You were like a black & white movie
that I played over & over but backwards

She found herself in moments,
in the cracks between the pavement,

staring at her moonlit reflection,
twisting the time left to her to perfection,

aged thirty & counting
clouds passing above,

she kissed a couple of frogs
one of them, a Mr Prince Jnr

20 years older, who she hoped
would leave her a fortune

instead, he left her out on the street
smashed up, in the soup kitchen she moaned

about his new, younger lover
getting angrier with every hit

then aimed a shiny gun
at him to prove her point but missed

one day a preacher came along
that showed her the error of her ways

' Come to him, our Lord, child' he said
& she did. People heard her sing gospel out in the street.

It turned out she had quite a voice
& this sweet gift did not go unnoticed

now she's a rich singer of great repute
a happy end you can't refute

Apples & plums high on their boughs
autumn is not far off now

nearby, red brick houses
sleep in the after-shower sun

only a few more days
& summer's done

the cyclists are speeding
on their way from work

along the Bristol-Bath cycle path
also ' railway path' called

& with a three year old laugh
a child in an anorak unsteadily sways

I've walked this way in the night
with the moon shining up above

& seen a fox run out in plain sight
into the middle of the path

the street lamps either side
amongst the trees, shining on it's red fur

& in the early morning light
watched a mysterious toad blink it's wide eyes

& walked it all the way
to Bristol town & back

& also to the old Steam trains
out past Warmley

dressed in my old boots
waiting for the sunset & the dark

calling up ghosts
musing on Rousseau

listening to birdsong
& wanting nothing more

An egg, boiled fresh
a matryeshka doll watches
                                                     somewhere the last train
                                                     makes it's way down the tracks
past the lakes
& the reticent pine trees

                                                          ­            the street lamps
                                                           ­           shine wearily

                                                        ­                                        & again, the rain
                                                            ­                         is starting up once more
she reads Kurt Tucholsky
' Schloss Gripsholm' with a dictionary

                                                     ­                     writing down his odd words  
                                                                ­       daintily as if they were glass,  
not to be handled
except lightly                                                          ­          the city holds her
                                                             ­                              like a child

Up on Church Hill
I think of my love
& Tennyson, long gone
Up on Church Hill

Up on Church Hill
I look out at Steep Holm
and then at Clevedon pier
Up on Church hill

Up on Church Hill
the last swallows are soaring,
last summer days calling
Up on Church Hill

Up on Church Hill
by the poets’ walk
I sit as it gets dark
Up on Church Hill

Up on Church Hill
I shall leave my heart
& then depart
Old Church Hill

for him a.k.a Rembrandt, a fellow poet & love of my life-

I think of you in the conservatory
of the Little Harp Inn, on the seafront
is this where you came too
is this the place you meant
in your poems when you spoke
in them of  the ‘ glass tearooms’?
a ginger waiter brings a couple
their tea. Outside, a thunderstorm is raging
suddenly, there sounds a cry:
‘’ Look, the roof is leaking!’’
& bright lightning again splits the sky
just like love, striking
Everyone laughs in wonder
& an old lady walks by in pink
outside, without an umbrella
in this, Clevedon in the summer

( for Virginia Woolf)

Light & dark collide
her life is a palimpsest
of butterfly memories
of twisted ills & happiness
viewed through a pin hole
captured in black & white
The Lighthouse still stands
in St Ives where it always was
where she used to go as a child
she writes “ Mrs Dalloway”
& eats conference pears
Occasionally she hears the birds
singing in Greek as they fly by
Death, which will claim her is always waiting.