- tuck- shop
no-*****- given

as I'm peeling
off the sitter
on a forklift truck

I feed the Bees.

the Bees feed me.

The house has gone

that box that grew me wrong
is now
the storage for another's lot

and may the crate be good to them

Let them bring
it love and further, turn
the pile into a home,
to fold the walls around themselves
be welcome in their sanctuary.

God knows
the place deserves it..

but open doors
and windows first,
to set the spirits free,

For I wish you not
the likes of mine
that cowered
in its secrecy

between extremes
the meaning leaves

a state that we abhor

to scheme a pretence
sense of peace,
it seems
we must have war

Seen
them change,

as I have done,

this pace
I cannot remedy

let the
the slow, insipid
disconnect, bring
something of
it's incidental
tenderness
to hand..

(run far enough
to understand that
days ahead are fewer
than those days played
out behind)


then
maybe I'll
design a way,
appropriate
a fantasy..


sat, watching
all arise and fade..

transforming
into poetry...

drank
too much
again last night,
bred fury
through the bars
and taverns...

fed,
the maddened
cannibal, on
vaticidal unions....


came around,
down early bells,
head, supercelled,
expedient..

could not
believe what lay
beneath the subways

of Jerusalem

I smile
because I
know what waits..

What fate befalls
the all of us..

our endings
growing closer
even now..


So, should I
then attend my
deeds, embroiled
in abject misery.....


or smile?

To She
who whet
the corven wing,
her skin pulled back
an open firth unraveling
her scarlet mood

the first
among the thirsting.

To Her
that swallowed whole,
the rye, the blade
that clipped the startled shoulder,
carpal deep in gleaming brine,
who shivered time a potent pleasure,

Garlanding
the golden hurt,
that life was
never hers..

Beholden to
a tethered ransom
rivered in her stars...

Landfall...

a progress
nipped by headwind,
though his bullish heart
has flickered clear of drowning,

so he's dusting down
Saharan surplus, hawking
off the sea-sick yachts,
ensconced in royal chiffon,

appealing for that magnet-tug
along the pollen flyways
pulling homeward..

and
I wonder
if he sees me,
-mid shipped twitter
post Johannesburg-

a gurning
plate of swan-necked
adulation, craning skyward

that I should pin
my yearnings to his
cloud-encrusted orbits
caws of folly..

more fanciful
than summer being
borne upon his wings...

Time again
to notice things

glad galaxies
of primrose from
the window of
a taxi going back
to where I started..

to seek
the sound umbilical,
Spring lintels
at the hinterland

symbolic
of a simple need

returned.

Good is the day
that takes me,
shakes me

sets me down
bedraggled

reeking of sky,
of apple-wood fire

paddled with passion
and grins..

Few candles
left for all of this

now comfort comes
in well thumbed books
and blankets..

A twist
of snowdrift hair
that tags you late
for thankless life,

released

a look-back
over years that taught

retreat


From
the cabin
of your fevered eye,
a love that passed you by
still shines,
impossible
in distant vistas

always
out of reach...

Ah,

You've pressed
me to confess,
so, yes,
I guess,
I want
my ****
served shaved,
dished up wet
and open, splayed
on beds of platform heels.

Got
love-to-feel
that sweet-meat dribble,
glazed and gasping,
leaking gruel, impatient
jellied-tremble bursting
spittle-clustered
clitoratti.

Feed
this greed
for lacquered nuzzle
lusting parted, finger drummers
busy down your gutted muzzle
animal intensity.

Gone
horrid-hot to
hit the sweet spot
lap that fatted crown besotted,
crush me to your sobbing lips,
when eeling on beyond minora..

Call your
gorgeous tensions in,
indulge this flagrant avarice,
unbuckle on this stubbled rim
of gorging suppled suckle..

Come!

Soak me
in your gabbled tantrum,
lather me in mosh-pit froth,
berate my deepened questioning
with everything you have...

Go!, ride
this wreck
of chinstrap madness,
****, this mess of upturned
tongue and grab this gin-trap
rapture with both hands..



All glory
be the dying kind,
who speak to creatures,
long denied, expand
the breadth of human
mind, with epic liberations...

Her innocence has depth

She is misinformation,
beyond her station
on the wrong train.

He is leaning to solitude
confused by the multitude
upset by the attitude
that someone's to blame.

