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.

Now tilts light into November.
Sags Ol' Sol low in shortened day.
Now is the season of pallored earth.
Time when cracked-open kernels decay.

Now with no violence ground sleeps.
Beds the worm down in blackened grass.
Now, burnt-out all heat in harvested fields
Time eases flight while growth turns to ashes.

Now slows to drowse wise November.
Mutes to silence past labours of birthing.
Now into seared dreams of tired meadows
Time breathes but whispers of far-off Spring.

Now seems the time to leave pre-winter
quietly savouring November's short peace.

at Now's surreal boundary where rough
meets mind's edges, life invites
ears to timely hearing

as pebble-tough questions lie underfoot

and as sting of saline rimes wet cheeks
in unkind steps when reason
meets stress rises queries,

needs to ask things not yet understood

there, as endings mingle mysteriously
with every beginning does grief's
hold let go for life to begin

in one who gladly late love undertook?

A little silence mothers more truth for those
who dare seek and embrace
the unheard,
for if not smothered stillness guides minds
to find in quiet
something of beauty waiting behind sound
to become to the listener
more than mere antidote.

To those who see value in unsung whispers
a soundless time provides
escape to peace,
composes a peerless calmness aiding days
of halcyon balm
which reaches life's mystic core of healing
for only at rest can stillness
stifle stress of noise wholly.

Those who take life and shake it a bit,
to make trauma less,
And fit all error into pockets of love,
will also enmesh
Forgiveness in and around each hurt,
to become a breed
With rarer hearts, and sounder minds,
who, with no vested needs
Are free to serve the spirit of giving
as from their core emits
Understanding and quiet acceptance
of facts befitting
An air of compassion, then, easier
their souls will soar
Toward untroubled lives, more ready
To show rarer love than before.

Regeneration.

Grab my heart
while it still beats in fretful synchronicity.

It is yet yours,
but before it ceases to part with wholeness,

just as it needs
to become effervescent again,

with someone new by withholding itself
from marital vows, reach out

receive and take it, release permanently,
love's regeneration.

There will be no bar to acceptance, time
regrets loss of accessibility

so take this final offer of trying
for compatibility
because I still carry your heart in mine.

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.

The breast of the sea swells tonight
as her efforts to rise, heightened
by great heaving breaths break her skin
and inflated balloons, topped thinly
with spume burst, the sea is in labour.


She roars, tries suppressed pitch to gain
the shore, finds her efforts checked
then sweeps out once more tumbling
somersaults over herself, grumbling
with loud submarine thunderly sounds
as irate she sends pebble-bed pounding.


Bloated, yet moving in no way slower
her bellows ignored foamy tears flow
down watery frills and rollers make
short work of staining her saline face.


Sea-Swell intends to bare all tonight
in majestic embrace with a Spring-tide

Light has a secret affair but not many discern
how much she yearns for love's bait.
Each dusk and dawn is where union, borne so
clandestinely on high becomes sated.

Light imperceptibly early lowers herself into
dark places to lie in Night's lair.
Begins then their mingle where tingles of first
passionate movement stir her.

Breathes then the flimsiest changes, kindling
flame of impending birth.
Leading her lover to dawn Light then devours
his forlorn role-reversal.
_ . . . . . _

Dusk finds her yielding again as Night tightens
his own tremulous hold.
She turns pink with desire to shoot colourful
stains into his inky folds.

Creeps then inside and around Light this bold
Night lit by need's lurid flair.
Filters then miracles of firey sunsets as Light,
in mating fades during pairing.

Twice every twenty four hours two lovers meet
in seeking amour and entwine.
Lightness of Night joins with Darkness of Light
to produce change by one dying.

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.

She once stitched secreted half-felt dreams
From a fragmented jersey and embroidered
It neatly in sequinned love for safe-keeping
Forgetful of what occurs to un-meant ploys.

Patterns of welcome morphed into shadow
Grew mold around its binding two names.
The sewn seed-beads of foreverness badly
Encrusted until torn outworn vows became
Dim and a trusted vest shrunk, hemmed in
Sparkles rusted, it became shapeless, partly
With mishandled use and remained strewn
Over gullible parts of her passed-over heart.

Worn inside or out despite repair-refit trials
Her much abused love-vest ended unsightly.

