4’s one too many
3 can keep a secret if
2 of them are dead.

The past’s historic
the future will be perfect
and the present’s tense

She woke me up
this morning
when I overslept.

She brought a cup of tea.

When I opened my eyes
she wasn't there.

Nor was the tea.

When will I learn
that all I need,
or all that I believe I need,
I already have.

When will I learn
that all I want
is not to be confused with
all I need.

When will I learn
that all I need,
or all that I believe I need,
I already have.

The only thing I lack
is to accept the fact
that there is nothing that I need
that I don't already have.

Dear friends, you’ve asked me
how it was I came to poetry.
Let me seek to give an answer.

I was early held in thrall by words
and sought to find
a weapon of expression.

I explored a vast variety
of differing forms including
prose and drama and ballads.

I did not come so easily to poetry.
Poetry came to me.
It sought me out and overflowed.

And did it share the secret I'd explored?
Could I answer that, dear friends,
it would not be poetry.

The most beautiful words
ever spoken
emerged from a heart
that was broken.

Some there are who move through life
without creating a ripple
on the surface of any other person’s
existence.

Some there are who burn themselves out
with an excessive expenditure of energy.

But she . . .
she touched so many lives
she enriched so many others
she displayed so many talents.

My soul reached out to hers
caressed the chilled alabaster of her face
enfolded her in its embrace,
timelessly spreading its
tentacled grip,
at odds with the chilled alabaster of my heart.

And now she has moved on
and soon it will be time for me to follow.

In the blue distance, gleaming, painted with glorious patterns
reflected in the refulgent sunset,
come the surfboards amidst
the swell
the froth
the crashing waves
that rise and fall.
Crashing, rushing, babbling in tune that
echoes and re-echoes in the evening softness
to dance in joyful harmony.

And this, this crystal world that I have seen
in patchwork majesty spread wide upon the shore.

I want to weep but
I have no tears to shed and
it is killing me.

Was it really 70 years ago?
Did I just leave school
and get conscripted
into the British Army?
(And get married?)

I thought it was yesterday.

Was it really 60 years ago?
Did I just get married
(for the second time)
and was I embarking
on a new career?

I thought it was yesterday.

Was it really 40 years ago?
Did I emigrate to Hong Kong
and spend five years
travelling the Orient?
(And divorced my third wife?)

Well, that was certainly not yesterday.

So what happened yesterday?

There are times when some buried and forgotten part
of ones past self is called up from an aching heart
and it can be a most painful rebirth.
The memories fragile, soft hued, when thus unearthed,
are as disturbing as a dry brown flower
discovered in a book, may strike one like a meteor shower.

This is a situation that, when taken out of season,
evokes a past experience for whatever reason.
A rainbow within a bubble of soap,
the search for trouble with a bronchoscope,
the desperate wish just to recuperate,
despairing hope that they will not reciprocate.

And when all else is but a heap of ash,
other than that consigned to a memory cache,
then it is time to place within that store
those ills from which recovery can be no more;
to tread a path and seek a blessed state
from which to be a learned advocate
of such as heaven and not the living hell
in which the guilt of conscience still does dwell.

Now count your dead, you others who survive
as bees continue to enjoy their nectar in a hive.
As animals may play, imprisoned in a cage,
As we creative writers persevere despite our age.

It is but propaganda to deceive
and not sufficiently authentic so as to believe
when  Death, that great aggressor, determines to intrude
and interrupt the joy of an imperative  good mood.

I’ve opened curtains and raised many blinds
and peeped into the crevices of minds.
And now it seems at last it’s all been said
There’ll be no further peeps, and so to bed.

She has gone
She is no more
A light has been extinguished
and the world is a poorer place.

No.
I correct myself.
She is not gone,
she is still with me
and I love her so much.

Every freebie
has a tariff.

When you pray for rain
be prepared for mud.
When you pray for sun
be prepared for drought.
And when you pray for peace
be prepared for war.

Every granted wish
carries a price.

Along the Isis; down the Cam,
the brightest minds have not displayed
solutions that are worth a tinker’s ****
deserving of an accolade.  

How like the fates to cruelly take
the nectar of the sweetest flower;
to steal its fragrance and thereby to make
a nonsense of her latest hour.

The footpaths that she bravely trod
reflect the beauty of her life.
The countryside alas now sadly flawed,
by memories now sadly rife.

Late misted fields now sunset flushed
beneath the spread of every tree;
the golden corn now waiting to be crushed
from Shillingford to Maddingley.

The scriptures tell us that
to everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die.

