There were painter’s clouds that day;
broiling, tumbling,
moving inner silence across an easel.

Beneath them
a concrete mind mixed and etched
one long brush-stroke:
the tarmac before us.

Excited engines carried us along
and carried by us
an air befriended...
with the convertible top thrown down
your hair streamed
olympic colour; a spectrum of extraordinary.
You threw back a sunrise laugh,
the wind and all else
belonged to exhilaration.

The horizon captured another sky,
a mist-green hail filled sea; a quiet litany.

A pallet knife scratched its lightening
and the danger of no potential
that kept us moving on.

I put my lips to your face
and **** in old skin.
Your face changes colour.
Becomes pink with new complexion.

Your mother calls.
You can’t tell her about this.
Instead you tell her ten, for coffee.

After coffee. At shopping. She remarks,
'my daughter is so very beautiful.’
The salesman nods in agreement.
She purchases a new appliance.
It matches the colour of everything;
it's the most powerful and efficient vacuum in the world.

She is happy. Brings it home. And plugs it into the socket.
It ***** up everything, including the paint from the walls,
the curtains from the window and the telephone from its cradle.

Your mother is pleased, it’s everything the salesman said it would be.
Along with her furnishings, it ***** both of us into its black belly.

Surrounded by the comforts of home we start a new life together.

One day you say, we’ll be very happy.

But it’s so dark I can’t see your face.

The phone rings.

It’s your mother.

She wants to know how we’re settling in.

Rust, that un-used plough
vigilant in a swallowing green
shares the fugue
of various machinery.

And in tangible mist
milk-cans emptied flood the ground,
cows are sent back to pasture,
fence posts are made ready to burn,
in an afflicted winter
burning cold in the comfort of sorrow.

If an old crow happens at the cloudless
this is more omen
than the shrinking market.
And when the shoulders of my father
farming this winter
are no longer brave enough to carry
the sky
I carry his gun to the gate;
we walk a silent trail
to shoot an enemy
that never comes.

The cold sun; a bright nail
pinning us, the blue weight
pressing horizons from reach.

My father
searches this expanse,
his hands extend
to something...
but I see
they only move
to wave away flies.

If there is any comfort...
my hand in his
is cold this winter.

I’m waiting for you to leave me
but you don’t

I’m waiting
for perspective
to re-appear,
for
diminishing return
for warmth from distant appreciation
but you don’t leave

I’m inhabited
the meal doesn’t end
the wine re-fills itself

surely time will take you from me
a little further off
so I can wave
the small wave, of
loving friend

rather this
than retain the air
where you might have been
imagining that you hold me

as you do

Looking to the west I see a perfect rainbow
Tucked under and lifting a symphony of cloud
The sun beams in lay-lines from its horizon.
Yet, the scientist who explains this phenomenon
Cannot describe my feelings for such a spectacle
Cannot describe the song in me that dances
The miracle of light and spectrum.
—-
You are mighty, you are ethereal
Your many fingers rake aberrant their spatulas of light
Your beauty makes all else ghastly or at least ordinary.
The trifles of each day’s turnings are insignificant in comparison.
A conscience of orb, mist, shadow, light
The Gods derive pleasure from your presence
Else their thunderous growls bemoan your magnificence.
—-
There is no darkness just the absence of light
There is no cold just the absence of heat
There is no disbelief just the absence of your benediction.
Uncapturable, delicate, infamous portent.
In the implausible silence you are where I worship
Without beginning or ending
Yours is an ultimate mantra.

Blue to you may be a room with a view.
To me it’s an ocean turned sideways.
It’s the colour of air gone thick with the sea,
it’s the largest and highest of high-ways.

Blue to you may be one without two,
and all of the times you’ve landed,
feet thick with dew – stuck to each hue
where you thought for a time you were stranded.

Blue to you may be a day that is new, to
me it’s the place where I’m standing.
It’s the home of the eye and the reach of the tree.
It’s the wave of the wind and the wave that is we.
Blue is the deep and the shallow the same,
it’s just where I’ll be when you’re calling my name.

Searching and spreading. Dividing our wings.
Soaring the gentle, the sharing of things.
Come endless, come empty, full with your sound
call the vast harmony and arms that surround.

Come to the blue that touches all things
come with me gentle, come let us sing,
sing the high rising, sing the low mark
sing the blue heaven that covers the dark,
and chorus the carol, the carol of being,
and the blue that is given to those that are seeing

The colour of towels
hang in my house
down, like waterfall
from door-corners and window sills.

Some outside
some on wracks
All open mouthed
spread welcome.

I have paintings also. They are static.
The towels move around.
They’re the colours of angels
blessing a clothesline
or bedroom floor.

If I’m wet they dry me
if they’re wet I dry them
It’s a good arrangement.

They smile at me, and often
break into laughter
when I attempt folding
they think it’s a hoot
trying to fold away colour