Harsh Sun throws our
Shadows sharp against
Flagstones.

Beside the Priory wall,
Brought low by Henrys' Hammer the
Abbott lies, long gone.

Just we two, Now, in
Silhouette-

Your walking stick tapping a
Military Tattoo,
My hat of Panamanian straw
To delineate our presence.

O History-
Goodbye

Surely the New,
Loosened from past embrace

Shall see lovely flowers linger
Just for this Sunny Day

I would craft

(Bamboo grove
complete with
figures and huts)

Carved into an
unfortunate ivory
clawed from
elephant hide

(Hidden in forest
watching the
deer graze)

But no,
tumult of ideas,
fleeting,
jostling for position
leak out into
atmosphere.

(Enforced abstinence
decades of silence
and sudden ear-
bleeding amplification)

Cut the mesh of england

Let dolphin swim
salt-free and leap

Escape the net, the
mud of cockled estuary

They said I would die
Before forty
My friends and
Their bets

Thought I would die
2014
When my world stopped

So glad I failed
To die as so much
I failed before

So glad to read you
And you and you

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

Wheelbarrow heaped
with drywood
chopped for grate

Pyramidial tripod
iron ***
hanging

Boiled water rolling
steam and
soggy entrails
of some unlucky animal

Roots shoots and flowers
arrive in woven basket
from long grazed field

Dogs circle
wary, hungry
sniffing at scraps

In a cave
Madmen spit ochre
on hands glued to walls

Cavebound
mad mike scribbles
his civilized mind

Living curled
In the bole
Hole of a mighty
English oak

Jolly jack tar
Dreams of his
Wooden ship sailed
Braving gales

On strange
Southern seas,

Of pet albatross

And the urge to
Float as he please
In unending ease

Trust current and swell
Of seven known seas

And land of fruit
And flower

Of bold girls under
Waterfalls and a
Parrot and an
Eye-patch and unlimited
Gold dubloons,

And when he unfurls
Cramped frame and
Sticks his head
Outside

Still the rains fall

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

Thailand (siam for us lovers)

King Bhumipol die

Love is love

Goodbye

Thai

1
London road lights
Blind intensity
And the loved oblivion

Of starless
Blackness is
Lost-

Lost souls
Seek succour
In neon

And the only
Sun
Lies sullen
And disengaged-

Moon too
Disinclined to
Shine

On the
Unbelieving.

The need for love
(What that may
Be)
Unremitting-

Lightness and
Absence
Unsure-

Heart flutters
Questing for pace-

Centenerian haul of long
Long

Overdue
Survival

Trembling leaves stand out,
Yellow amongst the green-

First to expire in heat,
They tremble and fall
Decondensed,
Brittle dry harbingers

Of an early Autumn,
Chill borne on North
Sea breeze

This sunny Summer morn

Simple thing

Walking soflty

Rice-papered

Green tea
Red wine

Twin poles
Of poetry

Euphoria
Eruption
Exposure of spirit

I did not
Love you as I should.
That much is clear.

I could not love you
As I should then.
That much is clear.

You loved me as much
As you could.
This now I can see.

I could not love you
Then as much as I should.
This much is clear.

I love you now
More than I could have then.
I thank you more.

This much is clear.

Buzz lady mosquito-
aim your black and white
stripes and settle on
my arm but please
sweet blood loving one-
refrain from the ****-
restrain your maddened
appetite and rest awhile-
rub your legs against my
little hairs and drink a little
wine coddled sweat and
fly and whine next door
to brighter red.

Vast orange disk we see-
awed- you slip into the
purpling sea-expecting every
eve stupendous hissing and
steam but no- noiseless
our saviour creator and and
great sustainer sinks-
her sky in gorgeous raiment
kimonoed shapeshifting
and irridescent momently-
Dancing into dark.

Past each ear in turn the
swoosh and glide of black
aerobats to pluck insect from
the infinite void of the
flying darkness or hustle
through to feast on fruits
succulent and sweet as nectar.

Blood of bat or snake, of night
crawling, flying, running hunters-
loving the night
to death.

Shattered the
Glassy
Intellect

And conjoined

Once more

Universal flow

Of rain
+stars
+snow

+the strange
Movement of
Moons

And nebulae

+

God?

Tiny bit of rock
Hung
Unsupported,
Caressed by
Morning star

Small light given free

O how i love the early pre-dawn

And you
Reading
Nothing else

How your reading has
Helped this two year
Bad dream
Pass.

You do not know
How you
Kept this old soul
Alive.

Thank you
And from this
Miraculous sliver
Of moon

Accept the silver spoon of love

Above the salt pans
royal prerogative reigns

But tarnish the jewel

And the meat is eaten
unseasoned

Click-click
we speak
click-click
and feed with lions

Regalia of a
crooked king
becrowned
enthroned by tide

Click-click
we walk
far out of africa

And the relationship
of men to stones
the purity of gold
stained, eaten
by lion-hearted
monarch
At the ley-lined end
of genocidal desserts

Migratory waves
denied
enmeshed

And walls crash
to dancing music
amid final insult
to the mass

Click-clicking
and walking

Singing and dancing
the mountains a
handful of dust

Sea only salt
and river bed dry
and dammed
to hell

Sparkling with ruby
glowing emerald
green as the plain
after monsoon
rains down fresh we
live through drought
sail the flood and
in the end
bloodied in futile battle

Click-click and die

After the third
Solar system

I began to wonder
If a one-way ticket
Was wise.

