The god
Of the poppies
Is dead.

Cares not
They lie
Beneath sun,

Star studded sky.

Scythe
Disinterested

You and
"
Dead

Oh how
The classifying mind

Reclaims-

Renames

The unruliness of being-

Loosens worm with
Incisive *****

For black-bird
To swoop

O how I miss
The cheesy moon

Before we spotted
Your lovely face
With boots

And lit your
Terrible darkness.

Dearest sphere I
Feel now even
Older than thou...

13 Pearls
In the sands of Arabia
12 got lost

Now where is the other

Whatever the world says

Whoever you are

Is fine

Hmmmmmmmm

Old battered hat
Skin of my skin

Over the years
We have become the same

These grumbling bones

Still holding

Up

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

My river
Cares not
For me-

Carries
Slurry or
Salmon

Indifferently

Look how open
Rings of softwood
Fresh cut
From farmed forest.

Straight tree from
Straight row,
Inability to

Look
Feel thousand
Year oak, old
Gnarled wood
Useless

Weeping amber
Through thick
Bark look
And feel

As drought years
Tighten rings
And
Wet
Fast growth of
Sunshine,

Canopy galloping to light.

Build house marry ring to
Swollen finger

Construct seat
Table

Young wood and all
The paraphenalia of pretence

Live good
Happy life

But I shall nestle,
Look, feel
Half eaten oak and

Soak my soul
In history

Twin turtles
propelling gently
through warm oceans

Flipping belly to belly
no need of oxygen

Growing plump and huge
tomatoes on sea beds

Some days
anything is possible

water boatman oaring
surface tension

lotus floating
tadpole below
snail mudsliding

koi refracting

frog jumps in

SPLASH!

Stubbed toe
Too soft shoe

Final interaction

Body in extremis
Meeting hard-edged world

Old cherry

Weeping amber

Buried her between the root
thighs of an ancient olive.

pressed the oil into blood-
flesh into food.

our picnic finished a
garland laid in lieu of stone.

one thousand years of gnarled trunk
she blisters in the summer haze
the dip-stream running on.

O lugubrious poet
Take me down
Beyond dog-headed
Beasties

Past styx falling
Twigs
Upon our heads-

Poet take me to
The tense past
Future
And tell me this
Mess I made
Will furnish-
Polished oak-
One more chance

To make amends-

To finally
Post mortem-to
Live again

Walking,
talking words into being

Never noticed the stone
up ahead.

Stubby toes, let
rock remind,

Look around, watch
where you go.

Stood on one leg
clutching clubbed foot.

Old stone on the road,
thank you.

Mighty Oak
Grows tiny acorn

Leaf pushes,
Bursts
Through
Fingertip-

Sun
Bending close
Whispers
Spring

As bee bumbles
Into shell-like
Ear,
Petalled.

Rooted to the
Spot
Awe-sruck

Once again
The fearful
Tremulous
Hum

How close you approach,
Moon-

How blue
How blood red.

Within the love
Of living heart
(Pump pump pump)

How close-

How far far


Away

Log fire

Love making

Woolskin rug

Loouis Armstrong

Deep Devon

Happy


Once in my life

River one gulp
Sea one gulp
Ocean one gulp
Universe one gulp

Self-choking

So hard to swallow

Eyes shine

Lips born to rule

A softened cheek and
Gentle poise-

Who meets falls
At her feet

It happened-

Only our eyes

In eternal dark-
See

Only these ears
Hears

Flesh feels

Tongue tastes

And ***** inane
Sound back into
Void.

Only you and i
Feel

Eternal space-time-

The rest
Dark speed
Stretching
Moving
Burning
Collapsing.

Only Connect

If only
You
i
Can
Somehow
With
Some
Other


Sentience


Connect...

I sense your
Fragility
Unpainted lady

Wings frayed from
Flight through
Storms of static

Voice flutters
Digitised,
Fragmented

Subtle beauty noted

I acknowledge too
The strength of
Your journeys,
Of
One who migrates

Across continental drift
Through dark tunnels
Of despond

Yet with
Psychic power
And mothering love

Surmount all

I call too
If you may
Hear...

