I see you in all your worldly goodness.
Bright as a welder's arc. Sudden.
Stark. So stark against the mind's sky.
Oh my sky, my new found hand -
Of God, or Donne. Who will tell of this?
In a year, ten years, the century to come?
                      
The encounters you can't calculate that matter.

You really never write a poem
They write you.

You rarely ever write a poem
They humble you.

Maybe the only good we ever know:
The hunger for the strange.  

Our inheritance of otherness
In the wandered rain of words.

My love returning from the field of other.  
Gently gently to the nearby time.

I cannot see you, feel you. Where you look
Is not for me. I know a word
Will come forth when you sleep.

Take your saying to the opening day - to speak
- To see - a better world.
All the everything you are is now.

In this next breath.

Waiting room door opening for me.
Pigeon coming
The Other Way.

The melancholy is there alright
But real unreal in sense of simple
Thinking wrong right turn?
Who knows?

Some future state of economic social
******* that leaves all free to breathe
With sun and joyful rain at every turn.

And dragging selves that wrap themselves
Against the slowing rain
Are gone.

But here we are, and here it is
Rickets or gravity
Little difference. We are left
To ourselves.

Dark lines mark the pallid page to life
And start to sing
Of glooms and brightness; heavy steps
And light.
To a final Overwhelming.

- So we talk and write of Death.

But then the wind rises. The leaves now
Lift again, though 'Sit by you sit by you'
The Death bird sings by day by night.

The words welcome the sounds,
Listening in their fields of white
- all my good shepherds -
In the high fields, lanes and valleys of my life.

Words falter do not falter
In face of decay.

The ever changing marks
Are ever shaken

Speaking in the turmoil
Of time that always never

Slips away.

It's the wonder of the words that dare
The world to be. Levitation of the blurring
Dance of eyes and flashing hardnesses
Of walls and trains and roads  Words must
Witness by their mutual rituals, all
The gentle glories of a touch.

Your latest lover leaves the train.
The pattern on the seat interrogates.
No answers warm now emptiness is all.

The wings of possibility are burnt
Ammonia stenches, clouds.
No taking light of eyes agreed.

The window is still there.
You always were a window-watcher, you.
Now there may be something.
Maybe something new.

Now is the very time. The most high.
I tell you all to stand.  There is the sun
Of freedom.  There, see.  
Stand up and speak, be heard, be seen
To see it.  Spirits stretch to light
By nature, by all of us in eyes that
Meet in quiet powerful crowds.

We may slowly, sadly walk to home.
But we will ever each be keeping close
The open, breathing words.

You're still not seeing it
The master began....
I know I said
And shot him dead.
I can I can I can.

The sly obscuring sheets are undulating seas
And landscapes white and shadows
Flowing.

All taken in a vivid moment's memory,
As langorous limbs are briefly open fields of
Sharing.

And - I know - of course not all you are.
But allow a sunlit second: you naked, with me,
Smiling.

A lifetime would hardly be enough to listen
Long and talk to you, as here we sit
In newly plastered swirling pink
That might look cold, but so not so -
For we are wombed by warmth of voices
Ours, through us - remembered others -
And a ghostly third.

Off on one side in my head. Only
Way to say it. Christmas does it to me
Every time.

I'm dangerous now. Squad don't know
But Inside hardly soldier anymore.  
Standing orders, tactics, kit and all

That stuff replaced by unmilitary                                              
Wondering at the sky,
Or the beauty of the brackets of the forward sight
That frame the blade, the 'I': the part of me
That is my target every time I fire.

Still, my private holiday tomorrow: I will
Close eyes on blinding sand
And wake in chilly splendour of
A Northern wood with bracken underfoot,

And  streams and lichened rocks,
And lowering clouds, a scattering of birds across the wind,
And peace.

Just the way you ruffle up your hair
Would grant your words a tree ring life.
So stopping in a year's walk winter wood,
I will remember -

Count back to seasons of past dreams.
Time is rain and sun and solitude of sap,
That can in quiet, etch rivulets down the years
To where we stand.