Forgive me then if I suggest
that this was not the time
for Emily.
It bears no sense or reason.
It was a fearful crime.

She was one of the blessèd ones
who offer so much sustenance to others
that they have little left over
for themselves.

It is not always a blessing
to survive.
Sometimes it is anguish
to be alive.

Now she has gone and we remain
to face a lifetime of pain.
But we should also strive
to keep alive the joyous memories
of all that she has brought into our lives.

Hers was a bright
unquenchable spirit.
The heartbreak of her vanished hair
produced a request for hats
that would enhance
and not detract.
Thus did she turn negatives
into positives.

The intensity of her smile
was such as to dispel
that monstrous regiment
of doubts and fears
that assailed us.
Thus did she bring us comfort.
Thus did she turn winter
into summer.

She always bore her sufferings
with fortitude beyond credence
and always thought of others
before herself.

Music was such a large part of her life,
for her the bells were always ringing.
She would be saddened beyond measure
if she believed our grief
prevented us from singing.

For life goes on
and we move on
and she would be the first to say
"It is right to grieve
it is right to display sadness,
it is right to shed tears
so long as you continue to believe
that I will sing with you through the years."

Her song may now be heard
in the notes of every twittering bird.
Her smile will be seen
in every flaming sunset,
in every shimmering rainbow;
in the beauty of nature
as profound
as once she loved.

Her joy will continue to be felt
in the waves that crash
upon the shore,
the wind upon our skin,
the blades of grass
beneath our feet,
where once she walked.

In the fleeting clouds
of blissful skies,
the woods and trees
that mark the hallowed ground
that once she trod.

But most of all
in the sound of every twittering bird,
her song will continue to be heard.

As I wander through my life,
the distortions of my existence
provide an illusion
to warp my perspective

She always bore her sufferings
with fortitude beyond credence
and always thought of others
before herself.

Music was such a large part of her life,
for her the bells were always ringing.
She would be saddened beyond measure
if she believed our grief
prevented us from singing.

For life goes on
and we move on
and she would be the first to say
"It is right to grieve
it is right to display sadness,
it is right to shed tears
so long as you continue to believe
that I will sing with you through the years."

The suddenness of her departure
came as a vast shock.
She had clung to life as tenaciously
as a limpet to a rock.
But her acceptance of her final breath
as though she had been blessed
with relief long sought from suffering and pain
took her to a deserved and peaceful rest.

We believe that by identifying symptoms
we will succeed in curing cause.
But the name is as little the origin
as the menu is the meal.
We need to seek the source,
the mainspring of our malady.

A cure may be
as elusive as the alchemist’s gold,
or the scientist’s discovery
of a perpetual motion machine.

But
to **** the ****
we must locate the root.

I have now ended
the final years
of my
second adolescence.

I have attained
a plateau
of calm
and peace.

But adulthood is so boring
and childhood so demeaning.
I’m looking forward to
my third adolescence
when I can once again discard
the inner childhood self,
and yet reject
all adulthood’s
responsibilities.

I look back to that time
when  joys were simple,
before
awareness of pain
and suffering
had started
to leave their mark.

Where have they gone,
those times of
yesteryear?
How do I rediscover
those simple joys,
experienced
before the aches
and tribulations
of adult life
had intervened?

Alas
the past
continually advances;
the future recedes.
There will be
less and less to
anticipate,
and more and more
to recall.


The future is a foreign country
and I don’t speak the language.

She came back.
Briefly.
Back from mind and heart.
Back into my
actuality.

The initial shock
of external appearance
immediately
transposed itself
into the feeling of
habitual love.

There was no alteration
beyond the
superficiality
of her changed deportment.
The strength of character,
the courage to face
unflinchingly
the extremities of
physical discomfort
and pain . . .
none of this in any way
differed
from the recalled
determination
that inspires
the admiration
and the adoration
in which she is held.

She is not a survivor.
She is a victor.

The transience
of everyday events.

The fear
that much experience
will pass me by.

These fleeting concerns
disturb my waking hours
and interrupt my sleep.

I lack a strength
of purpose.
I deplore
the weakness of my mind;
the doubts
that happiness will yet return;
that new growth of spirit
will spring from old;
that I will retain the faith
to go on building
from every death
that decimates my world.

And
I owe a debt.
I have a commitment.
I must maintain the will
to go on fighting.
I must retain the hope
that life and love
may yet be won.

And I must accept the fact
that dogmas may vanish,
that temples may fall,
that ikons may crumble,
and credence
may moulder.

But
Earth Abides

Before I lay myself to rest
there are mountains I must climb.
Before I go, I must construct
the perfect paradigm.
There are bridges that I have to cross
and rivers I must ford;
and metaphorically at last
cut the umbilical cord.

