Into a kettle
I let vapour drip, all of you - witches brew
- I float and whip
your ev’ry hue,
so to me
you stick, so thick like glue;

never ready,
a red and bubbling stew
oh yes
it was death we dodged, flew through

into a mess of petals
on which
I tripped;
my heart in flips,
falling for you, my lips
all blue. To stone I turned;
the flowers around us grew.

Across the hills I swung my feet
and skipped along, tingling with glowing glee,
my trainers treading out a beat;
I made the heat all swirl and surround me.

And at the top of some summit
I saw trees sway in flourishes and frills,
whilst on a statue I did sit
and shiver in a wind that swiftly chills.

Then the descent! - blissfully free
I now bound down through bracken and green grass,
with thorns and nettles stinging me -
until the road, where through a gate I pass.

On the concrete I make progress,
mentally I’m reciting poetry -
so that in verse I can regress;
yes - to youth, to magic I quickly flee.

The clouds now thicken; homeward bound
I listen as I hear the traffic roar,
and children spilling out with frowns;
I know in the country I am no more.

So before I reach home I think
the world so strange, that within just a mile
it might suddenly change! The brink
of nature’s grace; lost without denial.

For the first time
in years, I have spoken
to you; not in person, alas -
on the phone, it is true.

I snapped your heart
quite perfectly
in two, but time brought me back,
back, back
to you. And through
my thoughts you swallowed a cliche,
while I whistled and stared
out at the waves, then
in a whirl of skirts,
I walked away -

Only on the phone.

I forgot your voice,
so there were only words
after the tone, a message
to remind me
that I’m lovingly
alone.

Cocooned in her darkness
she stirs at no sound,
lying quite motionless
while the world rushes round.

Hid within her bubble,
starves herself of love;
she’s immune from trouble
with the purest blue blood.

Only precious magic
can make her mind reach out,
its absence quite tragic;
a soul she is without.

No rescue she desires,
numb coldness she craves;
Princes scrambling through fires
she will not entertain.

As time trickles outside
it freezes within,
by denial she abides;
no spirit in her skin.

But at last appears sun!
And life suddenly calls!
Her protection is done -
she melts all her dark walls.

Her ****** eyes see sky,
a hope not dreamt of;
there is only a light -
the soft glow of some love.

A blackbird and a moonbeam
once buried in my memory,
now - not to be imagined, just
dust and fragments,
feathers, darkness,
starriest loneliness; rush of breath,
a breeze
at the window, open
to the night, with streetlights
shimmering through, everything white;
my vision fading
beneath the screen
of so many feathers. Only cars passing, one after the other -
together.
       A reminder
of time, flies
humming, in the ear;
that familiar sting
screaming forever.

Up here I feel the electricity,
all the scattered lights of rainbow matter
tall colours and stars sprinkling the city,
and in the centre, my mind grows fatter.

When I float to lectures I’m lost in words,
so much knowledge, fizzing fast in my ear -
and my voice the smallest in all the world
how weird to feel flat when I’m living here.

But in time this place became less frightening,
it’s littler up-close, and gentler to me;
the labyrinthine streets, now so exciting,
foreign to strangers, but not strange to me.

Though my heart stirs with the sweetness of home,
this city has grown a love of my own.

Perseverance on my tongue,
a silken thought in silver ink
I scrawl strange patterns on the sun
and watch for daybreak to dismiss
the blackboard starlight drips and runs.

Now listless with my aching legs
I’m counting candles, chasing smoke
that filters yellow, drains the dregs
of coffee, cold and drowned of hope.

By tingling error I swallow words,
boredom pervades the bitter night
with a whistle, tuneless, that seems absurd
I empty out my troubled mind
to exhale sadness; curled, entwined -
quite futile, like staring when blind.