We talked before eating
About place

Direction

Then went straight
To tapas

One lasagne to share &
Two patatas
Bravas

We talked so much about timing that
To fill up our mouths
We ate with a relish we'd
Seldom shown
Each other

And took too much
Wine
You

Went to cut up the pasta
Sharing, as ever

But 2 bay leaves
Lying, deep inside
Resisted the knife

Leaving a ragged edge
Between us

We stopped - smiled
Not

Really sure

Why

Swallows, House Martins,
making nests under the eaves;
you glance, too busy.

Alone on a bench,
things in mind, as yet - unsaid;
weeds find cracks to grow.

Flowers, by the path;
blue - so overgrown. Today
we go no further.

Dried stalks of grass stand
in an old ink jar, writing
yesterday's words.

Having no sense of the new      Having
only the sense
of a continuous now      Having
no sense of the new Having only
the sense of a continuous
now   Having no
sense of the new    Having only the
sense of a continuous now    Having no sense
of the new    Having only the sense
of a continuous now     Having no sense of
the new     Having only the sense of
a continuous now     Having no sense of the
new      Having only the sense of a
continuous now

Daffodil binoculars cup
the crispy
yellow rice.
                 Twice,
candles pencil
my jars
into receipts.

Mats burn crystal windows
that the wind will eat.

Greener flowers
          that jump
     and book
the sky
will swim towards being.
A crescendo

stuck within the tube
seeding the bird feed.

Where the rising field
folds
under the light
horizon
taking the land out   up
into the sky
and you've no idea what lies
on the down *****
to a ditch
past a scattering
of cows;

beyond the lamp in the window
where the unshut curtain
hangs
as a figure appears pauses
bends to look at something     takes
it away and leaves
to read and read;

at the bus stop people
standing
waiting for a number
a shape

a co-incidence of time
and place;

and you've no idea who
or why:

this the axis
of the mind.

Snake skins
slough-off

in the dark
- each

  the friction of living

Where does the time go
When your holding those
You love?

Time flows out of you
Into the love. And the love

Only grows
As your time
Goes

One
Ticket

Two
People

Wreaths & Sprays

Fancy Bouquets

All the promised

days

I could talk about the fallen.
Pink blossom

lying on the green grass.
As if the fall of something

beautiful
something

you might cry
"innocent"

meant
something.

Or
I could talk about the flowers

"smothering the branches of the tree"
thickly. As if

they symbolize love.
Or something

like it -
fecund

fulsome
bright. We

could praise the Lord this way.
Some King

of some Heaven. But
that would be an image.

A pale reflection of our hope
for the wind-

fallen seeds.
But

it's just a tree.
Not a glance upon the face

of some deity;
a piece

of eternity.
Why

make an image out of love?
Isn't love

enough?

Strangely
everything stopped

An Oystercatcher paused
orange beak stuck
in the sand

Curlews stood
their long beaks curling
back to the land

A Sandwich Tern caught
mid-dive
also stopped

Even the noisy Ravens didn’t
tumble down

Satellites and stars    unseen

held
as the tides

almost

rocked


Slowly        we made our way

hand
in hand

The cry of the Common Gull
is a yik;

it’s a wild
and high-pitched
yelp.

It sounds like an Apache
in an old Western
the moment before he strikes the Cowboy
with his Tomahawk.

When there are a few Common Gulls together
all making that high-pitched war-cry
it sounds just like an attack:
I look to draw the wagons
in about.

As soon as I hear them I’m back
down in the Cove
playing Dead Man’s Dive;

it’s almost as if
you were alive.

Let me not forget
The magic of days
Gone by

In love
And in loving

When I'm old let me yet
Be young in my mind

And in love

In this dream

  you're walking in a wood
  stopping sometimes
  to pick up sticks

In this dream

  you're making up bundles
  tying them with twine
  to carry them home

In this dream

  I'm a couple of steps

  behind

It snowed on the day
she died

It was April
I knew it wouldn’t lie

I made toast
and tea

the noise of my phone
still ringing

in my mind

I watched the lovely
big fat flakes

falling

softly

They looked like feathers
curled with gravity

drawn back down
to earth

And if.

Well,

yeah:

and;

if.

Up at the top of the acre
where the overflow stand-
pipe comes up
out of the grass,
there's so much running
water that reeds and rushes
have taken over
and choked up the land

In the evening
looking up to the window
as I wash
I see a family of roe deer, down
from the woods
in among the reeds

In the morning
they're still grazing there
quietly
as if nothing’s

changed

There's a small temple near here

The dry grass around it bends
   rattles and snaps
   in the constant
   wind

Dust blows up in clouds that whip
   across the wooden stilts
   and fall

A temple
   to the ancestors

Hand-painted clay pots
   within a quiet recess hold
   their ashes

at rest

the water in the water
tank drips

the waters isn’t water
for my lips

the water is
the drips

somewhere deep within
the level slips

over

Swimming in brackish waters off of Helsinki thinking
These waves are very high and very frequent I felt ****
(I hoped it was ****) brush at my feet then something rough
Scraped against my thigh as my breast stroke failed
To keep my head held high and slightly salty water went
Into my mouth and across my eyes and I stopped

