Running amok black bellies of hail-clouds
divest their hard cargo
on near-ready harvest and thunder claps
in spiteful applause.

Scudding sails of racing white galleons
arrive to the rescue
and change weather's position as quiet
breaches gale's disorder.

Setting the sun throws magenta feathers
across dark horizon
and to settle the issue parades jade tints
as the landscape transforms.

Waiting small boats plod homewards in
fish-laden formation
while wives run to stoke hot-kettled fires
of ready bath water.

Lighting a pathway half-moon winks as
heavier catches in
hauled nets silver the harbour and men
start night's final performance.

Sating hunger with coming and going
sow-and-reap women know
the meaning of sharing male labour in
scaling and salting chores.

Fisher-folks' world begins and ends
with the vagaries and quirks of weather.

When hearts hunger to love
angels will see.

Need opens approach with
chance for release.

Heaven's intentions shall
brook no delays.

Freedom to show love is
how Love repays.

Stretching and shouldering night away a sun crouches
to birth black's ousting
by one more empty circle of dark's hollowed pouches
then outs in sparkling showers.



Spangled with myriad star-labour unfolding membranes,
like numberless leaves
dreamers listen to soft serenades as the universe favours
lullaby-songs to deep breathing.



Silvered surface shivers with night-eyes as glittery dust
follows with dart-swift
flight each soul's winged journey while murmuring such
mysteries to those sleeping still.



Glimmers on sightless horizon reveal light's celebration
while untrodden dew
newly writhing in close-capped life waits inertia's frame
stirring to shake before rising.



Piercing the brain time's needle regathers worn threads
and remembers that more
sown seed means now-grown grain needs re-collection
in daylight's mind-aware storage.



Open-eyed, naught is over as hinging on less or more,
sun, with slumber done,
now hurries to open the thin partition between yawns
of torpidity to more hours won.

What is deep I want fiercely.
What is heart-moving I need to feel.
In what is adventure I wish to partake
and live to fulfillment.

If time and chance allow me to dive
into experience I shall leave the shallows.
With wings boldly grown
what is known as free flight I want to try.

I intend learning the meaning of life's
hidden music.
If there are tunes sweeter dreams feed on
these I will start to sing.

So come forward potential.
I have mantra's mystique to re-invent inner
sensory limitations.
With what are catalysts for energy change
I want a positive avalanche.

If love means completion I shall barter no
more and surrender willingly.
What is bliss I want to fill with and give
my best to the saga of living.

Between ten and eleven-thirty p.m. this Cornish
village, for the most part gets itself quietly ready
to find comfort in bed.
No exception tonight, beneath cold arc of moon
time takes command as cats are put out, doors
latched and no dog barks.
Mist is rising under fading depths of navy-blue
sky as neighbours pull blinds and hiding behind
upstairs curtains undress.
Clothes are being thrown about, noses get blown,
teeth cleaned, backs scratched and toilets flushed
before baring days' secrets.
Outbursts of *** meet with collapse as confession
of headache becomes forgotten in gasps of gossip
that start giggling sessions.
Suppers crumbing clean sheets vye with a shared
cigarette between couples who, tho' sleep-heavy,
drowsily mumble goodnight.
Peace tumbles around snuffles and snores before
stirring ceases as this small backwater stumbles
toward a new morning.
Men, women and offspring down toys with tools    
as dreams take over while strength refuels weary
bones for more readiness.
For a few hours their world of normality flies to
another dimension then with sunrise legs stretch
and yawning faces distort.
Because betwixt six and seven thirty a.m. this little
community will rise and give inner-thanks before
morning battles start again.
Nobody knows what tears are shed behind blinds
that nightly challenge good folks' efforts in trying          
to make the most of their life.

Mistrust.

The mistrust in a dying relationship
discolours love's eyes,
feels no reproof from past mistakes,
abuses kindness,
makes of togetherness an irritation,
turns truth to bland lies
and stands aside from communication
when one of two tries.
The breath of dead passion penetrates
beyond depth of ties
and wrecks with renewed realization
of non-compromise
while the mouth of rejection suffocates
taste for testing goodbyes,
not caring what strain lies in isolation.
Regret deeply sighs
when love retreats into disintegration.

Festtooned around
sweet-faced
Tracery of words,
never deeper
Than exquisite phrasing,
Lies counterfeit,
creeping
Retrouse' of unmeant
affection.
Playing at love
is outright
Two-faced plain
deception.
Fake tendrils never
curl round right
And the genuine heart
Knows, pain shows
when hurt starts.

