Your hair pulled back to bun,
Your focus on the phone.
Head up for inspiration once,
Then quick return to frowning words.

I watch you from across the train;
An elegance of tassled shawl,
Faint scent, disdainful glance
At passing green. A sigh.

Much later in the journey,
The reply.  Temples briefly held;
A hand that comforts
And despairs.  

Those careful words that did not work.

That face that curve of neck those eyes
A tilt of feature and a look that does
Not mean to but cannot help but hold
Me helpless staring - almost daft with
Being with you
Distant in the world.

A New Moon seen through winter branches.

Sometimes I can go to that place where everything
Is beautiful
Or fascinating
Or wondrous.
Even my father's encroaching depression,
Following us
Up the green sweeps of the golf course
As we tramped together
With the words slowly failing
Between us

I could cry at that now.
I could not cry then.

Finally it stood beside us
Baleful.
Then coldly with us
In the back seat of the car
All the way home.

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.

The lyric life arising larks from you
In mornings evenings
Days of yellow leaves
And roads of
Dark and wet

But light and fortitude of lightness come from words
Spoken
With wings.

It's a curiosity.  When I, full of purpose, square up
To the yawning, waiting sheet  - and indeed write frowningly
Perhaps, some ‘not bad’ words.  Which, although
Laboriously born, are as true as earnest slog
Can make them - up the unforgiving path of prose
Aspiring to be something other than the stubborn clay it is...

I stop.  

And listen.

Then know

That all the time another poem was writing itself
Alone, some faint wraith, left hanging in the air
Of that spell you cast, unknowingly. Unknown.

I sometimes sensed it padding lightly past,
Or in an upstairs room. Maybe glimpsed it drifting
Near my window, whispering to the words

To crystal

So they, so you
Are clear lattice

Seeking nothing for themselves
Just light.

And your slow dance

If I can see and sing it,

Balanced in the air

Just so.

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.

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.

Coming down the carriage with her coffee, tea and name badge,
She LOOKS like an Emelia.
Serious and quite beautiful in some ways
In her dark skirt
Her keys that hang and jingle
Her expression of slightly resentful concentration -
A miniscule pursing of the lips as she pours
- She was not made for this.
She was once a princess.

She still is.

In absent minded surfacing from sleep
He rolls and bops her gently on the head.

A jump for both.

(They still sail dream-skies singly: clouds and rain)

A yawn, a sigh of loosening night..then giggles
...and half into the pillow:
'Do you always do that after...?
'Always.'
The secret smiles that start face down in cotton
Mean mischievous all.
And so the artful stray: fingers across the sheeted fields to find
To touch: the stroke, the tease, the tender joke
Of cartoon-witches' nails that swiftly change
To quietest whisper of his finger-end near lashes  
To brush the boyish shock of hair that falls
Across her face and is so  

Perfect.  

2. And growing light reveals what last night shone
From so deep within her
And now she knows it too.
Seeing in his eyes the certainty she feels -
Now her Longing Being is achieved
As they climb to light together and  
The lovely dance that wants to happen
Draws them on the little loving path
To earthly joy - and no worse for that...

3. What fingers and eyes began as wisps
And threads of possibilities,
Now feel the planet-surge of ocean swell
And sensual intertwine of selves and limbs so serious-silly
That detail blurs then flashes sharp as ice:
The little sweat that slightly pools - twice - at the base  
Of her back
He strokes with hands behind her
As her naked song and curves and rhythms rock above him - ribcage moving
breath half open lips...
Yeys and ooaoos and silences.
She dives to ****** a smiling kiss in midst
Of whirling storms (that shock of hair again!)
Then resumes the unselfconscious closed-eye calm
Whose movement is the music of the earth.  

4. Then all goes quiet.


Excuse me.
Mmm?
Are you meditating?
Mmm.
Don't you mean OM?
Shh! -  A secret smile -  and, well, why not?


The shiver of a different self - not unwelcome but unsettling
Creature of a liquid ecstasy
Now very close
And something far beyond itself
Or rather saved to birthright body-spirit-soul
Answers, tells,
But will not be tamed.

5. The final moves:  her face sky-upwards, back,
Eyes closed, she sees the bursting stars
Inside her head - falling falling falling  
The golden smile of Rightness Here and Now...
It's done...

Ruined, softly felled on forest floor
With sighs of syncopated  breath

He draws a sheet the length of her pale form.  

6. Hands on his chest, she rises  

Face framed by sheets - medieval queen.
"I thought you were a Princess, not a nun"  
"I'm glad you noticed -  I am both, of course."  
Exalted from the inner pagents' light
With one smooth move you panther to the floor.
"Stay - let me see you whole again and human"
(She knows he fears that alien point in love)
She stands patient, watching, while I gaze.
Enough?
Enough.
It is not right to linger.