          -------

In the transit of thinking
he takes her hand.
In the composite calm
she takes his confusion.

To commandeer
the common ground,
allusions to a moment found,
that stayed the course,
with hands still curled,

static in this spinning world

They paint their new horizon.

My Kingdom
is a builder,s yard.

A Bethlehem
of measurement
of plasterboard and timbering.
An interwoven sepulchre
of garrulous vernacular.

Expletive-laden badinage,
our handle of the hardstand
is the character of companies
I keep.

And unto these
my time is priced,
my soul is planed,
my name is signed...

but
in the dark
of winter evenings,
watching ancient planets rise,

I contemplate the other lives
another me, might live...

Dear Viennese Art School Tutors of the early 1900,s

If a highly strung young chap turns up
with a strange flick haircut, a dodgy
looking tache and laden with canvass,

Please dont tell him his paintings are
****, and that, perhaps he ought to try
and express himself via another medium.

Could save us all a spot of bother
in the long run.

Cheers

Signed:

well....er,.."Everyone"...actually.

Won us big
the ol  stank yard,

saw Maggie
over twice the shy..

Good girl
she was
and ever
will mean

nothing
to the lads
mind...

Glee to blade
all smart
an *******

gave, em glass
an brought em
gin, just

couldn't
stand
the rags
she danced
in....

left her
bounce
around the Elm

done well
my rigid
preacher
roots....

shone
my ol  boots
and
kept 'em
marching

frightened
fools
that we be
reaping

bringing out
the shift
and moving
on....

Disposable face-masks
make excellent hammocks
for Bohemian hamsters,

perfect for them to unwind,
while practicing their music
on those little hamster flutes

So, take it easy..
shin back and smoke out
those sunny afternoons
with the haunting
scuffle of hamster-jazz..

The exercise
was " Charity"

an essay on ,"That
which we hope
to receive".

I,
half-asleep
had misunderstood,

submitted a paper
on "Blow-jobs"...

Bet you that
the jet-stream brings,
the split ends of
old hurricanes,
pensions off
their stroppy baggage,
coughing up their
weeks of rain.

Feels wrong
without the cold

without Siskins,
without Redpolls...

...no outside chance
of white-winged gulls
appearing down
the bay...

brought no bell,
or call-to-arms,
no rush of Prussian
blood to head
the ball into an
empty net, no change
in current sea levels...

no harm befell
the coppiced shoots
of brutal resolutions,
proving atheist
relationships are
worth their weight
to any fool...

and
no-one but
the very best,
would deign
to chance a
second guess
of getting into heaven

on this first day
of the year.

That we
are even here,
in this strange
existence, is
incredible enough

but of our peculiarities,

consider love...


You see,
I'll wager
love needs more...

and,
despite knowledge
to the contrary,

when our time comes,

when all
that I have shunned
and scorned, comes
home to haunt...

I will convince

myself, some part
of us endures,

that we go on,

reformed...

When waving
to passengers
on passing trains,
I have observed
that a I elicit
a more favourable
response

when I remove
the clown mask and
put my clothes back on.

Tolled
one-rolled-bone away
from sweet inconsequence

thereby, the flicker
of an exit-sign, the
grand idea of life's
unlearning flirted

hinted
hands around
the throat of fate
were ultimately mine...

and to the
suitably anesthetized,
the rubbing clean
of canvasses,
the pulling down
of blinds,
appeared enthralling...

a cobbler's thumb
of fumbled ruse,
the blueprints
to a master-plan,
a calling card that
meant no other morning
after all...

Bowled
one-rolled-bone away
from all that greatness

an acolyte
invertebrate, upended
in some milky way,

the lateness
of my dragon-chasing
thawed all rude persuasion

reanimating appetites
in dubious remains.

Watched
you in white.
How you crossed your
sceptered body, glazing
ludicrous contortions

Supple-legged exaggerations
***-shod, patent platforms
towered, figure-hugged
and cut to high indecency...

Ah, the slow-cooked
incandescence, that you
struggle to contain....

though pay no mind
to likes of me,
a letching scrag
who yearns to see you

set yourself on fire....

Come mid -winter
they will wait

wait to hear
this lease of life,
call, frost-lipped
on the shortest watch...

To crystallize
the pent unmowed
with isolated vocals,
I draw breath...

address
the talling Solstice
as some celebrant
of picturesque...

I shape the names
of absent faces

warm against
December sky