Nine is still hugging-new-kitten time
filled with loud giggles, school-loving fun days,
a pig-tailing best time for friend-making.

Nine likes browsing through pages
of favourite tales curled up warm as toast, shawl
clad or napping on Dad's welcome lap.

An eye-on-best-chance-time is nine
for young girlish schemers, secretive play-time,
torchlight snacks with sleep-over pals.

Grown from doll-cuddling but baby
crazy lipstick-red nine acts the high-heeled lady
then raids Mum's bed for cosy snuggles

Life swiftly draining under-ten days
brings teenager-cool ways but not for a while,
beauty at nine has an innocent charm.

When that nine-candled cake makes
its sugary entrance I wish, as she bends closer
to blow months more maiden delight.

But just a reminder dear daughter
being nine still means early nights, clean teeth,
earned treats and a tidier room please.

(Written for a friend a few years ago)

The shadow of long-ago noblest of souls
now ghosting
the battements of this
mouldy tumbledown palace moans still,
albeit silently
about the time there was wind
blowing out of control in her royal mind.

Oh there was storm but she held the reins
of the hurricane
that could strip grain bare
if she so wished, and he whom she loved
was there in the room
handsome and bold, she decided to speak.

She was never afraid of tomorrows yet
she trembled
beneath the weight of this
queenly affair, there was something she
had not known
for a very long time
and that now arose to entangle her heart.

The Queen turned of a sudden and asked
for a kiss, oh yes,
she then received the tenderest
of gentle embraces
which would not be forgotten for the rest
of her life, but was
she liked for herself as a person, or not.

Fate though dictated that she never marry
any one man
but be wedded to all,
and such a hard
immensity of role meant belonging soley,
being in charge of her nation
was where mission ever held precedence.

All knew their place, so she lifted her head
as royal a ******
as ever had been, and yet
she was always to ask in her deepest heart
did he kiss her
because she was his Queen,
just to gain favour or did he really mean it.

Elizabeth's shadowy ghost will ever ponder
that unanswered question
in this hazy place as she wanders awaiting

Love-Dust.

A heart's entrance door
opens only from inside to outwards
and once ajar, before
blinking at expressive freedom sees
love's unknown wonder.
Soul- secrets when told will astound
love's doubt through
meant whispers into dreamer's ears
then pour nectar over
each fur-lined ache of hurting need
as Cupid refills fonts
with sating love-dust. until slaked
is thirst by no more want.

Yes, let's colour our hair.
Choose clothing with care
Find health from right food.

We deserve to look good.

Let's slim down real age
Stay long at young stage
Wear the latest with ease.

We deserve best pleasing.

But let's forget outside
Face faults we hide inside.
Let's settle for knowing

We deserve more on show.

Let's forget and forgive
Try to live and let live.
Pride can scar unseen parts.

We deserve stress-free hearts.

So let's work inside-out.
Learn what aging's about
Though appearance may aid

We deserve to FEEL great.

Summers of larks bred sun-torn
wilderness flowers all round my colourful home
and scented dialect of childhood
still utters recollections of well-trodden roaming.

In that haven of steep meadows
sheaves leaned roasting among searing hot fields
as hosts of moss roses fed nectar
to butterflies which still ghost my wistful dreams.

Autumn-red juiced my girlhood
when it etched its vermillion into each adventure
yet where could young fervour
find an entrance again to freedom's real treasure ?

Difference.

Praise for all variation,
that diversified play of colour and shape
which takes away sameness
and paints nature with sheer tessilation.
Hooray for the patchwork
of harlequin stripes in that mackerel sky
or those chequered blotches
embroidered on coats of every dalmatian.
Applause for the hues
shot through peacocks and each rainbow,
those pied streaks in ponies,
marbling of stone, the frets in wide bands
on speckled trout, braided
tattoos over the backs of zebras and tigers
flecked with a motely
collection of artistically peppered mosaics.
Smiles for tri-colours
in butterflies and pibald frogs just made
to reflect luminous wet.
For kaleidoscope difference let praise be
and for all crazed iridescence
seen in the glorious abundance of nature.

THINK SATIN, not silk and make it sheer black.