Treading water long enough to rush one hand over my face to clear
Things up and kept telling myself as I swam further out no
There's no sharks in the Baltic what you felt
Must've been **** or a rock and even

This far away a thing
Can touch you

And you're never really sure
What it is

the award of this medal is made to this man for    
I think it was a woman who once said that love
is composure under enemy fire and a small act
of extreme slowness a willingness to endanger
his life between two people who think but time
and again returning to the field he maybe really
didn't know who ultimately sacrificed his life
either of the two parties ever were or when they
whilst carrying the fallen from combat and he
first really gave then broke each others' forever
will be cherished
in our aching

Twisted water
gives labels
                           of light

Black          Flat

Swaying walls take flight:

Stone upon Stone upon Stone
Trees

never seen to dance dance
till quarter to me
Yesterday still

it seems

That person who gets you, lifts you
As the stone that fits your hand does
Who loves you as the stone from your hand
Skims out across the sea, loves you so
Many times more
Than you can count
That
Person

Whose love seems older than the stone
Smoother than its perfect roundness
Whose eyes seem deeper than the sea
During the endless time your eyes
Meet. And the feeling

In your heart
Of that stone
That oldest
Perfect
Love

Skimming light, skimming fast
Skimming away
Away

As it fades
As it

Fades

listening to you sleep
I hear your sighs
your little mouth explosions
& cries

surface calm
rippled by an eddy
of whys

you whisper in your sleep as if
the secrets that we keep
are wide awake and turning
churning

somewhere in the deep
beneath your eyes

I wonder in the darkness if
we’re drowning in our lives

Whoever called it that
never knew.

The colors are beyond real - just
like they are in dreams. But dreams

never come back on you, not
as dreams.

The rattling whirr
of the projector; the couple

walking into the distance,
taking everything with them.

Everything.

take away the orchid
from the sill

watch the shadows
fill

close the window on your day

as the lights
fade

pull the curtains
go to bed

put the pillow on your head

they’re coming in
they’re coming in

again

It's nice having new snow
covering the back garden
in the morning

like a visitor has come
bringing things

good things

not expecting a gift
given back

A Jurassic forest - a
tense moment watching
my T Rex, grazing lightly
on the jugular

vein of some docile lizard, with
a toothy grin, when
Alan's mum stomped into the room
bellowing dinner

time and the intervening million
years or so turned
in a whirl of pages, tumbling
legs and screaming kids, and a jumble

of Alphabetti Spaghetti tubes, limp
in their bloodied ketchup pool,
clearly out-flavoured
the remembrance

of things
past.

you were tig

I was tag

bright pink wellies

a duffel bag

the snowball

that I threw

I wonder if

you ever knew

It

was always

you

6 happy songs

1. Oui hear
What we appear
What, we appear?
What
Where

Capturing the in
The expressable in it
Capped in it
In
Into

Together to gather
To Get Her - To Gat Her
Two Gets-together
Gether
Glather

Troubling isn't it
Very troubling
Trouble some
Some troubles in ning
Inklings
Inner rings

Der Rinks
Der

2. Vert
Over therr
Overt therr
Knew a woman who was livin
Oh Vert Herr!

Oh Vert Herr!
Over therr
Err a woman who is livin
Oh Vert therr!
Err
Err

3. Bleu
A cloud farmer
I eye the sky
Eye the sky
Eye the sky
A cloud farmer
I eye the skye
Eye the sky
Wide

4. Blanc
Here is the blank
The blanking blank
The blanking blank
The blanking blank
Here is the blank
The blanking blank
The blanking blanking blank
Blank


5. Rouge
They come to me in ones and twos
Ones and twos
Ones and twos
They come to me in
Ones and twos
Ones and twos it's
True


6. Noir
Brush away noir noir
Brush away noir
Brush away noir noir
Noir noir no
More No more
Noir noir no
Moe

"Hey!
Hey Lady!
Lady! Hey!"

Words approximate to:
are proximate to:
Subways.

Tickets and newspapers and lights
and people not talking but
silently listening.

[Woman]

Numbers are doors into places that
are yet to be
are not yet been;

are ahead
are rolling ahead
are ahead of us all.

Emptying streets in the sunlight as
something important happens with
outcomes - unknown outcomes.

Beneath everything they say:
nearly everything that is said:
acknowledging what appears to be said.

"Do you think we need to lose some weight?
No, really -
do we ?"

Where did they go with that why
Nothing was said to nobody
Who didn't hear?

[Woman]
- Travelled so far

Additionals attract the many.
Fewer are the fewer and fewer.
The subtractors haven't.

Gather no moss ye rose buds
Ye flying clocks
Melting onto these tableaux

What is it
Is it
It is

How far down do they plumb
This line - how long
Strung along

[Woman] so very far
Yet still so very far
To go

How far?
How to say how far?
How to say?

To the end of anything at all -
What
When

is this then the end
of the end of things,

lady?