Welcome. Come in.

Shall we begin?


You ask me why I'm haunted
And by what?
A good question
I will try and tell you.

Ghosts are not things of night. They live on
In abandoned margins of our own
Ancestral selves. When something that was us
Is now an entity unloved and so too dark
To live in frail modern skin.

So, lest others see, I have Shunned it -
A powerful Amish word - it is no longer me -

It is some thing I can disown, avoid
Abhor; seek safety by concealment in another's
Hurt - so I see it lurks
Out There.

- a furtive fly tip of a still breathing form abandoned
on a cold flat road far away from friends or familiar habitation

So Lest others see

- then drive away to warmth to light to reassuring
‘There there’ conversation.

But I know it never goes. It survived my hate.
And crawled away to wait.

It is still dwelling in the cold fen winter landscape
Of the mind - the soul -
As dusk invades the stillness of the barren pasture
Near that road, have grown to know that ‘distance-from’
Is no longer safety.

And the shadows change the sight of my familiar path,
To strangenesses of my own self that now
Stare back from shades. Then a sudden howling  
From a distant wood half seen against a skyline.  
It will soon be dark. And it will be uncoiling.
And I know I will not sleep.


Nothing more terrible
Nothing more true


Where neither words nor another's presence
nor priests
nor books
nor God

Can distract from or protect from

WHO IS THIS NOW WHO IS COMING?

Closer yet, and closer yet, to me.  



Good heavens. Well that was interesting
I really felt the fear creeping towards me then.
Tell me Do you think it's real?


You mean Do you think he's real?
Oh yes - he's real. He's looking at you now..

I don't yet know him well you understand.

I have discovered we were friends once in a long forgotten war.

And we have spoken well - it has been hard.
But we did not turn our eyes away this time

So I am hopeful that together -  we will be
Anew.  
So let others see: I said to him
Welcome. Come in

Shall we begin?

It was a throw-away line you said.
But then again - it wasn't. At least - I
Wasn't sure.

So I picked it up when you weren't looking
And put it in my pocket. Later,
Carefully unfolding it I thought you
Might have wanted to say more.

But now, creased with time and wondering I see
It's just a scrap. So I put it back.

But carefully -

Upon the floor.

Shall I compare thee to a corona virus?
Thou art more resilient to my T cells.
Self isolation and employers’ threats to fire us
Will never keep me from you....  Oh, hells bells! -
Sometimes I wonder if our temperatures were raised
Together - I might just have a (dry cough) chance.
But however skilfully these lines are phrased
I cannot forsee any avenue of advance:
My compromised immune system’s done -
It cannot tell a virus from a sonnet.
One’s 14 lines, and t’other Covid19 but which one?
Never mind, my sympathetic nervous system’s on it!

Come on, let’s go! No need to plan it...
Hang on, what’s this? - “Keep 2 metres’ distance”?

**** it.

I was about to vouchsafe importantly at
Your meeting.

But then you spoke
In your soft accent,
Getting wrong, a preposition.

And looked at me, and smiled.

And I forgot
The lot.

The words climb slowly
To where we are already.
Here.
Now.

Standing on this ridge, I turn and see you,
Also seeing sky and earth anew.

The windway playing with the leaves
The fine light on the edges of the trees,
Falling to broken beauty on slopes to rivers, far far down.


Words follow us. They have to.
We are there before them,
But they do not know their place.

They puff up right beside us, Apologise for being late,
Look briefly into our eyes.
But then try to overtake.

Look there look here and think of it like this.

They think they know

With guile, place ornate frames around the view.

But I still see you.

We talked long and late by the fire.
Our world, the easy company of friends who know.
Outside, the snow was falling like the years -
Months in drifts against the house.

Time was slowed for us and we simply - were.
- A grateful coming home from years at sea.
And, shedding fretful summer's fever to achieve,
We breathed our time, our inwardness, our peace.

And at the bottom of the season's well
We found a heart of time to come as bright
As summer skies of clearing rain,
And all the promise of green shoots, and the light.

We talked long and late by the fire.
Our world, the easy company of friends who know.
Outside, the snow was falling like the years -
Months in drifts against the house.


At the bottom of the season's well of words
We found a heart of time to come as bright
As summer skies of clearing rain,
And all the promise of green shoots, and the light.