I notice the balloons
Hovering over the happy buffoons
I like the little purple one
All deflated and misshapen.

As they dance away the night
I keep my eye upon its plight
It hisses out more air
With each kiss that is mistaken.

By dawn it has become raisin.

Before I leave too soon
I rescue said balloon
Place it in my pocket
It is my little purple *******.

She stands among the grey scape with
So many muted colours inside her.
But today is a day of monochrome miasmas-
Of grey gulls that skim the pewter river
With wings that know such measures.

The greyness leeches her to the technicolour
World she knew long ago
Somewhere down the river.

A cauldron of rage wages above her
Filled with the bursts of brigands of
Grey restless beauty.

There's a rainbow now!

As it archly
Shows its palette she sees the separation
Appear ever nearer...
Above the rainbow is cobalt
Beneath it a merely flat grey.

Underneath her umbrella she enjoys
The puttered thwacks of soft water indenting
Thin fabric with a firework crack.
Suddenly she's back
Her shoes are black and her eyes are grey.
She wishes everyone was a million miles away.
She wishes everyone could stay.

I met Jethro by a stile Howarth way
Knee deep in snow and soon talking.
He was old but not very and his eyes
Were full of reflected glared light.
He called me young lady at first
Then lass...I called him master then
Mister as we stood on his ground measuring.

His farm was breaking even but his
Beasts and sheep had to eat his money now
Which is the nature of things he supposed and
As we looked down the moor we saw his wife
Unplucking his frozen shirts from a line and waving
Us to tea which I wasn't going to ignore...

We talked about the Brontes and he showed
Me his copy of "Wuthering Heights" that was given
To his family all those years ago...
The kitchen danced warmly with age then...
I asked him if he thought he was rich...
He said take a good look around...
Rich or poor has no meaning if you
Are as mad as a hatter with greed or despair

She steps from her bed
Pin-tucked sprigged and lacy.
Piling her hair aloft she moves outside-
Bare-foots along the path
Through the evergreen trees.

Knowing she has a chance to cool her marrow
She approaches the koi filled pool
Listening to water entering water.
She pauses.
Her marrow has been burning
For so many years.
Now she needs it cooler.

As she enters ankle deep
Her lips hiss her heat away.

The blanket **** greens her and the rain
Spits and spatters on her sprigs and lace.
As she tumbles her hair
She stands stock still among darting goldness
As a generation of heat leaves her to her new cold will.

Yet still there burns a sun inside her sudden sated.
She drips and dances towards her new day
Wearing her warm new fancy.

I used to climb so high
Those trees that boughed
Unimportant limbs to
Mere twiglets that seemed
Were always budding.

How I loved the woods and how
Heaths heathers blether now.
Blether now.
When nature flowed
Next to my beck
Something sang to me
Louder than a lamphrey
And I knew fish didn't talk
Much but still kept to the bees.

So you have us becoming plain.

We must divest ourselves before you then.
Like guilty children showing shame
Until you feel obscene rich enough.
In control enough...So
We must become plain and cast away
Dreams of dignity combined with happiness.

Is it true if I had need of you
You would pass me to another
Department of you
Like something beyond me?

We do get around.

Grey ashes of dead blossoms used to lie
Upon the paper waiting for discardment.
They died for my pleasure it seemed...
Every petal fading and succumbing with the wilt
That bleaches the vibrance that cannot live long.

Now into the garden I go that we all eventually know-
Going past the gaudy full blooms. Becoming happy and slightly
Dusty so as to inhale deeply I blow past ashes to the winds.
Then suddenly my pockets are raining seeds.

As the bread is warmed by the sun and
Then drizzled with the green oil I straddle
The old blue rickety chair peeling this tomato.
The juice joins the oil as I add salt and garlic and
As I flick away seeds to the earth I feel ready
To look more about me but first I must pulp this red flesh.

The sunflowers throng about me nodding yes-
This is as you thought...here is the breeze from the west
Caressing your shoulders. Here is the sun at her gentlest.

Unwashed, indolently swaying, barefoot as ever
I grizzle a tune half remembered as I pour the coffee.
Later when it is hotter than blood and the light is sharp
I will look about me and see this field of sunflowers swaying
And be momentarily soothed. I should go now, but stay
With my feet in the dust watching a lizard emerge.

If you present hot
Bronzed and fruit filled
Perhaps things will not
Pounce so hardy.

Stand back
I have this butter knife!

in Portugal austerity is biting...
good luck everybody.


Sat around the crowded table
Wrangling chair legs and buttering
Conversations about banalities whilst
Being bathed by full cool moonlight
Is of course a fair enough sweet delight.

Yet there is smoke in the air!
Then one by one my souls depart;
Stunning my heart yet keeping me close
Causing fears to become unshadowed.
As somehow, I must open my eyes to find
There is always a child quite near.

Oh how do I keep it fed?

You must stay far away though
You would come in with a flourish.
Not knowing yet how it is becoming...
We see you and what you play with.

For you stood in your market place
Stood soldierly at attention has me
Mention your concepts of wealth...
I dont want to be ******* richer.

It can be expertly done this
Placing for reasons.
It is a rook buccaneering
Over a black stream bed.

Magpie turned black
Without a hint of white...
Sang of the stabs of life
Seen in unhued water.