A playful far-too-rapid Tai Chi twirl,

Then off to make the tea...



- For The Dancing Princess
- For S.
Late Summer 2009

("Undimmed the joy of this new-happening love.
With all the confident lightness born of vows
As yet unspoken but more real for that.")

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.

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.

These lines these words are coming home, coming home.  
Playful, light with nothing to forgive
Or do
Really

But this is real.
This is all my world now...
Are they for me are they for you?

Me I guess
But they may reach
You

I still lie. Words are so easy to lie with.

But to truth with words you first have to
Lie with them.
Love them
Have intimate surprising knowledge of them
(because intimacy is always surprising)

Is this what makes intimacy so scary for some?

In touching you
With words or eyes or soft nails between

We might touch off a sudden flash or crack
Of powder dry for years.

Every now and then in the chatter and witter
And text and blather and the well-turned well-meant phrase
Of wherefore and because and if-then-but,
And mind the gap and be careful not to litter -
That plot our safe prosaic paths of tidy, well-lit days,
Someone walks out from this swirl of words,

But is not of it.  
And looks at you.

And looks at you.

Space. Now.

Something touched and felt.  
Time also woken in your glance - time warm
And tangible,  but - so brought to life -
Is thus gliding like an emerald snake
Towards its rest and hollow:
Towards another darker now that is
Loss and lost and forever loss,
containing as it will - no you.


But for now the dark eyes of your spell
have driven time away.
And now is all we have and all we need.
Together we contemplate the candle of your silence.  
And its snuffing out in absence.

A third presence at our table, at the end.

Words should soar at break of day.
Impatient with the serotonin low, I
Break out coffee toast and sun.
How dare a... take a run
At this word...Neurotransmitter...
Stop me having fun?

Let there be brilliant light
For all.   Right here right now.  Always there
Above a cloud or two they say.
In fact I'll try another high jump word
To raise sky higher still,  the day -      
...5-hydroxytryptamine...

Hooray!

Had I a hollowed out word I would give it to you.  
An empty vessel, a waiting truth
Hovering to be told.
But for now, intention only
Bloodless, Lonely.

Cold.

You would see what it could be - love it to become.
Warm it to the brim with unique worth - elating it
To rise and reach through all the lettered strata that
We ride our work - our lives - upon:
To join our everyday and sacred company

Of speech.  



-  Our beautiful inheritance of polished tools
Waiting to transform the world -

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.

I wish you could be here now
Waiting for the winter dawn
-too early yet -

Outside - cold black and thin treed
Hard by the Dark River

But here the glow touches each to each

You rise to draw a curtain slowly
- night clothes open softly to the screen -
And I am briefly jealous of Peter Mandleson.

You did not want him to touch you at first
But he did anyway
Held you so your feet were off the ground
(put me down you thought)

But there was something in his lift
The easy, irritating way almost
He did it to you
Like you had no substance

But when he put you down and
Looked long
You wished
-and you were -

Still up there.

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 want to rub you up the right way
I want to put a shot across your stern.
I'll wait until it rains and then make hay,
My bridges all are steel and shall not burn.

These inverted phrases weave a past intent -
To look back in blessing of our yet to be:
You'll see me like Impatience on a Monument,
To set my sight beyond the wood - to see one special tree.

Then delve in sky to find your roots  
To make your fallen leaves breathe green anew.
And know: untasted are the finest fruits -
And only words that make no sense, are true.

And so I end begin this pointless noteless song;
I have objectives to unmeet, things not to do.
I have lost all sense of right and left and wrong.
There is only one truth I know, Love.
And that is always…

You

Let me change my life. Slide down underneath the table
Of the right and proper. Rejoin the child
Happy fitting things together. Unfamiliar. But joyful with fat fingers.  
Hidden by the cloth
While the grown ups crown their cups with words
I do not understand.  

At any moment shoes may shift.  An edge goes up.   A monster of a face enquires.

I stare back. Smile to make them go away.  They do not know

Someone else's toes do though.

I will talk to you.

Started broken mended half unmended Abandoned hugged again Set down Winced at worried over. Grudgingly a rhyme did come.   Loved (maybe one line worked) winced at once again. Finally set down and

Done.

—--------------------


How your eyes fill the room.
From their light, no escape.
And now that you are here again,
And smiling
None that I would wish to make.

A warmth of waiting, then the
Words between us flow
To conjour into being more within
Of each
To each -

Mysteries of another sort of love
That may not speak
Or be spoken of too much.

And I am layered blessed and emptied
inside out
No breath left for words to tell.  
But not all whooping, since it is most wonderful, wonderful, and then again
Most wonderful.
To know, we know all thing shall be well.  

Perhaps more real unreal than ever so before
But everything's alright
And
Somehow made more so
By a broken wine glass.
Rolling empty on the floor.

