A ball of the softest gold
Fills up an evening sky
A time when man and woman
Can ask each other why

Emotions are unfettered
There is such scant control
When the heart does yield them
They soon begin to roll

In a way that can't be stopped
By either one involved
If you know why this happens
The puzzle can be solved.

At Gordon Hill
I climbed aboard
A lazy day
For being bored

Enfield sweltered
Beneath the sun
Then I saw her
She looked like fun

Her torn blue jeans
Showed sun-brown thigh
As Hertfordshire
Slipped quickly by

An English miss
Of that no doubt
My usual type
Is short and stout

But on that train
Just her and I
Her slender form
Did keep my eye

Both Welwyn bound
A summer's day
I fantasised
Us in the hay

That kept the shade
Of her fair hair
They put her there
For me to stare

A poster girl
She was you see
On British Rail's
Class Three One Three.

Across heather, peat, grey North Sea - the sun
Witnessed through eyes that give sleep to the hand
Attempts war with the clouds yet still not done
Driving the showers beyond the headland
Many miles distant from this hilltop view
Where the megaliths and cairns of grey stone
Lie moss-covered - now visited by few
Other than those whose blood, life, soul and bone
Were interred here in millennia past
So that I before a cathedral sky
A solar fireball can see at last
God-like rise up, burst out and shine through. Why?
  Draw near to me now and this burning sphere
  My hands on your *******, you can feel it here.

Just like a harbour
Filled with an incoming tide
Your love swells my heart

The clock has moved on
from the hours that it kept
When, below it I would wait
to meet again your smile

The time it has shown
with hands and face
Has left your hands still kind
Your face still beautiful

As I dip my fingers
into the cool fountain below
I remember those evenings
flicking water where you sat

Watching the people
passing through Stevenage Town Square
Passing through their lives
as ours lay out before

Then years of marriage
with no need to wait
Yet often I would sit
and imagine you arrive

But the clock has ticked on
and now you are gone
Yet I feel you still
in the fountains cool water.

Darling, your words
Dance in the air
Like tiny thistle seeds
Caught in a summer zephyr

I did not think
I'd ever hear
You say, 'I Love You So'
Oh how those words move me now

To return them
Sincerely too
As a bond between us
A bond that never will break.

Your face - so young
So beautiful to me
It catches my eye
Seducing me to return

To see it - to know it
Yet I don't know 'you'
I have never met you
Perhaps I never will

Your pretty left eye - Its pretty left eye
Your dark hair - Its dark hair
How that eye holds me
With its gaze averted

Your scarf - of biege
So tenderly wrapped
I can feel its warmth
Yet I've never touched it

Your portrait - a masterpiece
Yet it is not 'you'
We must face that fact together
As exhibitionist and ******

It's not paper - it's not paint
For when I leave this room
I'll ever still see 'it'
Not paper, paint or you

It exists - you exist
I exist also
You created the portrait
But what created me?

I turn - I leave
With one last look I think
I do not know her, but she
Should be proud of what she's done.


An early poem I thought I'd lost!

Thurso sparkles
in late afteroon sun
With colours gifted
through light refracted
by an abstract prism

By Caziel's mural,
a teenage girl smokes
and dispels a towns cares.

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

How your soft hair
Plays in my hand
As love, we sit tonight
Here by a roaring fire

The room is quiet
And so are we
For words have no place here
Where feelings reign supremely

I touch your cheek
It feels so soft
As soft as all the love
That grows in my heart for you

I take your arm
And draw you close
To gently kiss your ear
And whisper there my longing

For you alone
My chosen one
The one whose hair I touch
And the one whose soul I love.

The M6 is slow southbound north of Lymm.
Queuing likely Junctions 4 through to 3.
Accident on the slip-road at Strensham
South. Rubberneckers slowing just to see.
Busy clockwise on the M25.
Overturned tanker - now down to one lane.
Rush-hour traffic, best avoid the drive.
M62 heavy westbound again.
Ongoing road works on the A1 (M).
High sided vehicles avoid the Forth
Bridge. Reports of a breakdown just come in
For those leaving the M5 heading north.........
  Felicity comes, I turn off the dial
  The traffic has cleared - if just for a while.

Felicity blinks in the bright sunlight
Stepping off the train at Waterloo. Night,
Our time, seems gifted with hours too few.

Still, her mind is set on loving. She would
Even throw her arms around a tree. Should
She see 'neath it's bark rings of what could be.

Quarter to four
Last minutes of the shift
Feet on the desk
Trying to read Larkin

'Days'
Quite relevant really
But the words dance
Upon the page

Across the desk
A teenage girl
Bangs on about her ****
Larkin is lost.

Let our love flow
Like two burns
Who find their confluence
Within the heart

Then run
Like a mighty river
Tumbling over the rocks
Marrying in the still pools

Finding the sea.

I stood there quietly - without a sound
With thoughts of things I deem profound
Like Socialism's methods fair
And Lily Allen's long dark hair

Selling herself short
To those who will never pay
Sunday morning hate

Dawn's pool of new light
Flooding over fields of frost
Frozen world of time

Of all the gifts on Scotland's hills
The primrose is most fair
It stops the hiker in their tracks
And keeps them there to stare

At its kind form and beauty soft
I love it I confide
As deep among the heather blooms
It almost seems to hide

Like a young maid who may not know
That beauty's come her way
While others see her prettiness
And long with her to stay

So if you see that yellow bloom
When summer comes around
You'll know it is a precious thing
On Scotland's hills you've found.

How could it be
I now wondered
That here in winters depth
My thoughts could turn to spring-time

I'll tell you, love
How it could be
For it were thoughts of you
Alone among the flowers

There in the warmth
Gift of the sun
That gives the flowers life
As your love gives life to me

Which is fairer?
I dared to guess
Well lover, it is you
More fragrant than those flowers

That fill my mind
As if I see
Them floating on the breeze
Like dancing Red Admirals

So as you work
In the meadow
When spring-time comes again
I pray that your thoughts will turn

To what will be
With you and I
In the spring-time of love
Now sown within the meadow.