Don't approach a dog unknown to you
Holding out your hand, making eye contact
You may frighten him
Let him come to you

Don't write a poem uninspired
It won't work out
In good time
Let it come to you

Don't go out there seeking love
Like a child with a butterfly net
Live your life
Let it come to you

Smoke lifts slowly from the stack
sideways drifting now

Leaves begin to gently quiver
weather vane swings round

Flags begin to faintly flutter
boughs and branches move around

Umbrellas flipping inside out
wires howling now

People shout above the din
avoid the rolling over bin

Walkers leaning clutching coats
trees blocking roads

Autogiro flying tiles
fences lean and sway

People hurry on their way
to shelter from the hurricane

I should converse more with my son
stop him recede wider from me
should lose no time to hold him strong
we haven’t exchanged much recently.

Our morning tea must find me a way
to draw him to talk and look at my eyes
seize I must some time every day
so I succeed after a few failed tries.

Our dinner shouldn’t pass silently dull
but spiced with jokes and diary of the day
must break laughter the hardening lull
and ensure on the table a longer stay.

I should converse more with my son
grab all the time could be together
days are shorter and crying to be gone
but the bond we leave must be worth a treasure.

When winter melts
footprints of mud, this path
now a screen of green
I cannot see, lost I listen for
calling words, the haunt of forest birds
cry, they call before the storm
deep a swell of rain pours
that wild, brings another Spring
mossy soft this budding floor
mist and petrichor that waft
attract, they meld and melt
sweet into the soul

I like old glass
with bubbles

Pockets of breath
of the dead laid to rest

I break and I breathe and I taste

Their spices
and vices

Kisses from wives
Curses and verses

Songs of themselves
Wine of their wrath

Salt from their baths

Smoke from their fires
Sweet tastes of desire

Shared sighs and cries
Dead butterflies

Air.

It only takes one bullet to **** a king
But you can't **** a dream

The talk is talked
And the walk is walked today

It's a shame the bridge is named
for a hood who wore a hood

The good General turned grand
in the land and time of dragons

that feasted on Sundays
and still would
if we let them

Or maybe not

Maybe it's a fitting reminder
A bridge to a kinder
gentler place

Because we're better than that now
Aren't we

new light comes early -
low and uncertain
- cold and unsurely

slowly

winter is waning -
fading her darkness
away

- begins a new day.

play me an air
   a bluebird lament
something meant for the breathing
  to remember

  all i want to hear
is a soft melody
  sad as the winter
still on the wind

     let your bow waltz
on the strings of my heart
     let the sound
  of your fiddle
set sail

play me an air
   like the bluebird did
     while i dance
  with the snow
in my hair.

The mist swirls around us
thickening deep.

wrapped shadows lost in thought
drink one after another earthenpot
dream on imagined wings
puff unseen smokerings
pierce the fox-dark night
in tobacco spark light
voice in stupored half sleep
debt and hardship
despite clayburnt toil
on the redrock soil
the treacherous seed
growing never to need.

The night looms wearily old
when the last man walks away.

My tea tastes bitter bottom cold.

Our world is screaming,
Cover our ears,
But eyes are open
To the turbulent reds
Swirling the sky.
We pose,
Some in rockers
With wry smiles,
Holding pitchforks,
Looking Gothic,
Harvesting potatoes,
Filling pockets.
We dance across
Impressionistic canvases
Framed by our art.
In the corner
Of my city
Waits an active asylum.
Put a jacket on,
Scream,
Things are
Coming undone.

home in the mirror
appearing nearer

but i'm not driving
or even trying
to turn around

i'm burning down

bridges behind me
all I can see

over my shoulder
looking for closure

the colder and closer
i get to the sea.