I saw the  heavy angel of the bell
And heard his plainsong clear.
The length of fleshy life he showed to me.

I walked away and all steps were bell-notes
Telling me a silent truth of in and out.
Clapping hands that followed, filling

All the valleys of my mind with mother joy:
A grace and blessing of no thoughts
Just ringing life and clouds and air.

A fear of warm false certainly of tiny mind built days.
- Let me climb me out of me -

A wooden rule - dead measure of my time to leaving cold.
- Listen to the gusts of now -

Books take their second life as rooting trees entangling my thoughts.
- I find a space of me to fly a little -
It's all I need.

In some ways I like your silence. The rainy skies
Of days and paces felt more clearly, closely,
Keenly.  Although my blinded snail horn hope recoils
At touching nothing, you are still there:
Gaining me the world in higher pitch of sight.


So I more readily accept the poorly pins,
Tacking stitches, bits of tape of self
With which - for now - the falling hems
Of finery or rags are held,
As we craft our strut or shuffle through a life.


Till Sunday-weary of all the spiralling conspiracy
Of selves and shells.  We stop. Finally.
Naked, cherished, and accepted all for all.

This morning's rumbling train from Heaven sent:
Now words are my salvation.

A tightness in the mind, the waist.
But also freedom of a voice to say I care.

For many faces near, but known not kin.
Their contrasts trace a line of thought
To you.

New smoothness of a plastic place
Rough words do good to shake, to shake -
And give the world a grain again.

I cannot find nor want to yet,  our
Dwelling in an archived hall of thought
However sweet.

No - I will seek for now, and to the end -
The always newfound world
Of any two that find a voice.
And meet.

Need you away.
Pure, like scour wind through skeletal hedges
Stark upon a skylined field.  No leaves.
Gone.

Want no shelter.
Want no easy sooth. The words themselves
Are blown: Beside the point. Always
To exasperate by nearness,  not
Quite near enough. So go.

Footfalls in a street of light. A
Wondering.  A slowing to the pace
Of searching for beyond - beyond
The gated places. All such places
Come to grief.  

But grief as leaving, grief as seeing.
Grief as necessary arcs in rainy skies:
To help you wonder
Help you see.

The shadow of action covers you
As a brightness creeps across the world.
Your hair a forgotten pointing
As the stride to battle stirs.

Not now the toys of words.
The smell of belted metal purpose
In your hand. Fly to find a man
To enter and to ****.

The green, the brown the folded
Cold of stiff cloth will warm soon
Against you. How soon cold
Again? No matter. Off you go.

The easy trees. Deceptive soar to latticed skies
And stretch of trunks to overwhelm: your welcomed trick
To feel the circling of the height. Right here.


I see the gaze your melancholy eyes imply -
Serious with sight, so every image
Is of sorts, a selfie, but also shows us all
How to look up.

Green leaves at the window submarine my room.
A drift of wind, then still,
This waiting,  haikued day.

All the journeys in the world are waiting too,
For our telling and retelling, rummaging for words
To pleasingly adorn, but pointedly, the page;
Voices for another life to hear, maybe, and find their road.

Till all the storms of self subside,
Our ghost voices left to breathe from shades,                                                                
And whisper on a wind that always knew the lines,
As others ride the chattering of their days.

So come with me, to silence. Stay.
- There are no words for truths of Being With.
The million little brush strokes of the willows -
They simply say: just dance today.

For MWF
Summer 2014

Alot to be said for naked existence.
Alot to be unsaid, for the same.
I consume the moment. Ravenous
Beyond all appetite. Beyond all time.
Beginner's mind to the end

I am new to this, and will always be.

I lay you down as gently as I know
Uncover all, and all my words
So simply fly away.

No distance now. We are the sunlight
Touch and silent ancient speech of
Leaves and rainy roads that weather back
To sky and fields and streams.

Do you know the words that tell, can hit
The apple with a thin and twisting bolt
Of truth? The Gessler'd page - a sneer
Of whiteness waiting for the fall, the fail
Of wish that aims too low too high.  

