I climbed the lonely hill tonight
Hoping to glimpse the lighthouse flash
Across the dusk-enveloped headland

Swans appeared
Five swans on the wing
Flying low across the fields before me
Ghostly shades of what love could be
Their honking broke the stillness

I thought of you
Six hundred miles away in the Fens
Wondering if I should call you Felicity
And if the swans were sent from your heart

So that I might climb upon one
Fly through the night
Dream whilst awake.

Tonight, my loved one, the silence
Is like a seductive whisper
That lies here between our bodies
As we embrace by the fire

And let the warmth that it gives us
Be held in our hearts for all time
The way its light plays on our skin
And the love it shows in our eyes

The spark that started that fire
Ignited, my sweet, between us
It grew as twin flames in our thoughts
Which blazed as they came together

So now to gaze in that fire
And hold you and kiss your sweet hair
And watch the flames rise around us
Like flickering dancers of love.

About 30
she sits
On a wall
smoking

A good wall
Strong
A good ***
Soft

Behind her
the General Hospital
Shadows
the image

The scene
******
Through lack of
care

My mind has
painted her
Like a
Vettriano

Colour
Desire
Searing
Lust

The bus
arrives
She rides
away

My daydream
breaks
The image
endures

Quickly
my thoughts
Scribble
a poem

Inadequate
tribute
To a girl
On a wall

By tidal trance
I watched her dance
She skipped among the stones

Her agile grace
Brought smile to face
Before I toddled home.

He boarded the train
A human wreck
Bleak Sunday morning
At Chester station

The morning after
The night before
Self inflicted terror
Of the most reckless kind

Barely functioning
She offered him kindness
His perfect dream
A bubblegum blonde

'Your dead proper gorgeous'
He sure didn't feel it
Where was she
Twelve hours ago

A cocktail of sickness
Headache and hell
Meets panacea of perfume
Hoop earrings and paint

Now years have long past
The pain well forgotten
Yet still I remember
My Manchester girl.

An English rose
found within
the Caithness landscape.

Beauty and fragrance
in a land
both harsh and true

Raised in the green
of Hampshire's England
then blown north.

Like petals on
a summer zephyr
to land upon my heart.

Waves roll across the bay
losing themselves on a beach

Clouds fly through the sky
vanishing into the horizon

Summer's petals fall
to the ground that receives them


Yet our love, that lives
in sea, air and soil

Is constant.

Let your words flow
Out across your page
Vivid pictures
Enriched with style

Heart confessed
Emotions shared
Art made real
Received by me
Thankful follower

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.

In the rain we met
On a Sunday too
A day for promenading
With a girl round Hyde Park

From nowhere you sprang
You appeared before me
Fresh faced - like the sun
Peeping through the rain clouds

Your pretty features - blonde hair
What - nineteen?
Too good for me
Yet you chose to stay

And you smiled as we walked
Laughing through the rain
As we shared my umbrella
And listened to the racists

And the Marxists,the athiests
Even the preachers too
And those who did announce
'That the end is nigh'

Your eyes sparkled
With the mirth and joy of it
To the world did we appear
Like another couple in love?

Perhaps - but then
I let you slip - I had to
And you joined the crowds on Oxford Street
And I chose to stay

With the Marxists in Hyde Park
In the rain
My love owned by another
On that Sunday afternoon.

I see her barefoot on the sand
she gazes out to sea
The breeze touches her hair
Her eyes fix on the surf

She is at peace
With the sea

Above the waves there is motion
coloured forms are alive
Butterflies, dancing with the life
of a future unlived.

She is at peace
With the butterflies

The butterflies reflect her moods
Sky blue with hope
Scarlet red with love
Rich green with Earth

She is at peace
With the Earth

Before me she transforms
into a meadow of wildflowers
That sing of 60's peace
on a quiet Friday afternoon

She is at peace
With the afternoon

My mind briefly imagines her
Below Caziel's mural
Absorbing a culture of hope
That lives within her heart

She is at peace
With her heart

And then I see her turn
the sunlight plays briefly on her face
She retraces her steps into town
leaving footprints in the sand

She is at peace
With herself.

I think I saw
what she saw.
The tide turning by the rocks,
the sea calm in its meeting with the shingle

I think I heard
what she heard.
The millenia witnessed by the rocks,
the children's footsteps crunching down the shingle

I think I knew
what she did not know
That her hair shone, her face was beautiful
as the swallows gathered for depart

and the rocks reflected her serenity.

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.

The landscape of home
'neath blanket of crisp, clean frost
Keeping warm the heart.

