If through busyness there is no moment
to sit or stand
and look quietly at daffodils, spring will
have kissed its last,
summer's hot virility will have smothered
the countryside and still
not been wondered at by that too keen a
working-to-time keeper.
Months, if not looked at will rudely push
past each other
to attract attention and years may slip by
imperceptibly to
to disappear off the calendar into the past.

Clearly this calls
for deliberate action
by abandoning
chores, closing back
doors and
walking slowly into
morning's airy
feeling of fresh dew.


Sparing some moments to stop and just
stare will gift us
its own time-defying rewards by simply
enlarging joy
as it fills warmed hearts with lark-song.

After Effects.

For days hurt raged and blew gales of tears, rain
drenching her already sunken heart drowned,
in saddest blue mist the darkened windowpane
of her young mind witnessing life closing down.

He had gone, now facing rough after effects
she could only brace more against this storm
of despair which, battering self-respect,
made her heart wish she had never been born.

Pain swallows will for a while, but fighters live
and sensing this, she began to untie,
slowly, hurt's strings and relearn forgiveness,
then boldness felt, shoulders shrugged tears dry.

More trying brought smiles remembering times
when laughter washed friendship and memories
of good times changing the mood she restyled
new outlook of viewing what "used to be".

Now on becoming solely her own, loneliness
faded for acceptance revealed her wholeness.

Resting here in between happenings, a moment in time
is all it will take.

The past collides with the present and leaves behind
a very small space.

When I want to breath in calmly again is when I climb
into this special place.

The seeding of any contentment lies in easier finding
ways to liberation.

I aim to be free from internal noise, released, for my
own sake to translate

this moment in time as all mine.

Almost There.

Grey bubble of night surrounds the hours,
and binds them tightly with
no chance of light.

Makes air heavy with silence, empowers
each breath
with velvet plush sighs
in low shushed whispering sounds
of almost-there sleep.

Yet eyes will not close and weary mind
still alive
with words which swirl
like meteors trying to rise from pen
makes constant tries.

Hazy thoughts birth wordy love verses,
creep toward
sweet phrases and become
channeled by night-muse as poetic phase
overtakes me again.

Time dances slowly to dawn's first light
writing itself
into pieces, yet drowsy sleep is ever
quite near
to distract from sensible scribing.

Pen halts in mid-air as I almost succumb
clock tick-tocks, head nods and
I start counting sheep.

Whatever the heavy cumbersome ties
I feel under,
wherever I found all this pain,
however deep, hurt cannot be blamed
On any but me,
and to free myself I must regain
a warm heart,
must part with stored stings,
learn to sing a new me, bring a breath
of fresh air to this cloistered
stale place I call my heart then I can
start loving again.

Whatever the heavy cumbersome ties
I feel under,
wherever I found all this pain,
however deep, hurt cannot be blamed
On any but me,
and to free myself I must regain
a warm heart,
must part with stored stings,
learn to sing a new me, bring a breath
of fresh air to this cloistered
stale place I call my heart then I can
start loving again.

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

This morning of mornings when dawn
on waking tints her blue face
with wispy-white make-up,
when no breeze stirs the quiet or ruffles
day's essence I breath in a
freshness and thrill at being alive.

This summer of summers when growth
all around thrusts to race
upwards at re-born pace
as ardour covers the ground, when force
invades plant-space I taste
the fight and feel their excitement.

This delight of delights when July affords
warmth to outdoor creations
with florally fragile fragrance,
when petal exposure's juicy insides show
a future of fat seed sameness
I become awed by beauty's survival.

Back Then.

There was for us something so holy back then
in that lovely OtherWhere.

We found out-spoken feelings consolingly
warming and care became real.
Raising our faces to preordained fate we
found bliss within dreams.

There was something of glory about love in
that wonderful OtherLand

Absorbing out-pouring from duel openness
we took hope and believed.
Joy must have re-cloaked all heaven with
our beautiful secret.

Ever was lasting and Now was unsinkable.

Happiness followed a daily routine as Hello
impacted twin-souled contact.
Born then contentment with intimate rain of
reflective close pattern.

A state arose where death was unthinkable

Satisfied moorings meant patiently waiting
until change altered lonely.
Exchange of anticipation balanced each taste
of our myopic throne.

But health unexpectedly hit rocks and sunk.

As I paid the Boatman my coin of acceptance
mourning wept oceans of grief.
Sudden wrecked notions of OtherTime and
struck reality in raw hysteria.

Storms of aloneness drown reason and clung.

Yet different horizons within saline's fall gave
never-moreness clearer vision.
Wait would not be outgrown but tears which
recede can reach appeasement.

