Forty miles
Pieced by gannet
The saint who never was
Keening through skirts of sleet
Her broken psalm
Against time

Forty miles
To jaws of gabbro , dark Hirta
Boreray, Stac Li. Towering teeth
Bird-crammed. Men spidered, scaled
Over a void where one fall
Could blacken time

Forty miles
The wheel spun, warping language
The world weaved on
Behind oiled womens fingers
Picking at time

Forty miles
Over sheened cobbles to the bay
Men and dogs taken last
Out of a mornings haar
To stranger seas in time

A valentine to one unknown
Whose secret beauty hides away
Taking the words I cannot say

Beautiful lady, walk alone
So love might come to you , this day
Through valentine for one unknown

Open your heart, when love is shown
And when the verse is done, please stay
And let my songs truth show the way
In valentines to one unknown

Listening to Finzi
On Tuesday morning
Sudden dense snowfall through February branches
Remembering beautiful Donna
With her red hair
Colder now
Falling , falling , never touching
As clarinet and piano
Take the lonely road.

Small marraige of fire and moonstone
Autumn lingers in her auburn hair
Perfection steers her eyes
Each movement the proud voyage
On my ship of words

Last weeks
Beyond the lonely ice
Come to an end
Moons marshall dust
Above a face of
Chemical snowcloud
Before the last ****** plunges you
To the core of old age

After eleven
Walking home
A days heat slackening

Suburbia lies prone and flat
Sound carries at night
Is felt before seen

Across and into the night
The train pushes
It drags echoes from trees, parks, estates

Hammers over bridges, shuddering rails
Inevitable, Unstoppable
Laden with the dark

The containers
They count on
They pass , tolling toward the witching hour

Still walking home
Its getting late

Walking to work
Pausing to watch westering geese
Cross the early tints of sky
Formation fraying from V to S
One day Ill fly away
Remembering another morning
They turned in air, downriver
Whilst you slept
My hand pinioning your bare shoulder
Lips kissing your nape

New recruits must follow
Vibration of the coded dance
Do they see beyond
The divide quark in six dimensions ?
Plumbing the subatomic
Mirroring Shivas ebb and flow
Radiating to OM.

An evening inked in purple , as wewalked
Through slow-hour summer by the still canal
Last bird calls hanging on the threads of light
Hushed cattle at the end of days long field
And on the dusk, the herons silent wing
Ghosted the waters breast to curve , and fade
Grey herald of the spell and rise of moon
To leave us without words, a dying dream

That summer which you did not live to see
We raised our glasses to you on the lawn
And saw the same wings beat across our  sky
Fly past in salutation to the west
And onward , to the sunset of goodbye
Twilight came down , but with us still you fly

The wind across a skin
The drum under the hills , on the road
The tribe
Five thousand years, the gypsies
Flare a wild curse
Clan chief  twists a winter horn
As kids, skewbald urchins
Question us once
Then follow
The line of beggars and kings
Down into the sodden
Fold between nations

On the edge of light
At the final dream
You are always returning
My almost girl

Half apparent woman
Rising from the years
I live with your disdain
Your high-flown gaze
Your mad, scattered orbits

All you will never write
All you can never say
Step beyond pain
Pass on

My almost girl
Put back this unopened book
Half apparent woman
This binding cannot be cut

Before sleep, I hear their ghosts
Across the dark, as the air blues
Into the cold hour
Up there beneath Orion
They trace a glint of water
Locked to the lodestone of their fragile skulls
Their winter mother calling them home
Crying Mersey, Mersey

It is a pleasure, feminine and sweet
When gentle moonlight filters over your bed
To quietly slip from underneath your sheets
And from the pillow lift your dream filled head
Your white bean toes they delicately tread
You glide downstairs, your quilted gown so warm
The small hours chime, the calling night is dead
You lift the latch, your lovely feminine form
Flits in your garden , waiting for the dawn

Outside your window
Rain turns to gold tonight

Moon drifts over high branches
Cloud passes

Warm light from your quiet room
Gilding the streams down your glass

As you comb out your star tinged blonde hair
Flowing in waves in to ocean space

Your white Victorian nightgown
Sighs to your naked feet

You stare out at the drowning world
Your eyes constancy
Turning the rain to gold.

The line that brought everything
Took it all back
Sheepdogs, a mangle, a childs cry
Every year more stones dislodged
Forest inched over seeded slopes
Road lost itself a second time
Winters erased more
The crow mocked
Name and echo
Shrank into spruce

Horses are grazing by the field wall still
Here where you sit , the clarity of air
Brings watercolour  down to kiss the hill
Memory cannot tell me when or where
Loves pours out from your image. Love , until
Unbridled hooves through time might take me there
On horses.

In places which only the heart can fill
Be beautiful and young , mirroring care
Across a scene too far away to share
Before the wall is gone, then slow, downhill
Come horses

Anticipation of still uplands
Old sheepfolds dot the valleys stage
Conifers cram close down aisles of firebreak
Mist slips as the dancers final veil
Away from Maiden Paps
Vast air strung with silence
Then from the dusk plantations eye
A buzzard screams

A-tissh -oooo!
Poor darling!, have you caught a chill?
A-tissh-oooo!
Your long hairs lovely forward spill
Hot water bottle let me fill
Get into bed, sweet, and lie still
A-tissh-oooo!

I climb the thin road
Along the muttering stream
Cold off the fell over broken quartz teeth
My step huge in the sharp afternoon

A drape of fern and bracken
Flickering into the eyes corner
Blinking out of green. They are there
Trembling all silence

Of their glass world
Even now
At the door of transformations
Their shy blessings
Fade into the fable

Once through the car park all myths end
Vinyl dragons gone all gums
Drone bored tape loops behind bars

Kids whack each other with blow -up swords
All want to be rightful kings
On this island
Of tooth-rot sweets. key fobs , pencils

Around the square tables
The plastic grail leaks tacky residue
Historys dustbin overflows
We fight a losing battle with wasps

Coach loads bear us away
We were born at the wrong end of time
Here lies England
The sword well and truly sunk

Was it worth all that time
The eye-blurring number columns
The hair-triggered ear tuned
To filter white nights?

That stretched toward red
Five years on. Sagittarius flared an arrow
Seventy two seconds
Across the dark

To tell us nothing
Contact details lost, no message
Whisper or shout
Perhaps already gone

Years later we angled our needle
Ten thousands calls pulsing out
Streamed Twitter in reply
Our inbox remaining empty

The snagged line grows taut
As I repeat the question
" Is there anything you want?"

House too empty , stairs too steep
She wants me back, I worry
"Weve been to ASDA , dont ask what i bought"

Saturday afternoon phonecall
"How are things?"
The reluctant tagline
"Not so bad"

Front garden going native
I set off down the cracked path
Doesnt want next door to see
I dont wave

TALKING THEIR LANGUAGE

June classroom, stir of voices
Arriva trains glide to the coast
Coffee needs filling, the last biscuit goes
This afternoon we look at idioms

Unpicking centuries, cultures
Somalia, Bangla Desh, Kurdistan
English remains official
Still a puzzle

"Speak slowly and clearly"
"Dont hit trees with sticks"
"Its a piece of cake"

The intricacy of language
Shapes ancient letters
"Lemon squeezy " chimes Messa
Our laughter is shared