Monstrous time
(Daffodil wilts)

Oh slug

I hear that you
Are stupid as

Slime.

Where is the cabbage?

I finite space

A scratch of toenail
Startles fever

Base foul mud
Ships struggling by

I hate the music
Of motorbikes.

Longing for the life
Of bacterial
Galaxy  travelling

I spoke to robin on the tree

He did sing

But not to me

I walk a ladder to heaven

My robe
Many coloured
Falling in shreds
From my shoulders.

Grey beard?
Grey beard?

My wisdom dissolves
In your gaze.

Yes

I kissed

My mother's feet


And yes

I would kiss yours

My sweet

Weeping

Bank

Sun but
Snow?

Ah, cherry blossom

Falling like poppies

GRAVITY

The apple falls
Through habit but

Who is to say it
Will not fly
Far away and frolic
With Angels
On a cloud somewhere?

I am dying

It is good

Trudging uphill-
Scent of wildflower
In rain.

Sniff of Truth-
Gone now.

Red berries
Edible-

Sufficient to life

Why?

In a deep soil
Microbrial work

Mining holes
Tunnelling
Tunnelling

All churning
Turning

******* in
Wet
Dripping
Sky

Stubbed toe
Too soft shoe

Final interaction

Body in extremis
Meeting hard-edged world

Washed your blood
From poor
Neglected brain

Down dismal
Drain

Youngish for your
Age

Your page burnt
By candle

Flame.

Midwinter lights
***** holes in gloom.

For a moment
Stars unfreeze.

Cataract lifts-

Unveiled-

Limitless possibility
Glints

One thousand

Words

Haiku

Syllables

Universe

Gone away

Mike

Under water-
Poetic straw
Barely breathing-

Our words entangle
Like lovers

But not limbs-

Crystal love
Ice in tumbler,
Libation.

Goddess Poetry-
Anoint her head with oil

Bless our poor efforts with

Eloquence

Little leech
Grow fat-

**** bad blood
Between toes

Drop off into
Swamp

Heal the Ancient
Sole

Shaken branch,

Squirrel ****

Blossom overthrown

Of tiny dinosaurs
Perch on
Feathered treetop.

Pen,
Fossilised,
Struggles to record

Silhouette against
A
Colorless
Essex
Sky

Alone scream
Pink guts slime
Umbilical.

Dead
Dessicated

The only
Thing

Life

Death

I love you

Just slip out the back
Union Jack

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

for the type of cloud
nor name of
flower tree lover bird
nor pet

no name
no knowledge

only this
or that

no this

Where is moon
Is she hiding?

Thought you would
Come to me

But I cannot see you.

Tears furrow
An unwashed face.

Rocks
            Strewn
                          Haphazard

Left by shrunken
          Seas-
Receding                 Ice
                       Or
Hair

               Left stranded
                         Upon
Dusty plains

Sighing through
                                  Dessicated tongue
           Jutting
Broken
                              Teeth

Happen
Event
Not hair no hair
Not young old
No silly words
Prophet

This time is
Revolution

Now

No need
Explanation

Goodbye old
Goodbye new

Catch a flying arrow
In the teeth
Only

To spit out time.

Breathe in total space and
Blow out billion
Stars.

And this is what we call

Dancing with the
Heavens

And the sun
Burnt me

And I was

Happy

Who stole my life

Which starched white
Matronly apron
Dropped a basket into
***** Thames-sordid Times

Who rode my Charger
Bedded my Princess

Who drank dry the
Dank cellar of my
Being?

And why

1
Traveller

The Traveller Travelleth
Becauth he hath no home

2
Who

Name: Date of Birth:

The first two Hooks
Into innocent Flesh.

If, instead

Unborn

Only Hanging by a tightening Cord
From Womb

Poet forms Itself
Through new
Invented Name
New Birth Rite

30 years of Solitude

And a borrowed Fedora

You wake,
Startled by the sky,
Wonder if-as senses
Implode-

A flash of Awareness
Can carry Infinity
And be gone.

We crumble ash,
Still warm,
Between our fingers-
Bonfire of some
Extinct Star.

We sleep-
Holding hands,
Cool ash trickling
Between our fingers-

Nothingness pie
Held together
Sheer with inertia-

Unstuck by
Suffering entropy
Anyway.

We wake,
Startled by earth,
Supporting
Overwhelming weight

Of dreams

Today
Older than puny
Time

I laugh in the
Face of the gods

One life

Ten thousand heavens

Ten thousand hells

What now!

What now?

Chesterfield ancient

Overstuffed coarse

Horse-haired.

Full of books

Memory bursting

Seams of poor

Old elephant

Hiding in

Plain sight.

Enough of
Wearying
Eyes

Watered and
Salted.

Write it out
Poor old man

Or split your
Sides

The spine
Brittled
Fired watered
Flexible
Floppy
And
Strong

This spine

So straitened

Bent
Tumbling over

This childlike
Trampolining
Body

Flexible brittle broken
Borne above gravity

The spine stiffening
This will
So long

Lava of my youth
Cools,
Breaks brine surface.

You haul your
Scale tail
Onto rock,

Produce mirror
And comb somehow

And sing;

Lighthouse *******
Flashing,

Lure street urchins
To doom.

Holed hulls, wooden,
Br'ken masts
And skeletons,

You immortalise them all;

Evolving starfish
A coral girdling
Your navel

When scalpel sliced through heart

Your butterfly emerged flapping
Blue red blood against
Sterile white


Good to see you free from
All those years locked
Within pulsating muscle

Robin on cemetery wall

Red breast swelling

Over the dead

Will say the same
Of me and worse.

Cascading evil down
Generations

Tsunami of
Dysfunction.

Let it stop with you
Jack.

Break free.

Sorry.

I do not care

If I die today


But I will miss you

When I'm gone

Then when it comes
Let me depart
This dream
Dreaming-

Place the cold
Needle
Into the weakened
Arm
And allow the
Vessels to flow
Dreaming
Beyond-

No bags,
No hideous machines
No drooling in corners
Nor sleeping in ****.

Then,
When it comes
Allow the departure
From this sallow
Short being
Be dreaming a dream
Of no longer being

Between the bells
Appalled

Between the bells
Marking time

Between the chimes
Of birth
Between the chine

I lie

Dead
Dead
Alive

Between the tinkling
Alarming
Strokes
Of brass
And lime

All I wanted was a kiss

Into some ocean

Poetry

Sun never
Stopping

Streaming out
And out
All ways.

How dark it is

Sun streaming
All around

All all

Around

Shell cracks wrapped in Knuckle

Squeeze the oily
Memory
Through Flesh of Seed.

In this Kernel the Beating
Heart of Being
Expresses
From Land to Stalk from
Barking Stem to whippet waving Leaf.

All my Head exposed in
Creamed whorls of Walnut-
The Apple Pip of Manhood shown
Only to Woman

On Parkland Pond
Cygnets Echelon.

My day is deep, long

Encompassing
A million feathered years

The old who,
In their youth were
Pride and beauty
In fateful combination-

Now stare in silent
Contemplation at the
Embers of a life unlived
And wonder how the
Years flowed making
Furrows of their skin