RUN IT slowly through sensitive finger-tip skin.
Black satin shimmers.
FEEL IT creamily smooth like alchemized liquid.
Black satin scintillates.
HOLD IT cool against lips and breathe slowly in.
Black satin stimulates.
TRY IT sensuously folded for more sinuous cling.
Black satin slithers.
WEAR IT bravely, accentuate bedtime's nakedity.
Black satin satiates.

THINK SATIN, not silk and make it sheer black.

I chased this evening
Evening's fading sunset clouds,
Silver tin-foiled ribbons, tied
To grey-as-granite filigree.
Tinted skirts of hazy
Daytime's late farewell,
Night's ballooning moon parade
Displayed pale firework-light
Invasive coloured swathes
Across the best forgotten
Rainy afternoon.
Night's foothold sparked scuffs
Of steel in dust cascades
Across the waning light
While I stayed chasing

The comforting warmth of another
breathing alongside,

closed eyes,

drowsily gliding
over waves
of sensuous dreams,

untidy covers
askew with contented

sonorous sighs.


Competing with birdsong at dawn
palls a little
when wet lips and cold nose

lather your ears
in a  pawing ecstatic four-footed

wake-up call.

Pets never sleep where they should.

Now November's uncovering
reveals slightly
embelished skin-tight holds
in pre-winter flirting
of untried ***** first kisses
from her bolder
more moisturised rosy-red
lips. November's call
nips boisterous early-morn
breath, cools
dawning, catches the depth
of petalled laggards
full with dry doze of surfeit
summering and
tho aslumber shows them
her potential,
November blows her own
wake-up call of
uncovered cold shoulder,
so essential to
lingerers, with a real zeal.
.

Obscene as war is, none must ever forget
that poppy-red
stands
for the human blood shed.

Remembered, the fallen who fought in a war,
the red poppy
reminds
what they thought it was for.

Observance with poppies, each one a life,
given for
freedom,
as the means to end strife.

Precious the poppy-red, needful the time
lest we,
forgetful,
miss their reason as prime.

The breast of the sea swells tonight
as her efforts to rise, heightened
by great heaving breaths, break her skin
like inflated balloons, topped thinly
with spume, sea bursts in labour.
She roars, tries suppressed pitch to gain
the shore, finds her efforts are checked
then sweeps out once more, tumbling
somersaults over herself, grumbling
with submarine thunderly sounds.
Begets disorder by flinging herself round,
sea bloats, yet moving no slower,
bellows ignored, her foaming tears flow
down watery frills and rollers make
naught of revealing  her saline-stained face.
Sea-swell intends to bare all this night-time
in majestic embraces with Spring tide.

Stars like sparks splutter to bed
as birds catch fire.
****-red lips of sultry sun kiss
mouldering night
and in dawn's shimmering light
greet lightening sky.
Throat of thrush flintily strikes
other minds as incite
to fly for edge of day's eye sets
alive morning's
explosions that electrify every
tongue in flight
while I, amazed, note the calls
of each feathered
awaker who knows time's sign
has arrived to feed
if for today chicks are to thrive.

Near as we vote it, yesterday is, in reality remote
for that time is over.
Those bent on resurrecting painful events evoke
only heartache's shadow.

Fantasy drawn in wet sand is, by tide's turning,
washed clean and swept away.
Yesteryear dreamers who weave only for ghosts
will bury the best of today.

If instead of time-veiling we allow memory into
Now's air it becomes fresh.
Facing tomorrows without need of phantoms we
free Self for more success.

Sensuality.


Eastern the rhythm as dancing begins.

Practiced fluidity.
Gliding vibration of smooth undulation.

Transparent veils quiver like airy wings.

Bared sensuality.
Stunning production of pulsating pelvis.

Entrancing the swirl of seductive spins.

Twirled spontaneity.
Skirt's silken fringes shake by gyration.

Bangled wrists shiver in twisting rings.

Mounting engagement.
Lookers call loudly stirred by sensation.

Oriental performance an audience wins.

Today, dreams left behind I fall awake,
still dozed I oust myself
out of dark-doldrums, pummeling eyes
and promise the sun to
visit new campion just birthing its buds
up on the heath.
Today I will reach heights above windy
ridges of mist and fill
both my hands with pocketed crumbs to
feed ragged robins
who before breeding sing as they flaunt
red with bold confidence.
Today, courting sweet Cornish morning
I shall go breakfastless
and match Tessa my dog in chasing her
make-believe meals
of dried seaweed, have some fun plying
beached gulls with cuttlefish
bone while taking leaps to the unknown        
on thrift-covered clifftops.
Today I will sand-hop the cloud-shadows
of shifting grey and
voiceless give praise for this boisterous
paradise in which life
thrives, then carpe-ing diem I yawn, get
started and am away.

