Steam escapes the surface
Of infant mince pies.
It spirals upwards, dancing
Into the winter haze
Where headlights, opaquely visible,
Fight the fog.

The mist flurries atop the frozen pond,
Over brittle leaves, half caught.
The deer nuzzles in frosty thickets,
Searching the winter veil
For stray nut.

‘neath the tap my hands endure
The bitter cold of winter’s water;
But happily I return to my window,
And cast a gaze once more on winter Britain.
The fire leaves a smoky essence,
A homely smell.
December come.

Footprints so carelessly left in the sand:
So varied, haphazard, yet one common band.

The confidant jogger, the beach-combing wren,
The legions of desperate women and men,
Each of them leaves behind wet indentations
For those so inclined to survey and relate them.
How heavy the footsteps of those bearing burdens,
While almost an outline from those sans diversions.

These footprints so often abandoned are strange,
For they effect any who come into range.
How so many strive to make some path go noticed,
When often the same ones leave marks out of focus.
Ghosts of the efforts of steps left behind,
Yet lost to the ages, anonymous finds.

But one thing unites all the grainy debris:
These footprints will be swallowed up the sea.

The thing I most look forward to, is looking back with you
how we did the things we talk about, and of the things we’re gonna do

Remembering a time, when goodnight turned off different lights
and spending time together, meant wasting time on flights

When the years we’ve spent together, are more than those we spent apart
when the best years of our lives are now, and not just about to start

When this poem's a  distant memory, just a record of the past
of how we found our soul mates, finally, at last.

Today I found our tree
in a field by the road
I hadn’t been this way before
just got diverted cos it snowed

Its trunk is old and twisted
with its branches stretched out wide
and as snow falls all around it
neath its canopy I hide

I never pictured it in winter
always in summer, maybe fall
you and I would sit beneath
answering the poets call

We’d write about each other
sharing emotions from our past
a play performed by strangers
an imaginary cast

But as this winter storm embraces
a foot of snow falls maybe two
the only that’s missing here
my dearest love is you.

We add a lot of things to ourselves
A lot of weight
A lot of baggage
Emotional stress
Physical limitations
They can help to weigh us down
Adding more as we go along
We can start to feel
Like the weight just keeps bearing down
We can even start to feel
Like the world is bearing down on our shoulders
But slowly and surely we can begin to remove the weights
Lifting yourself and lifting others as well
Living in harmony with yourself
Understanding that your are here
That you are human
And we all have our own weight to bear
It's what you decide to do with it
That truly defines you

You know the truth

Already in your heart

Intuition

Has all answers

From the start

As roses

Don't ask how

They just bloom

Upon the bough

Be still

And truth unfolds

Within your heart



Copyright Louis Brown

When finally the end arrives
will it be a blessed release
will the turmoil of this life we live
be at last replaced by peace
Will I say goodbye with dignity
slipping slowly from the light
or will I be gripped by panic
from holding on too tight
I hope I have the courage
that I can show to those who care
so they remember me as being calm
passing in peace, not in despair.
There's so much I have left to do
so much more I have to say
when finally the end arrives
please let it not be today.

We were not part of your war
but just trying to live our life
myself and my two sons
my daughter and my wife

But that didn't seem to matter
when the bombs and missiles fell
Men, women and children
friends and family blown to hell

At least I'm not haunted by the visions
of my daughter torn in two
or the sound of the explosions
that beat my sons both black and blue

And every night I don't close my eyes
and hear the sound of my wife's voice
as she calls to warn my daughter
and then cries out to my boys

For I too was buried in that shallow grave
No words were said, none made a fuss
but when the poppys fall in the Albert Hall
tell me who'll remember us?