Yes, I can think
Therefore, I am
I can know my being
And you can choose to love me

I am thirty
That was the age
Or thereabouts at least
When Roquentin understood

I'm glad he did
He did me good
Through all his suffering
He made it all much clearer

To understand
My existence
The purpose of my life
My responsibility

For I am free
To love or not
And I love you my friend
As I try to give essence

To this my life
Here upon earth
And try to comprehend
The concept of being free

This place chooses
not to ignore the sea
that gifted its soft sand
upon which footsteps wander

As the waves pound the rocks
the sound colours the voices
of the old Norse raiders
whose longships challenged the surf

While I think of those
who like winter's Goldeneye
make of this place a home
marrying it to their heart

Yes, this place chooses
not to ignore the sea
for it is a breathing artform
sculpted by her hand.

The Fox River flows
like a river of nothingness
Through my mind in the light
and my life in the dark

So many places like this
where I never have been
Exist in the world
outwith my experience

A bridge crosses over
the flowing waters
As endless as time
that I cannot tie down

On the library steps
beneath an Illinois sky
A woman gazes out
absorbing the scene

Where I do not feature
except in the mind
Testing conciousness
and the meaning of life.

That one! No this one!
It's fancier, smoother
Pebbles
Pressed in to the soft hands of mothers
Then in turn to the pockets of fathers
Eventually
To sit on yellowing window sills
Where no one is sure from which beach they came
Only sharing between them a distant warm feeling
Revealed by the ebbing tide.

I wished
that you could've seen her
As I did that morning
on Llandudno pier

Working in the arcade
A real '**** and ***'
Yet entirely in accord
with the Victorian elegance

I returned next day
but she was not there
Had the ebb tide
carried her away?

In my mind the memory
remained like the sand
Untouched by the tide
and I gave thanks for that.

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.

By the door
Of the social club
We take in the evening
Together - Alone

Yellow
The light
That colours
The vision

My confidence flows
Drowning my shyness
I smile, make jokes
Basically - flirt

Orange
The hue
That colours
The scene

If I make you smile
Hold your eye
I taste the moment
Sense - Completion

Green
The life
That colours
The picture

Stunning and beautiful
Flicking your hair
A roman candle
Burning - Alive

Pink
The desire
That colours
The mind

Deeply I breathe
Imagining the moment
I kiss your lips
Together - One

Red
The danger
That colours
This poem.

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

Smashing and surging
Pounding the rocks below me
Thief of sailors souls.

In the shade of the sails
We heard a bird's song
Bring joy to a morning
With notes short and long

Perched high on the branches
Quite close to the path
Felicity saw him
And started to laugh

At red-breasted mischief
In England's fair land
As I began cupping
Her *** in my hand

So as robin sang out
We started to kiss
I groping the **** of
This prim English miss

'Cross the straw-stubble fields
My mind saw her run
I chasing, then throwing
Her down in the sun

Behind us the windmill
Above her, her frock
Bare thighs and hard *******
Poor robin in shock!

We came
to Hull

As the Humber flowed
muddy with our romance

By the Docks without trawlers
We laughed
and we loved

Praying forever.

There must be a full moon
Tonight
The clouds beyond the streetlights
Seem illuminated by something

I hope that it lives:

Like a diamond ring
On Bassenthwaite Lake

And a worn wedding band
On the heather-clad fells

Praying that it guides:

A homeward bound drunk
Safe
         Safe
                  Safe
To his wife.

Through dark rainy streets
I run
Searching for a man whose face
Seems carved from flint

Years of knowledge
Have etched his face
A Scottish face
Of rugged landscape

I feel the cold
Seep in to my bones
Tonight I need
Someone who understands

He enters the room
Where he is well received
Orders a pint
Stands by the fire

By the overpass I stop
It’s raining hard now
Below me the motorway
Pounds with traffic

Soon he has company
A genial man
Just in time
For the second half

The motorway calls me
I climb onto the parapet
One last leap
And the rain would stop

The warm flames glow
Casting shadows in his features
His wit flows freely
Girls notice his eyes

The wind picks up
My blood runs cold
A cowardly end
To a miserable life

Another dram
Before you go
He’s been here two hours
The life and soul

For a second on the wind
I hear my mother
I climb down from the bridge
Wet to the bone

Gordie smiles
As I enter the bar
He hands me a drink
‘Your dry now son’

I stood in view of Helvellyn
on a summer afternoon
Marvelling at the majesty
of this English landscape

As young hikers lay
amongst the ancient stones
Performing ancient rites
they thought they'd invented

I thought of the poets
of life and the world
Remembered Lovehearts words
and drank in the air.