I choose the rarely trod word-road
that takes rocky paths of poetic mindscape,
maps and clinches metaphor links grown
in unknown definement.

I look slant-eyed at morning's own
painting, facing blank canvas the sea becomes
jasper and foam turns to lace as image
transcends norm to new heights.

I view stary skies pock-marked
with diamonds, ocean outcrops hold mermaids,
sand secretes silvered past as grief-gilded
each sunset weeps its goodbyes.

I write emotion into whale-cry,
sentence fur and feather to human behaviour,
translate seasonal change to safe ground
for my fancy's winged flight.

I dare take words a stage further,
imagine boundless and verse a beyondness,
bend grammar by stretching out to sense
inanimate liveliness.

Ten buttercup summers ago
sweet gilt strands spiraled above
dual attraction,
moments fanned friendship
into smoke of commitment and
passion strewed
petals on beginnings of romance.

Five lilac seasons back we
picked scented happiness when,
defences fallen,
meadows of floral nectar ended
aloneness and love
waltzed thru' former convention
without any note
of doubtful retreat or regret.

Two hollyhock years gone
seeds hidden in needy hearts
took root and bloomed
as we tended the scent of total
oneness until,
coffined in fathomless shock,
happenings flattened
hope's dreams of contentment.

A grief ago winter's cold
wilted growth, buried treasure
and brought an end
to love's beautiful garden, yet
rainbowed in memory
those flowers still hold colours
of our very specialness.

Coming Alive.

Cascading from winter's mountainous hold,
Spring descends, partially clad in earliest
Green, vibrant with seasonal need, and bold
With rampancy, it shoots bursts of new pearly
Fingers, fresh with sticky spring juice, skyward.

Showing impatience with tethered birth it shoves
And shoulders neighbours for freedom, lighter
Than bright spring-coloured rivalry then rubs
Noses with rapacious hedgerow fighting.

Springtime is never the gentlest of seasons,
Night views raw subterranian root-races.
And despite "lamb's tail" stories being legion
Coming alive proves a challenge for Spring

Coping.

A shadow, poised where the blow is to fall
transports and transforms
in its turning
as shot hits, making wife widow who learns
by authentic letter
but starts hopeful pretense.

A dream believed whole is but a fragment
transfixed and transient
in its racing
away from such real where tragedy faces
grave's mocking indifference
to wedlock's stark finish.

A battle-torn soul coping alone with grief
transacts and transmits
in its mourning
devotional vows should report prove false
yet she, believing he lives
weeps while cursing war's evil.

Sequined diamanté
fading to light,
lark's night
passes away.

Herald of dawning
flying from dark,
the lark
seizes the way.

Forgets tomorrows,
ignores aforethings,
lark sings
of only today.

Tinted With You.

The gentlest shade for bad heartache
has to be forest green
Mauve I would choose for sad mood
of that doubt in between.

Cerise for the missing when you stay
longer each time away
And with no contact the palette turns
from bright to earthy grey.

Canary-yellow gets mixed for the fun
times I thought would not end.            
Pink for my shyness and blush-red when        
recalling love's readiness.
.
Sienna when letter-less and silence
brings hints of cobalt blue.
Deepest of all is every night's indigo  
unless tinted with you.

Wet as brown pebbles elderly faces

parade every day,

jackets held tightly to capped heads,

leading dogs lifting legs

or stooping in course of nature taken,  

ready bags, backs bent

painfully, retrieve to appropriate bins      

passing owners en route      

exchange nods in wind or cold drizzle,

bedraggled but usually  

rain-walking oldsters are glad despite

weather to find exercise

daily in canine care provides outings

never otherwise taken.

Sharing life with a four-pawed friend

shows tail-wagging prone      

to rain-walking gives mutual pleasure    

so those living out remains

of their days might not feel so alone,          

meeting familiar faces.

My Regeneration.

Take care fellow traveller
when walking with me.

Wayward from now is my new destiny.


This is no powder-puffed
genteel lass today.

No more the simple or simpering lady.


Regeneration opened
love's door to fresh air.

The former conformer is no longer there.


No scrap of convention
is found in my freedom.

Life is a better place to be, now I am me.