Scars back then were eventually fleshed over.

Conciliation accepts calmer seas if heartbreak
makes enough concessions.
Future togetherness in a new OtherPlace will
prove better without an aggressor.

There was for us something holy back then in
that treasured OtherWhere

and will be again.

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.

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.

I catch somehow
the view
of inside tears in eyes
that peer
shyly
from furrowed brow.

Behind the smile
bravely
shown for camera
lens,
the pretence ends
as
all the while
endless
dry red dust
surrounds the sound
of home
falling,
wall by broken wall,
but
smile she must.

Homeless now,
with age-old grit
she sits,
aware
her world has stopped.
- - -
- -
Another bomb
- -
in error,
- -
dropped.

Cornish spring drips and
all growth becomes riddled with
desire for warmth,
ridden with need for having more.

Freshly risen, green
gets liquid-addiction, an invisible
draw makes sward
swoon for regular fixes of water.

Crafty Spring knows
plants crave doses so being fickle
he drops trickles used
to tease shoots upwards for fuel.

Whoresome he opens
cores formerly hidden, then the
illicit physician lopes
in and flippantly erases hopes.

Bold, he impregnates
the deep sleep of inactive nature,
forcing in secret wet
potions to unclothe closed petals.

Then he may withhold
his advances and allow winter's
return to bring nights
of freeze to show is own might.

Old Spring hangs around
to tickle ground's fancy yet Sol's
hard passion he fears
for at start of heat he disappears.

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)

If you think you saw
fair Queen Flora at work when you were out
walking and watched
her create hedgerow beauty, better not tell.

And if when you sat
in a woodland dell you caught the shadow of
fairy-queen Fey do not
go away feeling folk will believe you were not
just asleep and
dreaming of days when to you they were real
for humans who,
grown and work-overloaded will not lose face
by saying that fairies
exist or confess nature itself is assisted by the
ethereal people who
work for hours at night to open more flowers.

Oh yes, they smile
kindly when children spin fairyland tales and
stifle a chuckle as
youngsters talk about spells old minds do not
brook what life once
opened to those with an unconfused outlook,
toy teddies and dolls
could talk and witches flew broomsticks back
when knights and dragons
rode on clouds every night to battle for hands
of sleeping princesses,
everyday happenings were magical then but
things altered when
fancy's soft wings became crushed under the
banns put on speaking
of fairyland and beautiful Fey was cast away
to die with childhood
in the pile of discarded other-worldly beliefs.

Life must become realistic
and dreams are best forgotten as nonsense,
then hearts will harden
but poets refuse to abandon the child locked
inside so their eyes
still see what is to adults forbidden, romance
does not leave them so
prison doors never close on their imaginings,
kings go on living
in Camelot lands and maidens get rescued in
good time for love as
above every cloud there still sits silver lining.

There are grown-ups
who unlock their minds to see other realms
and child-like believe
but unless you are a poet if you catch an elf
unfurling red petals
from too tight a rose-bud or you see a fairy
painting blue on white
woodland bells, well, you had better not tell.

Poorly resourced, ill-used time kills warmth when
rude under-dressed exchanges begin
passing as norm.

Non-value remarks always fail to impress, yet stick
long in the mind as unkindness
shuts windows tight.

Sash down and closed against harshness, unfeeling,
words thrown about hurtfully rattle
and thoughtlessly burn.

Sticking to tongue long after they fly, anger-phrases
come back as harness chains to shackle
the hard days ahead.

Corners need cleaning when insults begin, far above
and beyond reason, to scrape barrel's
bottom as mud is flung.

If tried, sharing affection inside a relationship rises
beyond and above paucity's **** form of
shallow, so-called care.

Covered with love the saying is true that newly white
mornings feel right when all in the world that
is wanted begins with a You.

Swirling in oily rainbowing movement
the bubble traps time,
wraps beauty around eternity and vibrates
in worlds of pure fluidity.

Excelling in soapy space jailed restraint
orb creates and encases
its outer in fragile globular skin layered
in tiny gossamer jewelry.

Look at its see-through glassy sphere
and matchless potential
caught in a universe of wondrous hues
of shining swirl entombed inside.

Then in bursting lets fall what was first
indescribable but now
disappeared bubble-magic still appeals
to the mind of an inner-child.

Oh Muse, bearer of wisdom, may your words
which traverse the globe
by verse affect attitudes, move objections,        
lash egos, rock divisions,  
reunite misunderstandings and by power of
digestion resurrect what
the populace thinks weak, kills and forgets.

May poetic energy slice through innumerable
rules, instil sympathy,    
drown separation, re-find buried faith within
faded friendships, appeal
for awareness to  remember hatred no more,
help those forget who,
prejudice-laden perceive many as enemies.