They'd said she was dead
but she served me just now
In the Royal Mail sorting office
up on Green Road

Fished out the river
was how they all had her
On a dark, wet Sunday
and I thought of the girl

Who twenty years before
sat beside me in Tech. Drawing
Who I didn't fancy
but liked all the same

Double periods
On Tuesday mornings
In that concrete box
that wasted our time

She served me just now
in the Royal Mail sorting office
She's cheated death
We're not ready to die.

Deep in my eyes
I see you look
And I smile for I know
That you can feel my love

For your eyes shine
In an instant
As we pass, through our gaze
Our feelings for each other

So come sweet love
Lie here with me
Let me in some way try
To reassure your fair heart

That you are not
Alone again
For you are here with me
And that cannot be changed

For love shall be
Ever constant
A force of such power
That no-one can break it down

For in the grasp
Of both our hands
Are gentle, kind, sweet times
Where we will hold each other

Ever more close
Ever more dear
Ever more everything
Tell me now lover, it's true?

Here in the dark

Often will I

Listen to crazy notes

Crazy, jazz-filled notes, that can



Move my mind

Stir my soul

As they work their magic

Through the ending of the day



And do you hear

That music too

Is it in someway shared

How I'd love those notes to speak



To you and I

Both together

Holding each other close

In sweet surrender to love



And as I see

In my minds eye

The dazzling, shining, bright

Reflections of brass, I feel



That we are both

Caught in a whirl

As crazy as these notes

That fill the air with sound



And as the tune

Plays on and on

So too I hope will ours

A never ending jazz piece



Written for us

In its own style

And boldly played some day

So the whole wide world can hear



About the love

Between us both

That's crazy and heartfelt

As are all these jazz-filled notes.

Light burning brightly
Protecting wandering loves
Shining through the night

Lamp for a northern landscape
Expel darkness from my heart.

You ask me lover
What's the point
Can't you see
That there's not one

Yet at the same time
One exists
Yes - perhaps
The greatest point of all

It's because I can
That is why
And want to
So one day - I will

No, not to spite you
That's not me
You know that
C'mon now listen

Who cares what science
Says of sound
This object
Could alter my world

If I possesed it
Lily Allen
On Vinyl
A big, round L.P

A true work of art
Lilys' art
Existing beyond its form
I can hear it now!

Every note pressed
Perfectly
Filling the air
With its captured sound

Yet I can hear you argue
Making a scene
Missing the point
Trying to persuade me

That C.D's better
Clearer sound
More modern too
But that's never it

For years I've wanted
That record
I'd watch it
Go round and around

Yet for years I've chosen
Not to buy
But to deny
Myself the pleasure

Often I have thought
I'll buy it
Sit and watch
Its nothingness go

But I loved all that
Nothingness
Simple fact
That I did not own it

But now soon I will
Hold it here
Commited
Its nothingness gone

And I will play it
Night and day
Until you see
It's because we can.





"Say what you say, Do what you do. Feel what you feel, As long as it's real" Lily Allen



"That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free: condemned, because he did not create himself, yet nonetheless free, because once cast into the world, he is responsible for everything he does." Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism

She doesn't care, Felicity
Which side of the M25 she was born
But I do as the rain
Hammers down the asphalt

The poetry of the concrete collar
Exit ramps, overheads,benzene
Subtly turns me on
As she removes her high heels

'London Orbital' she slowly mouths
while lighting another cigarette
It has three 'O's
Not unlike myself

I watch her from behind the wheel
The motorway's pulse fills the space
Between us and the world
As we wait for the night.

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.

Searching here once more
For what may or may not be
Love seems lost tonight.

Searching here once more
For what may or may not be
Love seems lost tonight.

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

As the rain
Hammers
The sand
Of the shore

I see her walk
Felicity
Legs brown
With summer

Her long dark hair
Hangs heavy
As she casts a rock
Into Neptune's jaws

Into the surf
I dive
To retrieve
This rock

To hold it
As a last
Memory
Of her.

Silence filled the room
For he could not find
The words, to describe
Her beauty

She smiled so sweetly
That he longed to hold
Her tender body
Against his own

So when her hand
Fell upon his shoulder
His heart moved
For he'd felt her love.

Like teenagers in a bedroom
We giggle
As the record player
Spins

Ashes to ashes

Felicity lies sprawled
On the couch
In her pinkest bra
And *******

Funk to funky

One black stiletto
Is on the floor
The other freely
Swings from her toes

We know Major Tom’s..