You see one star
Close
You see them all-

Set foot on distant
Planets

And not a hot girl
In sight.

"Computer, turn around"

Does not compute is the
Reply.

And so
On we go

To infinity

Stormy petrel albatross curlew skylark martin swift swallow robin sparrow raven crow falcon heron stork eagle vulture budgie parrot gull penguin puffin hawk
                                     Birds
And poets
Flutter
And trill

Organic disturbance
spiral in atmosphere

Conch shell homesteading
still gardening under water

There is the moon!
but where the air?

No space

No time

Sleep well

And dream

Heaved aboard-
lay flat on your back
on swabbed and
polished deckboards
and watch the white
sails fill

As we sail into dawn,
red and yellow banners
counter intuitive,
streaming ahead of our
godspeed.

Unwrecked,
rescued,
lifted from fossil sea

Powered by wind
to cut wine-dark waters
homeward
bound roped and rigged

And freedomed

well yell
yellow bucket

worn rope
convolvulus

bucket leak

morning star
begging water

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

Now that life has
Scattered

To the ten
Directions

Blown by winds
Of change
Of chance

How

Where shall
We once more

Coalesce?

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

How alone am I today

A dis-ease of classification

Category of categories,

And each morning tiny flowers
Open their heads
To sample the breeze

In this instant

Lightening stricken

Sounds

Illuminate and

Annihilate

In this
Instant

Go into space-

Where are

The

Boundaries?

The day maple
leaf forgot
sunlight

He turned yellow
with fear-

Then red-
embarrassed to
be seen to fail

Tried to spiral
to grass and hide
his shame

But wise tree
held on
smiling

And covered
her nakedness
with glory

How to hold this rage,
To keep belly-fire
Burning

In righteous anger

As manifold wrongs
Surround.

How to keep this rage
When love balm
Overflows
To calm the furnace

Caked in glutinous sediment

Autocthonous man
rises slow, stands giant

On the shore
barnacles fleeing
the resurrection

Cartons

Bottles

And
Happy

Loneliness

This rock
Handled
Pulsing
Alive?

My little
Alien
Friends

This small
Quartzite
Pule is
Universal

Love

Face
Soil
Sun
Gold

Created
Uncreated

Born
Unborn

Free

Which creator whistled
Lines
Mapping outback
Lands

Who sang the rings
Of saturn into being

Which one danced
The spinning orbital
Rocks

Yet forgot to paint
The blue
The green

Forgot to breathe life
Into these
Desolate stones

Cold as hell frozen
Over
Or
Bubbling
Hot
But
Rock
?

Lies not with bacteria
Nor death
Nor the
Remorseless march
Of time.

The problem with decay
Is the whole cycle of
Seasons to
Decompose.

Impatient

Throw me on a fire-
A big one-
And hasten the
Lovely oblivion

To laughing life

"It is not quite finished"

"Well
Neither am I"

who is it that dances through
the dawn?

that plays the tambourine
that drinks and loves
and lies abandoned?

it is this I that has no truth
no sense of self, this role
play in a suit, a tie,
hard hat or shorts.

who is it that lives in
sunny clime or winter chill?

it is I, not I
no self there nor there
ever was

not I, the I that rarely
is, a diamond rough,
cut of stuff ineffable.

who is it that sees me now?
why you, mirror of my sigh
and you are you, who you?

water boatman oaring
surface tension

lotus floating
tadpole below
snail mudsliding

koi refracting

frog jumps in

SPLASH!

Experiment was I?

Expectations,
See if he like
The girl
Of daddy friend

See if he like
Auntie

See if he like
Daddy big man

Se if he survive
Family

A scatter of ash

The plunge into silence

Only a gong-

Gentle reminder
Of world beyond-

Of sound

trod lightly to avoid
disturbing leaves fallen
and feeding filamental roots
of fungus.

these puffing spores,
teasing the nose to sneeze
a spawning mushroom love.

wherewithal to breed,
hypothecary of suspension
neither dead nor alive, hung
in the balance, forests outweighed.

you soaked my love in your hand
kerchief, adjusted outdoor lipstick
in the mirror forever ready in the sacred
pouch of bag.

you like to love in the woods, on the beach,
in that castle and on the bus
carrying us from Paris.

thrilling the thought of capture,
a sudden lens, natural rapture,
fecundity of trees spilling carefree nuts,

of hairy bee legs moving the future,
whole species in a shuddering buzz.
hairs in my nasal passage protrude,

never have money, the
necromancer said, reading this face,
portraiture of fortune.

but in this new forest
on bedded lichen and moss
scratching and soothing, intermittent
I saw you, naked as morning joy.

It is only natural
to use your narrow logic
tick box
and categorise

To hold this freedom
in your mind

Resist resist
this logical temptation

You are not
a number

You are free

Sqirrel dug
1958
Buried a nut

Forgot

Today sit
Tree canopy
Shelter

Forgive

That lazy foraging

Ancient wood
Gone

Sailed to every
Genocidal continent.

Armada splintered
Divinely winded

Only new forest
Squared and rowed
Bridle-pathed and
Signed for city

Fat henry hunted
Stag and wife

New camera click
Surprise the deer
The pony

And I

Full moon
Again

Darling moon in
Such a hurry

Through the years

Every syllable a shock

reminder of genes
chimpanzeeed in error.

aberration of speech
worm-holing space,

frog-splashing time,

Homer not gone,
****** calls to battle

and the siren song.