Then rose the mighty cusp of the storm.

Jagged black edges overcame white
and clouds begat
dark gigantic height after height
as blue, frightened away,
dissolved into rivalling grey and rain
threatened its splatter.

Came the great clap then began Dancing.

Two forked arrows of garnet-fire-clash,
sky-wide flamenco
cavorted before me, a tree cracked as
it gasped in last breath
and echoed by more thunder-applause
I for dry ran homeward.

Four-walled protection inspired my pen.

Storm then began shaping all over again.

Be to me a sanctuary, cloister me in love.
Shelter me,
in covert hide shade my face with proof,
enter into every cell
to show my soul your gallantry.
Shelter me,
roof me with your heart.
In seclusion cover and umbrella me,
with skin-tight fit,
so never more will we two part.
Shelter me,
be to me a rightful Knight, win me
with valiant darts,
corded round with action's art
of heart-meant words
Shelter me,
in gold-filled verse, scribed at will,
from core's soft sword,
cut holes in doubt, cleanse in kindness
weakened trust
and unleash my softly yielding heart.
Shelter me,
then I shall wholly know
love's conquest has to me imparted
its eternal glow.

Dawn and night-clouds part the horizon,
Dark muddy blues turn suddenly light
Spilling change on her hues as she rises,
And oh that fullness of sight.

Glow of greeting bequests later heat-time,
Brazen sun brooks no trace of the night.
She aims to captivate dark guilelessly
With oh such flourish of style.

Her blush in pale sky flashes a brightness
Over first tremble of her prelude to fire.
She welcomes day by blazing sublimely  
In oh what a show of surprise

Here on the shore-less ocean of life
we parted lovers weep not alone.

The heavens on seeing grief's goodbye
paleth each star in sympathy's dome        
as silent support for human despair.

When grave sounds a knell and kindled
by mortals love appears dead not unaware
is sun or moon of more being willed.

None ordered our future fire be cooled.        

Was it nature estranging thyself from me
or destiny's game whose divisive ruling
arranged thine ending and I, incomplete ?

Nay, hope singing on, calls merciful Fate      
as ready aid in knowing whatever the soul
be, mine and his beat ever the same

and that somewhere,

somehow and at some waiting time

we pair will again reunite as one whole.

Small Happenings.

With thanks to G.M Hopkins, the poet
who inspired this verse
with his famous words of Pied Beauty.
---------------------------------------------------

Let us celebrate little things.
A butterfly's wings.
The solo a blackbird sings.
Mad march-hare flings.
The way one raindrop clings.
Ripe seed-pod pings.
A spider's steel-web strings.

Let us notice the hidden things
First snow-melt springs.
A buzzard's broad flight wings.
Wild mushroom rings.
Bluebell's low bend as it swings.
Falling chestnut dings.
The fresh smell a shower brings.

Let us delight in minute things.
Find joy in small happenings.

Take your own words from the poems of nature.
Add golden dreams from a rainbow or two.
Polish with good thoughts culled from right motive
And create something beautiful ~ ~ ~ do.

Phrase pleasant songs for the message to loners.
Add poetic ballads to comfort fear's due.
Burnish the spirit of youth with fine versing.
And create something beautiful ~ ~ ~ do.

Keep penning acclaim of peace for the needy.
Add some generous lines of compassion too.
Write with sound rhymes of positive thinking
And create something beautiful ~ ~ ~ do.

We pair of home-comers

built from painful baggage a water-tight dream,

we painted an idyll of walled delight.

A bright corner where care could cover old scars.

Oh that happy hand-in-glove fit of regenerative
pleasure which we dared to admit

into the picture of autumnal love.

Such easy laughter sparked need to spend more
new-found treasure in glad togetherness.

Fresh as youth the stream we dug from aridity.

Your tenderness stoked heat
in forgotten feelings, blazed pathways to places
I had never been

and seared heaven into every greeting.

So gentle our mountain
of unleashed freedom that time gave us

chances to climb to new heights.

I thrived in sweet air of acceptability.

You re-sculpted sallow existence, blushed my
palid future, accessed the girl inside
and unfastened this

latched-up former conformist.

You let loose love's abandon and I did not refuse.

Beautiful man your breath
warmed every fold of compatible essence, toned
any slack in my short-sighted outlook
and de-misted

smeared myopic signals.

