Easy flow the waters
of the river passing by,

though we straighten them with walls
and narrow them in time,

and lace them up with bridges
to bind them where they lay,

still the waters, like a lifetime,
slip their bonds and pass away..

Down by the sea
where the marram grass grows
there's a ******* the beach
in a rusting boat
with a tablecloth sail
and it's rudder broke
and her eyes are an ocean wide..

This morning at daybreak
and half awake still
he bundled his memories
on to a stretcher
and carried them up atop
Cothelstone hill
and sorted them through
for the moment he met her;

the memories bandaged,
the ones with bruised limbs,
he laid on the heather
like hospital beds
but the one of their first kiss
he threw to the wind
and asked the wind's help
for to help him forget..

Blowing silence
like a bugle
to announce his dismay

he got set
to make a statement
without speaking for a day

but his mother
just assuming
he had nothing much to say

sent her silent
revolutionary
son outside to play;

outmaneuvered
in the kitchen
by his mother's disregard

for campaigns
of wild muteness,
the rebellion fell apart

to the sound
of scuffing shoes
and the grumble in his heart

'cause silent protest
tends to lose
when no-one's listening very hard..

She reaches on tip toe
through windows and tries
to take hold of the outside
and gather it in,

for to feel the wind
and the pull of the tides
on the shrinking inside
of a life growing thin..

Falling leaves hurry to gather
at one worn headstone after another
like a funeral party uncertain where
lies the lost loved one it grieves;;

Time and wind tug on the memory
left in this absent minded cemetery
no one comes visit but weather and me
and the dead lying under the trees

have stories nobody can read.