No need to read the information leaflet
Carefully before treatment can begin.
Do not use as directed if that does not
Work for you.  May be taken ****** or aurally
Or applied to any sensitive area of skin.


If side effects occur, do it even more.
These may include: mid line or end point
Rhymes, a sense of quiet elation as a rhythm
Builds.   Thrills are quite common too when
A soaring, singing line comes flying on the wind quite suddenly


From what was empty sky.  You will know
Then that the Muse is On The Wing and must take
In ever larger doses by breathing deeply of your world -
Feeling the bubbling alchemy of heart and pen..


At which point - as you'll see


It is acceptable - even recommended! - to shout a bit
And bounce around the kitchen spilling tea.

The word Lyrical. Let us dwell upon it

For a moment.

It is of skies and waters and green leaves

Of descant harmonies and slim fingers

Splayed upon a page.



Of the clean air in the morning,

Just after dawn -

A slow incantation of

A poem whispered

to only one.


Of being very still to watch a bird

Alight, but then seem to stay for fleeting ecstasy

Of sun on feathers -

Before it flies.  


It is of Untouched time - and this

Little flight of words released


For you.

A blast of playful air that hits me with a whoop.
Enthralling, charismatic weather  - in your face!

A gutsy wind that spices up the day, twisting,
Teasing leaves to mass hysteria by the rush,

The flourish of a superhero cape then instantly away
To riff across the valley trailing shards of rain

Climbing for a mile to trees seen against a roaring sky
Then arcing back with shock wave force of

Spatterings that sting but wake me to
A pitch of seeing, cascading words around me,
Of a world now sharp and new - edged,

With delight.



Almost too much to write.

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.