Duo-passion soon oiled and honed rarely used
adaptability so we could reach bliss.

Our joinings were something greater than flesh
and that better otherness I shall

always remember.

No ocean of parting can break devotion's deep
integrity and I know for certain

we shall meet again.

Oh unforgettable man
you stole into destiny, captured my soul

and now you hold it forever.

So much depends upon sky,
blue-mottled in fur muffs above
flooded fields awaiting dry
days that buffet thick winter mud
as it willfully clings
in hard lumps to all frozen ridges.
Spring's blow loosens clumps
to undo icy hold on shivering things.

So much relies upon wind,
pink-braided dawns fight cold's ache
as old nakedness withers
when warmth, in the wings, re-faces
bare twigs trembling nightly
by clothing in stages as buds open.  
Flora's warmth quietly          
dresses again what had lain frozen.

So much delights the seeing
eye as fresh life feels profound change
in new underneathness,
gripped-down grounded roots awaken
from sleep's hibernation,
while hunger for life drives movement.
As kind weather favours
much in nature depends on the sky.

A yearn of a day in same whitened blueness.

A turn of a mood as sun lightens sea's edge.

A reach of a hope that long distance reduces.

A beseech of a heartfelt once-given pledge.


A dream of a time so right for togetherness.

A need of an end to this waiting's lone song.

A count of a soul-beat one other is sensing.

A doubt of a fate seen as slow for too long.

Defying barriers of culture or race,
smiles
bound in togetherness,
timeless as silence,
strong as the reaches of flame
and deep
as endless unfathomable space
find distance
closes
as in between fades,
disappears
into contentment.

Fate floods as it feeds itself into love,
and as surely as
sunrise,
as clear as daylight
souls know
when they become one and the same,
one single flame

Soundless Rest.

After hearing Ravel's "Pavan to a Dead Princess."

How pale, whiter than white are your lips, shaping
Now not a word, immovable, soundlessly making
Their roundness even more ground into my heart.
Your lovely long tresses coiled, unsoiled and parted
With fine ever-straight line above primrose-soft face
Unwrinkled, once pink now ever remaining a babe's.
Those feel-of-rosebud hands laid so sweetly beneath
The shroud, why did you leave dear child, impeach
All my hopes and dreams, the most gentle of access
To paradise lay in your smile, now sleeping princess
The pavan will be dancing you soon into a soundless
Rest but I restive remain, and will always be bounded
To pain in not saying final goodbyes but crying adieu
I have to await the yet uncreated, my life without you

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.

Numbed by trickles of sheer icy fear
She knelt as more thick flow of red
Treacled its circle, stained the green
And oozed its way round a still head.

Silenced by shock, glazed eyes lifted.
A once sporty car piecing the ground.
Spewing confusion, unearthly yet still
Her gaze fixed on wheels idling around.

Destruction's trauma brought spin-back,
Re-flashing she vividly viewed, as before,
Tree halting speed and air-piercing crash
Leaving his young heart beating no more.

Spinning Stardust.

Fairytale stories roll off golden pens
as airy and fanciful minds start curling
over the edge of unreal to write again
idealized dreams woven with gossamer words,
spinning lined phrases they capture reason
to turn it into ethereal rhyme where
knights always win fair favours to please
fine ladies, ride hard-won word-stallions, compose
emotion, odes to bliss, win battles repeatedly
and deliver versed grief at times, poets
scribe care for world events, artful schemes
leave their mark on hearts, readers would miss
imagery mystically wrought, so trusting
metaphor's meaning found between lines catch
hidden passion and dance in its stardust.

Stormforce confronts the tail-end
of innocence and carefree
calm hurled away, fire's mind-set
lights departure's legacy.

Life in the wake of changes acts
out a merciless course,
composure alters as hurtful facts
faced are being absorbed.

Scarring of hope exposes wounds
and festers turn raw
as lover's lost trust starts to ooze
bile inside heart's disorder

Lies like turbulence cause offence
to shards of memory
and words strike hard when sense
betrays waywardness.

Gathering a last frenzied strength
truth floods thru resistance,
forces entry, flails and quenches
a taste for forgiveness.

Now dry-eyed the lady fights on
safer ground, well-shaken
but wiser and still climbing from
his bitter betrayal.