Those things that I have left undone
from my long bucket list
must rapidly be tackled before
they can be dismissed.
And superficially at least
are tasks that need to be addressed,
and any sins remaining
that need to be confessed.

I will not go gentle.
I will shout and scream
and beat my breast,
withstand all mental
pressures that would seem
to put me to the test.
It will suffice just to resist
the forces that will persecute,
and, knowing I have done my best,
shall raise my fist
into a victory salute
and stay defiant to the last.

.
Dreams follow strange patterns:
They appear and disappear
both sleeping and awake,
And while we are in their thrall
they place gossamer
fingers on our
imagination.
And when they go
they do not go quickly;
they die
little
by
little.

The discovery of a small dead bird
this morning on my balcony
induced a totally unexpected
but keenly felt
feeling of deep loss.

Had it flown into
the reflected sunlight
of the French windows?

   *      *

Where are my French windows?

I remember saying:
“If you notice
Any change in me,
Any loss of faculties,
Any lapse of memory
Any sign of frailty,
Any sudden disability,
Promise, promise, promise
You will bring it to
My attention.”

But he never did.

Now he suffers from
The onset
Of his own dementia
And I have made
No comment on it.

I’ve become an old man now
It’s something I can’t hide
For age is a condition
That cannot be denied.
.
But energy will linger,
So long as I survive
To pen these simple verses
That keep my mind alive.

The pressures mount incessantly
But I will overcome,
And  will continue marching to
The beat of my own drum.

I saw a thrush upon a bush,
a graceful bird was she,
and next to her I saw a rook
as black as black could be.

And as I looked, into my head
these words occurred to me:
Oh rook, oh rook, please tell me please,
why do we disagree?

For, after all, we both have beaks
and wings that we might fly,
and yet you know these things we share
just seem to pass us by.

Our main concern it seems to me
is how we might apply
abilities that each may have
that take us to the sky.

Beyond the rainbow we both soar
but what do we bring back?
For some of us it’s peace and joy,
for others its attack.


You may be black without concern
for my own speckled brown
but why should colour matter so
when, wings spread, we have flown

up to the heights and back again
albeit on our own
and you just treated with disdain
the friendship I have shown.

Although this thrush upon its bush
invited you to play,
you  gave a quite incurious glance
then turned your head away.

I do not want to seem to push
or tell you what to do,
but if you want a friend, this thrush
will still be here for you.

I have these thousands of words
jostling each other at the back of my head,
trying to force their way out
in a certain order, a particular pattern;
trying to express something.
What?
And every so often a combination of them
will be expelled  in an unexpected way,
after we roll them around our head
as though they were candy
rolling around our palate,
being tested for flavour,
for consistency,
for shape.
Toying with them,
teasing them, denying them their natural
conclusion.
Sometimes we feel frightened,
we feel threatened,
we are fearful
that we may reach the end
of an exhilarating experience.
And then the candy dissolves,
the words force themselves into consciousness,
and are revealed in a form that
in fact
enhances our experience,
provides  a new sight to every sound,
a new flavour to every consistency,
a new pattern to every thought.
And we call it poetry.

He was being interviewed on the box,
having famously engaged
in a different type of box
many decades earlier.

They, rather unkindly I thought,
produced a recent picture of him
stripped to the waist and in his boxing shorts.
neck larger than his head,
spindly legs at odds with thickened torso.
His hearing clearly impaired
by the damage sustained to one ear.
His balance slightly unsteady,
but a reminder of what used to be.
I felt really sorry for him.

And then I thought
who am I to judge?
Perhaps his life would have been pitiable
had he followed any other course.
Perhaps he might regard
the loss of certain faculties
a small price to pay
for the pleasure and fulfilment obtained
from the pursuit of a career
that was more satisfying
than any other that was available to him.

The thought sustained and cheered me.

In one of her last few semi-lucid moments
my mother quizzed me.
She gazed at me myopically
and seemed to be asking
herself as much as me.
“Did I really love you?”

It was the first firm indication
of a previously suspected
demonstration of approaching
senile dementia.
There were others,
more mundane,
less cerebral,
mainly related
to her toilet habits.
Clues that were easier to ignore
than to acknowledge.

What did she mean by it?
“Of course you did”
was an instinctive but meaningless response.
She peered at me uncomprehendingly,
as though my reply
bore no relevance to her question.
A question that has haunted me
for over forty years.