You have no choice. Breath cannot hold for long.
Release release release the words
Are flying - not yours now. To **** or save
The wide-eyed boy. Your own
And William's son. The world,
The only one.

I can feel me rushing forwards into night.
Not just a phrase - a horror truth.
The choices made, decades buried now
Exhume themselves with bony fingers, dirt
Under the nails.
And crawl towards my life.

I loved you then, I love you now. But now
The days are speaking consequence of lust,
That no amount of dulling wine can lay.
No thoughtful poems exorcise from night to light.
The shadows of the wrong are on
The windows of my house.

I asked the cat if it had a muzzle.
It gave me a look. Got off my lap.
Came back and sat
In profile.

Just staring. Gazing. And waggling
A foot. It's what I do. And what I'm
Supposed to do Is just this. Now.
Sometimes I sing.

You can hear me.

Sometimes.

Watching the rain. Is it for the first time in my life?
Little squalls across the road.
A patch of time.
A single note
Before the glass doors open,
And in to buy.  But now, what do I need?

Bubbles of talk and understanding laughter rise and fall -
A warmth of people in the orange light.
Some places lend themselves to parables,
As here - in Severn-circled Shrewsbury by night.

Present friends make links to older times;
The words that are your living to make live
Trace the sinews of their journeys to a
Younger name of where we live and love -

An Alder Hill- Place of meeting and of meaning
Under sheltering green where words and lives
Were shared. We inherit now in human glow
Of present conversation, a river's-depth of memories flowing here.

The Alder trees live on. Their ghostly roots
And branches now the passages and shuts
That tell the light-dark-light of life,
With newer voices echoing their questions, truths and fears.

And some to find a way together, whatever
Distances prevail, to meet upon a day – your day.
While still the opal swans glide silent, knowing,
On the night time shadows of the Severn.

Seeing, saying all, if only we could hear.

Hope. We use the word in texts and other
Voices each to each, down vistas of
Our separated days.

Say it! - 'Hope'. A rounded affirmation from
The slightest kiss of breath: intended blessing
For the other's life: a wafted seed, a wish towards,
A wave.

Or see it as a ball that's tossed - 'Here,
Catch!' ...and despite the elves of wind,
You do.!

Wet sting on cupping palms is sudden joy.

So hope returns with outstretched
Hand and smile beside this calming
Softened roar of sea.

And hopes are bedded deep as wells keep rain,
As seedlings grow from legions of themselves
Before. And will again, and will again,
And will again.
___
Envoi -

Sometimes I tread the Higher Country of the Soul -
So fine and bright and clear.

But lesser things are good to see
In all the valleys
Of our lives.

Like Hope.

And Hugs.

And Beer...

Your red dress sweeps down
Your curves your truthful self
Moving smooth away from
Words.

Running round the Isle of Wight
To keep up with the boats.
- Is that all I ever do?
But rocks and lonely beach
And distances - are pilgrimage
And race with self
As much as waves and sky.

Plane wheels slow, a last half turn, and stop.
Fading jets, ignored companions for the miles,
So loud again in silence.

Their ringing absence leaves a sliver of clear sight.
As all unwind from one life to another
Searching in a tiny 'and' of time
For the pieces they must carry off from
Now to then.

You hold back a little from the crowd,

And look away and see beyond the
London grey, a tree in fullest height of green.

And in that fragile moment's grace
Heart and mind leap through to fields, to water
And to empty skies that have nothing,  
So have all.

You rise and walk along the aisle.

You smile.

I start my day my room my world I root
Around my fumbling life for clothes for
Pen for phone, for all my pointedness.
For time. And clattering down the stairs
I clock the walls of me, my life my purpose
And toward the course the road my prize the voyage
I leave.

The cat walks slowly out of my iambic lines.
Listens to the rain.

I mean this ‘Rigmarole’ word well.
I place it on your path like flowers, rain
For you to see and know that
In your comings,
Goings beings fleetings in the greater Swirl,
I feel your wonder in the day-to-day
Of all our days.

Looking up, I set my mind to wander
From the work in front of it towards
A deeper now.

The rain, the endless exhale of the laptop fan...
And then I touched the paper. Found a tunnel
Back to me.