The best poets explore

Pulling sled-loads
Of knowledge and
Eating it all
To survive

Leaving only a
Single brown mark
At the southern pole
Of language-

In infinite white

Disappearing

Only the moon
Defines our day
With orbit

Only sunshine
Allows our life

Only our ***
Creates our people

Only your love
Made me whole

Now moon drifts away
3.87 centimetres
Each year

The night shall stretch
And die

You left
All at once

Only I cry
I cry
I cry

Only the moon
Defines our day
With orbit

Only sunshine
Allows our life

Only our ***
Creates our people

Only your love
Made me whole

New moon drifts away
3.87 cenimetres
Each year

The night shall stretch
And die

You left
All at once

Only I cry
I cry
I cry

The only
Not wanted
Was
Breath

All of you

My darlings

I loved

Volcanoes
Oceans
Moons and women only they

Know how to flow

Perhaps a damp sponge
Will wipe night terrors-

Expunge trace of Moon
To slip beneath Sun

Erasing memory, making
Flat a sorry curvature

Of this rough-edged,
Rotating ball.

Trading a violence of
Sapiens

For the calm of
Shimmering Dawn

We came
Out of africa

Now we are
Coming out
Of earth.

It is what
We do-

Migrate

1
Open well
Rounded
Stones
Water-worn
And mossed-

Light lichen
Grazing
Top touch
Stone-

Stone
And water
And air

Open like
Spinal
Column

Ganglion
Connection

Through which
Pass all
Sensations

Necessities of
Air
Water
Growth
And stone-

2
Well and
Open to
All
Sensation

And necessary
Breath
Of life

Through
Bodies rigid
With fear
With joy
Withal
Emotion
Travail

Travelling
Through ether
Escape
The mortal

Soul

Livid
Live

Breathing
Stone
Air-moss-lichen
Water

­Well alive

And still the
Pagan moon
Refuses worship

Tumbles around
Reflecting light
On every blade of
Grass and even this
Cold heart

Is warmed in
Bitter night

Organic disturbance
spiral in atmosphere

Conch shell homesteading
still gardening under water

There is the moon!
but where the air?

Then may we
Triangulate-

I here
           You there

And these odd
Angles

Give a third
Point

Four dimensional

Where collision
Becomes

(It becomes
Your lovely
Face)

Inevitable-

This the history
Unrecorded-
Unhappened

Happy union
Of opposites

Of the serpent
Swallowing
Tail

O the song of the soul
Breaks into a thousand
And one
Butterflies.

Infinite drumming of wings
Transforms tattoo to
Martial march,

The stomp of boots on cencrete,
War, boys, war,

Joy of young man and
Weapon,

Chaos unleashed by the old and
Impotent

Distort mirror
Then that
Now this
Becoming
Other.

Put aside
Caricatures-

Slip mirrors into oceans

Flee free

O to ****** a phrase
From the plethora!

To catch a likeness
Of truth,
Verbally hooked-

To free
This
One
Instant

A tangle
Of sticky

Silk

Not yet dry enough

For weaving into

Beauty.

(Silken cravat
Soothes my craggy
Poet
Neck)

Light of sun
How small am i?

Infinite space with
Small objects.

Very little chance
For voyager to crash.

So little chance for
Mike to meet

The woman

Outside forever

Is there any

Wanting

To be

Inside?

Outside
The world lies

Broken-

Minds trammelled,
Books ablaze.

Only here
Cozy nest

Sanity
Warm caress

And a happiness
Now

Pigment earth
Water
Tree paper hair brush
Hand eye brain
Trillion particles
Foot root head sky beyond

Mark on paper
Connection

Infinite time
Space definition

Mark of possibility
Existence being
Or gone

Stained and left
Forever to
Decay slowly

On this cave wall

Today

Yes I have grown
Black hair around
My eyes-

Yes I chew
Bamboo shoots
All day

Yes my belly
Bulges and

Yes my head is
Bald
And proud
(Raises fist)

For I am middle-aged
White
Endangered
Man

Imagine

Origami Swan.


Unfold and
Press-


Hey Presto,
A Blank page or

A poem from
Your man

Goodbye
sweet raft.

I climbed the
grassy bank
and watched

Until the rapids
took and dashed
you on jagged rock.

(some nights still
a sliver of  bamboo
pierces my slumber)

Sliver of
Mirrored glass.

Glimpse of days long
Gone
When god sat at
My shoulder

Whispering

Impatient for death.

Tell me why
Patricia.

No need.

The spilling
Mess

Of his seed.

Mad along the
High street

1
Small boy
One by one

Emptying the beach

2
Overarm,
Bowling
Pebbles
At the sea