May powerful words smash inbuilt devisive
desire for retaliation,
create instead meant relationships, lasting
handshakes which re-shape
distance placed between hearts by age-old
spite as groundless pride
grows no happiness alongside bitter regret.
    
Oh Calliopé, never forgo scribes' minds for
evoking soul-felt change,        
poems pleading for world-wide review of
love's fallen portals  
re-invite  causes for unearthing a paradise      
in this war-riddled earth.
Peace needs minnions' pens, at the ready.

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.

To live with a loss so great after times
of month-long waiting
invites such a natural rage in that a child,
a babe of no age
who was wanted and loved so much
could die,
and leave me in loneliest pain seems
unbearably hard.

And if heaven was not making it plain
that my dear baby
now faces a state of tenderest peace,
and that clutching him
tightly in my place is an Eternal Love,
touchingly
singing his lullaby needs, I could not
be carrying on.

God knows I must take this view of loss,
see such ways as right,
because if I did not I would go insane,
but now I feel
I can cope with waiting to see him again,
by trying to stay sure
he has not ceased to be, so please God,
carry on helping me.

Carrying On.

Sea crosses curved world,
pulls in its waters
as ebb and fall tides
hold back mighty floods
from earth's bolstered sides,
so life carries on
against crash and cry
of breaker destruction
and fights with great fervour
to keep boats on shore
when waves become mighty.

Walking her tight-rope
Night falls just when dawn
Puts on her eyeshades to learn how to cope.

Changes in morning occur
As light-shards invade,
Undress dark, and ignite dawn's zest further.

Glints of daylight begin
When grass shakes awake,
And breezes stir as trees start to limber.

Listen, catch whispers
Of dawn's waking yawns
As she waits at Sun's door, young and unkissed.

Crouched in viewing the shivering cobweb

craftily spanning a waterfall's edge

I saw fine precision-knifed filaments

cunningly strung with infinite wisdom.

A weightless weapon of swinging steel,

death-celled bed spun on gossamer wheel.

That devilish duvet of glistening gauze

betokened real craft as the spider paused

then in obscurity tensed for success,

alert with magnetic insect suppression.

Hairily silent as tensile wires, cleverly glued

met miniscule life of wriggling food

that by moving caught death in but seconds

while spider gave fly lethal injections.

As water's curtain cascaded to ground

and whirling catch-trap spun victim around

fed spider wiped mouth, cleaned sticky legs,

repaired any holes and prepared for the next.

Chasing Night.

I chased this evening evening's painterly
tints blatantly seizing sky-time before
sun-down display.

Dark's parade festooned in anodyne darts
of bright lunar-spears seared twilight
and flamed the lake.

Silver-foil ribbons began to invade pallid
glow as granite-grey filigree skirted
today's farewell.

Patterns of sparkle captured the change
to best forgotten wet afternoon when
heavens melted,

Night's foot now dry left silvery scuff
on watery top of eel-thread shapes
moving with breeze.

Moon-glinted landscape seduced as
with ghostly aliveness, by chasing
night, night chased me.

Colour Me Love.

Colour me bubbles of misty-blue love.
Blow them, drifting on soundless high cloud.
I wait here, gratefully searching above
A whispering sky, knowing the ether around
My window pane will resound once again
To more heart-warming secrets, hauntingly
Packaged by words wrapped in your name,
And containing nothing but love unforced.
Colour me baubles of glistening gems.
Rubies for hugs, emeralds for evergreen
Promise of undying devotion and bend
Them like rainbowing arrows, gleaming
Their star-studded aerial journey straight
Into my dreams, colour me gentle, cover
My fears in caring spheres at the gateway
Of this beating heart and paint me with love.

Colour me bubbles of misty-blue love.
Blow them, drifting on soundless high cloud.
I wait here, gratefully searching above
Starlit skies, knowing the ether around
My window pane will resound once again
To more heart-warming secrets, hauntingly
Packaged in words wrapped in your name.
Containing nothing but love's tender force.

Colour me baubles of glistening gems.
Rubies for hugs, emeralds for evergreen
Promise of undying affection - - bend
Them like rainbowing arrows, gleaming
Their star-studded aerial journey, straight
Into my dreams. Colour me gentle doves
White as moonlight to sing in the gateway
Of my waiting heart and paint me in love.

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

Conceding.

An ink-toned ebony night captures
sound and takes from stillness quiet rapture.

Emerging now sparkling gem-stars
lend diamond brightness to penetrate dark.

And surging toward me while I lie
powerless that shine embraces my mind.