My page days turn too quickly.
Flighty meanings - reach to catch a word.
Half seen, half felt, half heard.
But might have saved for me a bright and lovely second.

Perhaps a fleeting truth is only right
For this, our running whispering,
Grave paved life.

And - yes, you're right of course
She should have stopped the cough
Before imposing it on you
So sleep was killed;
So furthering your grinding sisterhood
That you were stealthy-taught
By raising villians dead,
Whose ghosts still shade your brows.

Help me cross my poorest borders. Now
The dry white clay and sickly tufts
Of many grasses seen through dust,
As we are very soon
To know,
Are ending.

Here.  This one will do
As well as any.

Sometimes I think that the only thing
We will take with us
Or leave behind

Is poetry.

Fragments

Of what did not make sense in life

But was beautiful.

Your words flowing to the point and to
The furthest reaches of this space.
I am not in this place now but float
To possibilities we have no time no time to meet

The coffee steam entwines an elegant image,
A nuance that swirls the room to life.
And I am made calm and bright with this
Breezy logic that entrances and - truly -

Transforms.



For JM.  March 2008.

Right here, right now?  The kitchen?  On the table!?
Why not? The curtain's drawn, the dishes done...
That's not the point - we might be seen: the cats!

A smiling silence marks the code for 'Yes'!

They haven't any cats.


With shaking hands the breakfast things are cleared.
Before the final tetris slot of dish to stack
Is final launch commit: they've cleared the tower
The boosters lit,  the fuel is rushing to the fires
Already burning
Bloom in crimson waves around them both.  

- Can we agree on one thing first my Friend?

This is

The heaviest, lightest thing that you can do.  
To live these silvery liquid chains of breath
And blood.
And sky and air and

Falls calling to each other and winging to the heights...

And she says

Look at me.

At a certain time of the evening
You glance sideways.
A golden light
Caught out of the corner of the eye
And - with a little catch of breath, see  - a vision
Of purple black cloud and foreground green lit by flames of evening
All shifting moving dancing.

To savour every single last little moment:
And in that seeing with the naked eye of the dead
To find in the tiny space between action and the smell of grass
There is some Finding that may
That may...

"Build?"

One day
Into un-possible newness and
New life.

The willow weeps near bedroom windows.  Bare.
The - at last - leafless branches, stripped
By crystalling North,
End in exponential curves to bisect a frozen axis.

But beyond, against the sky, though  seen
Through willow tears, there's that evergreen
We planted  twenty years ago: arms raised  in
Exuberance of immortal green - a shout and whoop
For nature's Winter fireworks 

There.

I have not eaten properly for weeks.

I have ignored the offerings of little things
In hesitations, turnings round to look again
At light, and waters, glances, steps and whispers.

Instead

I've trudged to no avail the barren flats.
Sought pretended safety among the many
Many in their repeating teeming empty worlds.

Almost believed in them. From time to time.

Then I cleared a space.
Saw the table of the day,
Looked up.

There.  The trees.
The blue sky through the trees.

So I guess you and I will die apart, then.

And would it make a difference if it
Were Not So?

From the train
I saw the moving buildings in the fog

They did not know.

I watched a man who had not looked at me
For all the time we spent together
Pick up a pen and write.
He showed a care for words
But not for me.
He was not for me

He did not know.


The lives we touched and made from passing blurs
- A friend defined and sharp in vouching care -
As hands can hold caress and make a face
To trust in eye to eye in day to day
For all the tumbling times to be.

That made a difference

We will know.

Oh that I could tower the words
Or send them powering underground
To feel the warmth of deeper worlds
And find the geologic power
Of you.

Then I should see and know your goodly earth
That concrete, brief and money serving prose
So slyly veils, betrays so sickly from me
Every day.

I want you in the coldly marbled glory of
A soaring place of awe for dreams -
A monument valley where the trivial has no place.
I want you in the moment of a glance -
A quiet corner of a room
Where plots for good
May hatch.


I want you in the tears and smiles
And curious nothings
Of all the many miles
To come.