She exhales the smoke
I drain the bottle
In my head, once more
The colours explode

A ******

The room holds
The unmistakeable sweet smell
Of ***
Two days of ***

Strung out in heaven’s…

Her eyes glaze over
I hate pink and yellow
She spits
Oh, and light blue

..High

I hate you, I lie
Then we ****
With anger, savage
As she has mocked the colours

Hitting an all-time..

The record player sticks
Stilettos and bottles
Litter the floor
Slowly I withdraw

..Low

Psychedelic swirls
Twisting and turning my mind
Tell me who I am.

Your face - it's so beautiful
Yet I cannot bear to look
For I fear that I may see
In it, my own reflection

I ask you - please, turn away
I beg of you - just do it
My minds consumed by terror
A nightmare lies between us

You're asking me - I know it
To share our lives together
Have you never read the quote
Yes -  l'enfer, c'est les autres

Don't you know that I'll fail you
I'll see your disappointment
And then your eyes will harden
I'll suffer for your judgement

So go on take your beauty
Beauty that I cannot face
For I fear that I may see
In you, my own reflection.


"So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the 'burning marl.' Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is - other people!"           Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit.

Felicity is
Sand to the beach
Warmth to the sun
Light to the stars

A stream of my conciousness
I saw her once
In a girls self portrait
So real - surreal

She wore a beige scarf
As I'd never imagined
Her hair was dark
Yet at times she's blonde

Like light through a prism
She dazzles and changes
Form and colour flow freely
Yet my mind can hold her

Tonight she seems near
My thoughts touch her
An abstracted image
That flows through my pen

These are the moments
Parallel to reality
A happier place
An altered condition

Multi dimensional
She's my Lowry's 'Ann'
And tonight I am wrapped
In Felicity's arms

When she leaves me
I know she'll return
And I'll practice the ways
To call out her name.

Felicity
extends her left arm
While casually yet carefully
examining the lit tip

Last cigarette
The fountains babble
and Martini glasses gather
like harbingers of doom

She's in a mood
As this year now draws
to its' inevitable close
Yet sheer beauty radiates

Out from in her
She draws attention
Knowing I think of another
by now at Canary Wharf

I fetch more drinks
A couple embrace
Kiss in what strikes me here tonight
as most illicit somehow

Illicit, yes
and us complicit
But secrets come too easily
in all my interactions

Felicities
Much more beautiful
with moonlight on their naked skin
than they appeared in the dark

Abstractedly
I touch her shoulder
As I touched in fertile summer
the fleshy, tender belly

Of another
Who did not love me
and was never Felicity
like this well-dressed girl tonight

So shall the next
as yet unlived year
bring more of this challenge
Imposters and intruders

To inner peace
Agents of discord
****** and killing a dreamscape
of a love that is settled

Felicity
Her eyes follow me
with cigarette between pink lips
that at midnight will speak truth.

'He's still here!'
The Facebook message reads
'Who?' I ask
'The guy I pulled last night'

Well, I think, watching the storm clouds
They say the New Year brings hope

She at least needs that.

A night of rain
with everyone talking about it
And I mean everyone
for it's hammering down

As they fill the hall
for the evening performance
Planned for outside
I take the stage

I and the others
Sweating below lights
And as my eye wanders
I see a forgotten face

There in the rows smiling back
I too quickly smile
Let it be known that I've seen
Then begin to wonder

What fills the mind?
Behind that smile
If I only knew
I'd forget the rain.

It sat there and began to leach
out on the beach.
It's spent 'black gold'
brought death so cold
to what poor bird it's plumage found
would well as drowned
as die so slow
what way to go
for something made by God's kind hand.
Now on the sand
an empty shell
and taste of hell.

Monday morning murk,
rush-hour standstill.
Faces.
Solemn miles of traffic.
Dacia Duster, Qashqai Two.
Works Traffic Merging Ahead.
Cones.
Toppled idols
of the new religion.

The rain lashed tar of Monday morning rush
A Midlands sky of cloudy faces set
In silent fury at this urban crush
Of octane dreams propelled and fuelled with debt
Dacia Duster, works traffic only
Concrete, concrete, concrete, exit ahead
Lane closes in four hundred yards. Lonely
A cone lies knocked over, crucified, dead
Oldbury Viaduct, M5, repairs
Queuing likely, expect delays. Fiat
JC07 GOD... we sat
Unmoving like that for hours, hours
Staring at the railings hung with flowers.

'Inspired' during an Easter time visit.