Consciously losing track of time, way
past heaven's far height I fall up into space.

I taste one nova then thick black
velvet becomes holed as I digest the galaxy.

Grief could not console me but his
star holds secrets which assure future bliss.

One with the cosmos I can now stop
as conceding to mystery fear has been lost.

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.

Wilderness need not be avidly dry.
It can contain shades of uplifting memory.

Sweet drops of whisperings fly
around souls who,
desert-bound and tied to circumstance,
retreat into spaces
of such empty aloneness it seems
never again
will ways out of crystallized mazes where
reigns abject silence
ever be found to bring freedom again.

Yet Wilderness need not be overly feared.
It becomes productive under love's challenge.

Prone to arise out of aimless places      
and grazing on sighs
of pain are the tiniest grains of gone loves
growing lonely with wait,
and as shadows of smiles permeate minds  
in Wilderness-Land,
remembering to contact angelic unseen
means certain survival.

Despite blood-red pain of sudden ends
look inward and find dim      
streaks of light birthing changes for
hope lost in Wilderness,
watch black holes shine after saline ebb
then as tides of tears
begin to recede know grief's despair    
will grow no more weeds,      
flowers of assurance unfurl their truth
that love's journey
goes on, deserts will blossom with many
a happy reunion,
for heaven's arrangement never denies
access to askers for proof.

Wilderness dies when souls feel not alone.
Coping with sorrow means climbing its hills.

Cottage For Sale.

The grapes on the vine
which even now climb
up the old archway are indigo blue.

One long-past springtime
a home-made sweet wine
was begun from huge bunches of fruit.

Our smiling house then
was bliss-laced, mended
those old gates that love entered thru.

All still feels the same.
and memory reclaims
only good times spent here with you.

This cottage for sale
will forever contain
remains of the love shared by us two.

When half the world was blank on maps,
when people still believed in magic,
sounds became muffled
as underground tappings sprung up
in the hills and holes appeared.
Feet vanished for what seemed like days
then flat Northern caps
full of dust, topping faces of loot-happy
smiles shuffled off hazily
clutching large seeds of glimmery gold.
White-knuckled black
fists clutched closely to ribs dead weight
of their findings, bags
of pure alchemy, stones which changed
when kindled in home-made
dirt-hearths, to the hot comfort of flame
keeping away winter's cold.
Nuggets lost beneath time became finds
worth more than diamonds
when, in days of old, warmth could save
peasants' work-worn lives.
Yes, coveted then was possession of coal.

Hello shiny loop of post-shower Rainbow,
you of mosaic-powered striated halo,
and so sages tell, a sign of faith.

You chaste secreter of much potted gold,
crescented magic of arc-perfection
your brilliant mixtures of shaded hues
break raindrops into states
of optic illusion which act as temptation.

Oh consummate sweep of bow-creation,
who can know when and what
day you appear, colourfully naked.

Favour no seekers, oh Rainbow whom
by digging for myth will
selfishly follow roads right to your end.
Make therefore no friends
of illicit searchers for treasure, those
who see you as meant lure
for retrousséd wealth-embellishment.

Rainbow you cover your real blessings
in pseudo-gilt with which
ingratiates have become obsessed.

Sedate then all lucre-lust with a curved
root at each end of your
rain-augmented foot to waylay theft.
Divert and deflect looters with luminous
know-how and curl into
spacial deception before desecration.

Bedazzle all lechers by preventing entry
to any pretentious view
of your sensitive and tremulous end.

You as writhe of kaleidoscope can keep
away crooked schemers
by retaining your varisome irridescence.
Alive with mysterious rays
behave like a ghost loathing the sun, be
as invisible, turn pale, fade,
and disappear to invalidate trespass.

Rainbow hide what is always your own
from blind passers by with
greedy *****-eyes, stay unmolested.

Stretch out your tracery uncontrolled,
a beauteous vision who keeps
her vaulted prism a glorious whole.

Time moves on remorseless yet fresh starts
appear plausible
if from parched discord
we form opportunities from which to carve.

Clearer choices for cutting free expand lone
coaster-rides but tried
ways of surprise
adroitly harness colour into bland unknown.

Distress creates apathy while unrestrained
euphoria decrees
time for growing new wings
and chances to better breed later decades.

Relocated those truncated dreams retreat
to re-form, dried to a crisp
but soon freshly adorned with
made resolutions to avoid future defeat.

Hope succeeds if, skilful in competence,
we apply learned
wisdom to hear the unheard
for discarding the old needs no audience.

Pushing ahead, cutting new paths again
exalts over former  
attempts raw angst to alter
past failure by wearing our skin unafraid.