But how could I doubt her love?
Had it not been for her concern,
I would have perished ‘neath the surgeon’s knife
on my return from evacuation
in Fakenham.
She never would have dared challenge
a doctor’s diagnosis
on her own behalf.
She was of the generation
and the class
that treated medical practitioners
as gods.
But for an offspring she was quite prepared
to fight both tooth and nail
in some basic, ritualistic simulation
of a jungle tiger’s protective shield
at a perceived  threat to its young.

And later,
when she rushed my sister and myself
into totally unorganised evacuation
to Llanelli in order to escape
the sudden perils of flying bombs and rockets.
How could I ever doubt the love
that she exhibited in my presence
in her debate with the headmaster
of the local Grammar School?
Her insistence that he accept me
despite my lack of Welsh
that would ordinarily be a
basic entry requirement.
Her refusal to accept
the rules and regulations
was a mother I had never seen
nor could I have imagined her
to be capable of
such persistent challenging.

Thus, my mother, tottering on the brink
of what was to be a life-annihilating
dementia, asking me, in a rare, lucid
moment, if she had ever loved me
would seem to be a non-sequitur.
Was it a sudden recognition of
a coldness that she might exhibit
to the world, but which did not reflect
the love that she really felt but
failed to exhibit?
For that matter
was the “me” really me or was it
some other family member with whom
in her later stages of dementia
she confused me.

But it has induced a question
that now I have to pose myself.
The recollection of those many
wonderful experiences
that demonstrate
the lengths to which she was
prepared to go
to defend those values
which she honoured
though rarely overtly.
render the question
meaningless.

Unless, unless it be reframed
into an accusation of my own
failure to recognise
to appreciate
to reveal
the extent of my own feelings.

Perhaps it was I
who should have posed the question:
“Did I really love you?”

I find the simplest things
begin to have the power
to irritate me.
The fumbling with the buttons on my shirt;
the standing, balancing uneasily upon one leg
while pulling on my socks;
the insecurity of standing on a chair
to change an electric bulb.

Today marked the low mark
of my dejected spirit.
The simple act of fastening
the zipper on my coat which
caught up in the cloth and then
refused to budge.
I was reminded of that symptom of ageing:
first you forget to pull your zipper up,
then you forget to pull your zipper down.

My god, I feel depressed!

For so long were we happily united.
The divergence began a few years later.
It marked a time of sad and poignant loss.
A death with no cadaver.

What had we lost?
What had been ours to share and was no more?
How to apportion blame?
Why should blame even need to be considered?

There had been so much unity.
Our lives had meshed so thoroughly
and what had fingered one,
had snared the other.

Nothing is ever lost  (a physical law).
Every negative implies a positive.
So where was to be found
the serenity and joy
that had marked so many gleeful years?

The vacuum was vast and needed to be filled.
Her arms were opened wide;
while mine were clenched about myself.

I thought I could discern a pattern:
a repetition of highs and lows.
Perhaps, I thought, this could be the start
of a voyage of self-discovery,
and since, as Proust has said,
such voyages are less concerned
with seeking new landscapes,
than having new eyes,
I will have to microscopically
examine every facet of myself,
in order to find my true identity.

Then, perhaps, we will also learn
how to restore that unity.

And yet, and yet, the question
returns and re-echoes again and again:
After so many years, so many years,
how could we diverge so rapidly?

The longest lasting grief
is grief for one’s own self
for one’s mistakes
for lost innocence;
for real or imagined
harm to another.

The most important
lesson to be learned
is forgiveness.
And  the greatest
advice of all
is to forgive oneself.

A Kindle near me on the toilet seat,
A fine Prosecco and pizza to eat,
My i-pad playing loudly in my ears;
Ah, who could find a Paradise more sweet?

We thought that we could have it all;
we were wrong.
We were naïve
to believe
that love would keep us in thrall.

We thought that we would simply scale
those mountains of deceit;
that should we fail
we’d merely use
our own ejection seat.

We were wrong.

Random thoughts occur to me in poetic meter.
I tend to write my poetry like the childhood pastime
of connecting up dots
until those random thoughts coalesce
into my latest piece of verse.

Amidst the gloom and sadness
of so many hateful deaths,
I find I have again to ask myself:
is there a parallel universe
in which I continue
to exist
surrounded by
and pleasured by
the family and friends
I loved of yore?
It is a wonderfully
sustaining thought.
Giving up is not an option.
Humour lifts the climate of despair.

Formerly I ran like mad
to stay in the same place.
Now at last I’ve come to know
that this will merely
bring me face to face
with my own alter ego.

