Like fresh spring daffodil
Bursting through frozen ground
You appeared by my side
In the summer of '11

On a rainy afternoon
As we listened to the Marxists
And those who merely warned
The end was near at hand

You asked me for the shelter
Of my newly bought umbrella
I absorbed your pale blonde hair
And eyes of powder blue

An Imam raved and ranted
You must have been nineteen
I struggled with my conscience
Every time you smiled

If the end then truly came
As the speakers said it would
I'd have kissed you on the spot
My luck was not that strong

So I watched you walk away
Despite an implied offer
Turned to face the Marxists
Left my heart with you.

I do not know you
Yet - I dream
At night I see your face
In the pale moon

As I walk the streets
The town feels cold
I feel your hand
Give warmth to mine

By the Manchester Ship Canal
I picture our meeting
The smile on your lips
Lust in my eyes

A kiss below the streetlamp
A ***** in the underpass
You look at the bridge
I look at your face

The train pulls in
I wake from my daydream
You alight at the station
I drown in my guilt.

Summer zephyrs cool
Ice-creams held in children’s hands
Melting shapes and forms

A seaside girl
I met her
Down on the Prom
It was out of season

Her hair was the colour
Of miles of sand
That lay like a blanket
Along the coast

Behind us the arcades
Pumped out their noise
As she looked in my eyes
I heard her beauty

A woman now
By no means a girl
I couldn't but help
Picture her - nineteen

Then as if
She'd read my mind
She told me of summers
When the crowds had come

Behind us the Sky Tower
Stood like a parent
Proudly watching her children
Paddle in the surf

She pointed to where
The Pavilion had stood
In the distance wind turbines
Stood strangely still

I used to watch
Your children play
Down on the sands
Such beautiful kids

I smiled and nodded
Her eyes were blue
Like the distant mountains
Out to the west

And then a sadness
Crossed her face
On the horizons the turbines
Began to turn

I long for my youth
I wore a bikini
I took her hands
The rain began to cry

Then as quick
She disappeared
Into the air
That now seemed colder

Who she was
I still can't tell
My mind has named her
Sunny Rhyl

Dark towering forms
With strength of millennia
Weak against our love

Little black mini
Six inch high heels
Pink lipstick, perfume
Spray-on fake tan

Yet behind the lovely vision
The person I plainly see
Made in God's image
To love and be loved by me.

Felicity has eyes
Of every hue
One is amber
The other blue

I call her mine
Perhaps she is
Mine once more
No longer his

Felicity is my day-dream
One and every girl
I watch her of an evening
Pirouette and twirl

She reaches to the stars
Exists within my galaxy
Planetary girl
Born in deep down fantasy

Tonight my mind abstracts
All that's real is lost
Felicity takes my hand
The void comes at a cost

As we drift in space
We two drift as one
Turn our back on earth
Yielding to the sun.

Not since Marilyn
Was perfection embodied
In so full a form.

Let me hear your voice
I dream of you and I
Let me see your smile
You fill my every hour

A scene my mind has painted
Laid out upon my page
Long I have desired
Everything you embody
Never ending dream, never ending girl.

I am nothing but
a pebble.
Cast up upon the beach
that is your life

My hard edges rounded
by storms long past
Whose fury was lost
upon this shore

Now still wet - I glisten
in the early morning sun
As the tide ebbs away
revealing your truth

When the sea returns
racing in across the sand
We two will lie together
Safe in Neptune's bed.

Rain dries up my tears
Sun drenches my hopes and loves
I'm lost in the storm

Light burning brightly
Protecting wandering loves
Shining through the night

Lamp for a northern landscape
Expel darkness from my heart.

Shadow cast up
Upon the wall
A gift from the moonlight
Made precious through your loving

Dead of the night
The silent time
A gift from the darkness
Made special through your presence

Dawn breaking through
New day begun
A gift from the daylight
Made together in our dream.

Does your heart reach out?
With empty longing inside
Searching a soul-mate

Let me make you understand
My love could fill up that void.

In the mornings I would walk

Along the shore-line

Whistling ‘Sous les Ponts de Paris’

It was there that I would see her


To me the skies were blue

To her grey

Lifeless and grey like the ocean

A desert the colour of steel


Often she would stop

Collect a shell

Studying this thing

Thrown up by the surf


Then she would toss it

Into the desert

Returning it back home

Wondering at its existence


Often I longed to run up

To stop her

To ask her if she’d mind

My company for a bit







But I never did do that

I left her

To what? – succumb

Victim to a preying world


I saw her once

Not her

Captured in a self portrait

So beautiful – so young



There her scarf was beige

On the beach – red

Once it streamed in the wind

Like the tail of a young boy’s kite


Now she is gone

I still walk the shore

I read about her passing in the paper

I still whistle ‘Sous les Ponts de Paris’


A child skips down to the sand

He takes her place

His kite soars upwards

Its tail is beige.

Dark forms against sky
Cut the air with their black wings
Breaking my silence

They fly above the river
That in days gone by brought hope.

Flowery mind
Raining down on my eyes
Searching in the earth
For the seeds of my soul

A concrete jungle
Chemical life-source
Last chance saloon
For love and ***

Graffiti covered morals
An urban code
Values permeated
With corporate vice

Clouds shifting
Uncover the moon
Still searching the soul
In this city wasteland

The greyest of skies
Follows darkest night
By the surging sea
A birds call carries

Mournful and plaintive
Alone in sadness
It tears at my heart
Sharing in its loss

Waves smash at the shore
Releasing that which,
They've shared for so long
Life - that I'd die for

Rain sweeps in across
The bays wild foaming
Stinging at my eyes
Displacing the gull

Forcing me at last
To face what's the truth
That life shades in dark
And we are alone.

As I stood there
On a Monday morning
In the quiet peace
Of Highgate Cemetery

I thought of Lily
Lily with the long dark hair
That flows through my mind
From time to time

How could it be?
I thought to myself
That here before Marx's tomb
I should think of her

The answer was simple
Marx was a great thinker
But Lily
Is London's flower.