Let's get back to where we want to be.
And where is that, exactly?

Or just tell me - vaguely even - what would be good
For you, for me?

Now each day, suns are rising in a clearer sky -
We can both see the choices of renewal.

Emergent like a bird
We are all fledglings souls again.. Hesitant,

Excited at the edge of emptied air
That draws us on and out.. And more

And more
To as yet unimagined worlds, new wings

New felt realities we do not understand
But need - for  flight, to the horizon,

And our next breath.

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.

Scotch at sundown.  Good cat on the chair,
And then green light I know
will be there for me in the bedroom.  Cars
And self mocking subjects with the fumes of sleep
not far away.  Paradoxically I think another drink will just allow the bottom of the page to become reachable...

What do the dots mean?  
“You know We know It's possible.  And maybe you can participate in this thought too.”  

Not wanting to carry on like a stony upward path near moors near Langsett.  
With a forgiving friend that runs as well.  
But not too well for me to fall behind in the chat chat chat of miles to go before I drink and miles to go before I drink....

A piece of bread to soak up spirits to their full height?
Not quite

And I'm always frowning always at the paper and at you
I do not mean to

You see?

The ****** rhymes they get in without me wanting (and also wanting)
The clever trite score of sound like sugar hit that ashames me after
Drinking down the self congratulation of a chime of words.


And there it is
The stone of end at the top and the last thing we might see

Before descent to all the rivers and the ferns and...

And words

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

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.

Take me to my own strange places
And show me the beauty there.  
Is that what poems are all about?
The russet leaves, the glories of the
Autumn - yes. But I want the ruins
Within - the grey dripping lassitude
Of self, that knows no good of self or other -

To feel the  sun.

A splinter of time is felt in carpet treads
And your smiling question look
When you know exactly what it is
I want
As you are always there in tails of light
From ivy shining gold on
Waiting trees in evening's thinning presence

As I wait now.

And from this place I watch myself
And see the knots and pain so clear:
They are all the meals I eat that
Parents ate that all the silent unnamed
Faces round this table now
That were and breathed and tasted morning air,
And are not.

Breathe through me.

Now feel all they meant to say.

I stroke words with mouse's arrow -
But feel no easy daylight common sense,
Blessed and cursed to know
Elating separation from the scrabbles
In shallow city seas of present
Struggle to survive and breed.

And yes I know there will be more -
More fresh and blue high wakening days;
While earths of slow engendering wait
Content to breathe alone until I
Stop

To breathe with them.

What if it was the poems in our unformed breath
That really changed us, and the world?  
Not the known, the clear, the stones of words,
But the languaged sigh when someone in a crowd
Looks up.

Come let us look together at our writing
And how it does caress the world to meaning and to be.  
A word is not just breath, or dark lines on the white:
It is an instrument of conjuring touch; a single feather maybe,
But think what they can do in numbers in the sky,
Or singly, with a smile, when a face is turned away.

So it is with these. And more than that - these ghostly fingers
Take hold to lift together stories by the million;
Shape, lay waste, and seed, and seed again.

To grow stone lintels on a prehistoric plain.
Spell bridges, roads and dwellings  - all the necessary noise of life.

And then bring it back to this small line and time.
That points to what may be.

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.

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.

You gave me in the shining image raw with
Water, claws and streaming head  
- That oblate crunch of teeth  
Set in a grin that lives and dies with all our rivers.

Loving on the run,
You keep your red blood rapture close:  
Defiant body heat  
Amongst the Winter reeds and ******* eddies  
Lit with bone white moons coldly  
Whispering to the quaking weak
'you..and you - you will not see the Spring...'

But YOU - You will  
You've got it sorted you have - YOU!
And I know about your Previous -
Oh yes, Sunshine, the list goes on:  
That already-landed trout,  
The picnic scraps,  
The soggy **** (a shock   they   were!)
The little girl in daddy's boat
Who so wanted you for home and comfort...

But you love and leave them all YOU do.
Hey! Come back here! I've got more questions to…

But you've gone of course -
A bark, a twist, a finger (if you had one) to the bleary world.  

Taking your pagan grace to depths we cannot see.  
The Celtic torq of crystal bubbles track
Your ancient underwater poetry and poise  
This artist's camera lightly saves.

And me?
My hopeful words: a suffixed flap  
Of flattened gestures;  

While slim you slip away  
To snap your life on Life,  
Salvaging the Sun  

For Spring,
For us.

I think many people fall in love with you.
And through you, something in themselves
They never found, or more likely, lost
In all the trying to be true.

Times trying to be better, love in turmoil.  
Find a path, to please oneself and other.  
Neither all too often.  And at

The ending of the light, contemplate
A little life, meandering to its close.  

And then there's you.

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.