I shall have tales to tell
Before my final breath is drawn
Of such enchantment
As has stirred my soul
To flights of wild delight

Dreams recur in different ways.
The first hesitant holding of hands.  
The first tremulous brushing of lips.  
and when we try to recapture
that sleep-borne reminiscence
we are left with
the residue of sadness
or a residue of sourness.
We try to clutch at an ever diminishing
straw of recollection.
We almost have it.
Then it is lost.
Dreams die in strange ways.

He has gone.
A mere shadow of his former self.
But I still see him in the passing faces,
or queuing for the bus,
or shopping In the supermarket.

I see him
not as I saw him last
in his bed:
his penultimate resting place,
but as he was throughout those
years.

A child,
a playmate,
an adolescent evacuee,
a youthful, excited participant
in all those artistic delights.
The nudes, the landscapes,
the biblical, familial and  historical
inspirations.

And during those
Italian years.
Honing his artistic style.
Enjoying, and being enjoyed by,
that colourful scene
as eccentric as he himself
was destined to become.

And now he is no more.

And I am suddenly
and painfully
struck by this terrible thought:
he was the oldest surviving relative
of that generation,
the offspring of
a mother who was
the sister of my father.

It is a mantle I have had ****** on me.
I am the patriarch.

I look back to that period
of innocence
and deplore its brevity.

I recall when
we bathed ourselves
beneath the fountain of youth
and I believed
that our love would never die.

Was it a lie,
or just unspoken truth?

Every breath I took
brought me closer to you.
But it was not enough.
Why could I not understand
that all I lacked
was the recognition
that there was nothing
I needed
that I didn’t  already have?

It is a lifelong pattern.
A concern over what I might be missing
has always spoiled my
enjoyment
of what I already possess.

And while we continue
to blame others
for our own shortcomings,
we fail to recognise that
a voyage on
the vessel of forgiveness,
must begin with  forgiving oneself.

We have freedom of choice,
but apparently
we prefer to choose regret
rather than happiness.

All things are dust,
and to dust all things return
is a biblical pronouncement.
But while we may rail
against the losses and perils
of our existence
it is too easy to forget that
the bough may have broken,
but the tree still stands.

People died.
I’m alive.
Flowers may perish.
Weeds survive.
Good men vanish,
Tyrants thrive.

Moving in one’s lifetime tends to follow a distinctive pattern.
First we start accumulating: family, friends and treasured possessions,
and with that vast accumulation comes the need
for an expanded premises within which they be housed.

Finally with family gone and friends sorely decimated,
comes the time to massively downsize
and all that treasured furniture and bric-à-brac
needs to be discarded and persist only in memory.

I have to ask myself, when the time comes
for me to move to my last resting place,
who will then remain
to guard those precious memories?

And so I finally can say “goodbye”
to monstrously distressing twenty-sixteen
reflecting back with inward shrug and sigh
on happenings that never should have been.

But I have lived through all that could be thrown
by Nature with insouciant disdain.
retaining sensitivity alone
that I have sought to disregard in vain.

And now as these last few hours pass away
I sit with solitary glass of cheer,
ready to greet the dawn of a new day
that is the harbinger of a New Year.

And I reflect however bad may seem
the slings and arrows of life’s jesting style
it does no good to rant and rave and scream;
such immature response is juvenile.

Better by far embrace the positive
though hard to find in the twelve months now gone,
there’s always much denial to forgive,
and clemency comes easy when alone.

So let me cast aside self-pitying malaise
discarding too the self-indulgent sorrow,
and echoing the mundane Scarlett phrase,
I’ll put it from my mind until tomorrow

"[A season message to all readers]"

I do not celebrate this pagan feast,
But others do, I know,
And some may call it Chanukah,
Or worship Christmas snow.

But call it whatsoe’er you will;
Light candles, deck your tree,
Or merely give your heartfelt thanks,
Please read this homily.

You do not need a good excuse
To celebrate a feast
You only need to have your fun
Before you are deceased.

"[So, whatever is your preferred option at this time of year, please have a wonderful time and a very happy New Year to you all.]"

Where does my shadow end
and I begin?
Or, contrariwise,
where is my ending
and my shade’s beginning?

Captive
in my body’s helpless
state,
I am aware
of the detestable
but inexorable
consuming of my body
by its shadow.

Decomposing bodies.
swollen stomachs
hollow sunken eyes
Beaten and degraded
Less than animals
Music bursts forth from their wounds
The blood long since gone from dried veins.

Those chimneys stand there still
As vast totem poles
To pay silent tribute
To those six million souls
They will be reborn
as new flowers from the dust,
new life from death.
Remember them
but for an accident of birth
it might have been you . . .
or me.