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.

Take one from a pair and trauma arises,
ocean buckles,
sunset ices,
waiting grows fists and memory sighs.

Take one from a duo and lost are smiles,
lonely ungloves,
solo resides,
life loses glitz and pleasure demises.

Take one from two and stress tightens
love uncouples,
oneness divides,
lips stay unkissed and pressure climbs.

Take one from other and spoil an item
parting troubles,
nothing revives,
grief's demand makes no compromises.

One long-ago warm afternoon
I rode past high fells then clad in rough bracken
under a sky of unbroken blue

and  cantered through canopies

of russet trees thrown over the roadside while
autumnal moor-land rose in
beautiful majesty shadowing wind and cloud

then halting I heard liquid laughter.

Where would streamlet pebbles
be found white as those at my dismounted feet
and could heathered summits
slumber through leaf-fall more peacefully

or lark-song appear so enchanting ?

I had heard it said that highland
air tasted of wine, flavoured with grass-scent
and drawing a lingering breath
as cool filled lungs I knew that made sense  

as I gulped in ether-sharp drafts.


So divine was the reverential quiet

on my enlightened face that I closed awed

eyes and in vibrations of silence

caught nature's presence as never before.

Great standing stones,
lichen pocked,
weather worn omens,
older than old,
fern spotted,
devotion holed,
wind bitten,
upright tho' time honed.

Granite flecked rocks,
holy pinnacles,
mossy grass knotted,
atop high hills,
or valley hidden,
sole history keepers
you alone know
ancient faith watchers,


so tell me your secrets.

We inched towards that space today
You and I
Where lovers pace themselves before
The taste of nectar
Takes their breath away.
We dallied in some dreamy glade
And made ourselves
Stand still
To smell the longing mounting, then
Me and you
Began counting seconds 'til through
The moment's glaze
We silently pledged our love anew.

For height, girth and spread
they said
there was never one like it.

Weighing a train-load with
oaken coat on
it took every seasonal gale.

but was never stirred.

Winter blasts groaning thru'
**** branches
tore down good fire-wood.

Sagely magnificent

it withstood many decades
of weather behaviour,
sheltered all feather and fur
for generations,
made lovers a hiding place

but now it's not there.

Yet I see a sapling has been
fighting for air
and some say a gone-tree's
ghostly presence
can urge spurts of growth
in its successor.

I sincerely hope this is so
for all who pass by
that one-time great oak
will have to sigh as
its memorable strength will

be mightily missed.

The wish of a painter or poet is to transport
spirit's emotion
by stopping in awe at night's
vaulted scene
and viewing grassland as more than green.

An alchemist with no interest in gold
takes up better investment,
finds a thermal to soar on fancy or some
updraught for imagination
to make jasper of sea, jade of dawn
and perceive jewels hiding in shape or form.

A seer catches the farside's face
and traces that world in sentence or paint,
chimeric in nature an artist
whose eye encounters rock gives it heart,
transforms by description the seen
as mundane to have mystic meaning,
adds soft to feather, colour to blur
and improves initial by depicting further.

It is said that fine art opens doors
to show extraordinary as but quite normal
for good poet or painter
ranks magic as foremost importance when
met with blank canvas

Clamped down firmly
time is a stifler.

No win-win situation
for minds
here existing

yet living elsewhere.

To allay pining,
moments
keep to their turning.

Secure, love's binding
of hearts

when rutted
in time's unpliable
yearning.

Bitter-sweet the state
where existence
depends

on ticking of clocks
but

blest the find of sated
persistence.

Rubbled, a shore wet
with stony regret,
yet

lived greenly
hope still offers,
to love

intent on patience,

her best gift-listing
dear friend,
for those who have
waited.

Simply inestimable
joy

in the end.

Wild are the fearsome changes
When starlight takes up home in unsuspecting
Wide-apart dwellers of east-west
Togetherness.

Magnets let loose attract oceans.
Ironized fragments of need, fall, easily warmed
And bind in sought-after
Luminous joy.

Freedom swings from forgotten
Beams of roofed-in and much weathered lives
In hiding and joins hands across
Unfettered miles.

Singing arises from caverns deep
Inside hearts, the wild change starts and being
Alive becomes brightened with
Thoughts of tomorrow.

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.