And then one day
You are old

Glimpse a shop window
And confirm.

And suddenly you are old
With shopping bags and
Taxi driver carrying
To your door.

Bottles and ready meals
The bath too hard,
Work boots unused from the
Cobbler

And suddenly you are old
And yet not old enoght

To die.

The plunge into silence

Only a gong-

Gentle reminder
Of world beyond-

Of sound

How did the wild wheat
Survive the sheep
Shorn grass

The wild rice
Survive the
Buffalo graze?

And how did this small boy
Survive the
Dysfuntional family,
Calamitous friendship

And the obligations
Of love?

A whole bunch
Of stones

Circled round

The sun

Eternity is dark

Fleeting spark of stars

Simplicity of small lives

Snuffed inevitably-

Dark

Light

The texture of being

So fat

Barely able

To access

The restaurant

Squeezing out words

Paint tube

Picture

Hoping to see

I am dying

It is good

If I concentrate
Once more

There wil be

Nothing!

Momentary pleasures

Gone

Gone!

So hungry

Young women

So old!

So old!

How lonely am I

As lonely as that

Seagull in a blue
And empty sky

Wither, whether
Bye bye and bye

How lonely how lonely
How lonely am I

Pigeon roadkill

Crows kaw
With
Delight

Heavily courting
Pigeon ****
Puffed up green
Nodding a dance.

Hens peck and posture
Disinterest.

But so many pigeons,
Hens lie

Amongst all
Those billions
Of words...

Still knowing

Nothing...

Full moon misted,
Wisped,
Thin cloud
Fragile atmosphere.

Small lump of rock-

Why are we so
Mystified by you?

I  smell the earth
In your words

Last time

I saw you
Loaded on a van-

Not quite dead

Yet

Impatient for death.

Tell me why
Patricia.

No need.

The spilling
Mess

Of his seed.

Mad along the
High street

Washed your blood
From poor
Neglected brain

Down dismal
Drain

Youngish for your
Age

Your page burnt
By candle

Flame.

Cyril

Mind clear and
Almost singing.

But years weigh
Like gravity upon
The body.

This is it, then.
The end.

Unable to rise
From your throne-

Look death in the face
And say

Thank you for my life.

94
Clever

Dying

Advice.

Sir
Honour
Priviledge

To know you
This short time.

And your wife
91
Taking care

All else useless

The brain alive can help
Hope
Love and cry

All else useless

Yesterday
Sun up came

Today
The same

How wondrous

This sundry
Banality

How long i loved you
Let me down.

How slow the moon
To die.

If only we were dead

Together,

Then how long the moon
Can love

What a plight

To circle a planet.

New moon

I saw not the moon

She loved me never

Lumpen rock

I saw not.

The moon and how
High out of song
She shrilled-

The lying moon

And if

After the moon

Died

It said

This is it

This is sad.

No matter

The moon

Like me

Is a fool

You are not a

What is it?

You are you-

Biddy you slept
In the crook
Of my legs.

She was gone.

Who are you

Contemplating moon
On my birthday

1
Full moon
Haloed by cloud

60 years on the planet.

Who am I?

2
Tonight the clouds ride
Behind the moon.

Universe
Inverted.

3
Moonlight is sun
Pouring out,

Dimpled mirror,
Dead to light.

4
A good sleep last night

Dark and dreamless
Dark and dreamless

5
Sun shone
Directly on my face.

Do not be sad,
Moon-

This is
Grace

Squabble
Cackle
Seagulls

All morning.

Only a plethora
Of cockles.

How like us
They are

Fighting over
Plenty

I wake
Crying
And thank all the gods
(As yet unnamed)

That you may be here

Sometime
(Smiling)

Turned in the morning

Surrounded by book
And bottle

All subtly drowned
In the love
Of learning.

Li Po and Beckett
Solemnly cover my
Leanings

How lonely I am today
Tiny speck in all
Empty immensity.

How alone am I today

Hair flung heedless
Chest to pillow

I rise
Cautious to her
Breathing.

At this late stage
May I once more
Dare to dream

Of being?

The only
Not wanted
Was
Breath

All of you

My darlings

I loved

It is accretion

Not blinding light

The beauty,
Enlightenment
Comes slowly

Like a spring flower

And falls
Quickly away

To floor

Don't look at me
Accusatory

I loved to you
Knew once

And yet sent
This saggy ***
Away!

Still do love for you i

This tree
That tree

I don't know
Outside my window

Only you.

We chop and
Chain at you

Yet you grow
Each year

Bark,

Wrinkled as a
Brow

On the pipe
Perched as if

Grvity
The world

Joked

Magpie
Piebald

Spoke to crow
No grow
Go,

My waste pipe dream
Warm dawn air
Stench of violets
And spring.

You and I
Magpie

Brave in the dawn.

Life not a precedent

Long filaments
Fungiglide for years

For miles

Among leaf-
Littered remains.

Your dead father
(His love for you
Was not pure)

Unfurls
Phantasmogoric
In red orange
Gold

Singing formulae

Mushroomed
Sporing

Claiming the
Cosmos

Saying
Nothing

Clouding the
Old horizon
Of pernicious
And incurable



Hope.



Rot well
Daddy

Rot well
And return

Not.

The day John died
I was drunk

He, no alcoholic
Yes he
Who had some.

No he did not feel that February 2017

They pummelled his chest,
Their job,
They did,

I begged let him go-too long to pump

Grubbing up shrubs
Make a safe path-

This one who
Crosses ravines
On invisible tightropes

And falls
Cartoon
To puffs of dust
And then
Resumes

I went into the darkness

I did

Where sensible people leave
Alone

And felt the ultimate blackness

I did

It was so cold so sure so

Strong.

Black yang

Not bad

White yin

Not good

No emotion

Good bad
Indifferent

No notion who am
Within

Longer now,
Thickened and
Harder to trim;

Toenails turning to
Horn

Re-turning to animal
With age.

Head surrounded by
Stars;
Containing their rocks
And revolutions,

But feet merging with
Mud,
Cracked skin in
Moist balm,
Rooting.

This, then,
Age advancing;
Goodbye to love,
To youth and
Longing.

Stars and clay,

Destination

And all around
The elderly,

Sleeping

Railway sleeper
For a bed
With hollowed
Back buttocks
Heel and head:-

We like to think
Life precedes death

Why?

Does sleep precede
Awakening

Dream the real

Reality the ideal?

Before existence,
Prior
Existence a blow,
And afterthought
Of universal flow:-

Freight train coming

Lift torso from
Timber chamber
And move

Move on

Move
Sleep over
Exists first light

Then dawn

Home again
Home at last
The picture hangs

The man cut down

Rub soreness
From the neck

(Baby
Umbilus strangled
Slips the
Noose,
Scream slimy relief)

And born
Yet again
To express

Poppy remembers
Grandpas old coat
And the silk
Cravat and the
Pen that defines
Without shame
The lover of beauty

Awakening
New dawn

And all
Pretentions

Drop away

Full
The moon

Full to aurora
Bursting

The small i
Dormant this
Decade and
More

Leaf in order
I

Shall flower
And fruit
In order

Spreading
Benificence

At last

Across the land