Called out of a staff meeting, I was  told
my mother was on the point of death.
Searching in the regulations,
the secretary told me
how many days I was allowed
for the death, and
(separately) for the funeral,
each allowance dependent
on the degree of relationship – mothers
are in the first category.

Arriving home, without realising
how I had driven there,
feeling the need to be clean for her,
I showered, dressed appropriately,
and drove on.

A hundred and fifty miles of motorway,
somewhere a stop for tea.
Why did I look in the service station bookshop?
There was a life of Eliot.
I should read it one day.

She died before I arrived.
It was not unexpected.  She had lived a year
after the stroke, longer
than we, or she, had thought possible.
How cold her cheek was.
Death was not new to me –
I had known pets in plenty go
from age, accident, or lethal injection,
been with some as they died – but mothers
are in a different category.

(On a line from Mandelstam - 'I have learned the science of parting')

There was so much we never did together,
places to go and visit hand in hand,
so much we could have learned about each other,
so many things to say before goodbye.

Nobody ever knew how much I suffered;
but by applying all the skills I'd learned
I always coped. My strategies were successful;
the ache of separation always eased.

So many times the same has happened to me,
but every time the pain returns anew.
Just as intense, although it's so familiar,
regret comes like a band around my heart.

Falling in love, each time's a new experience;
the same thing goes for learning how to part.

Say not it was by the ocean,
in the country or the town.
Say not if the sun was shining
or the rain was beating down.

Say not it was morning or evening,
or the high noonday or night.
Say not it was summer or winter,
or springtime, or autumn bright.

Say not what she was wearing.
Say not what colour her hair.
Say not how magical her smile.
Say only: She was there.

heroes should be recognised at birth
which would save them the incon
venience of a firstname
that nobody will want to use,as for example

Voltaire now there was a guy;
less than h a p
p y with françois-marie arouet
as a handle(and who can
blame
him?)
he up and invented his own name
he would have invented God too
if God hadnt already
existed

or take Beethoven who
for all i know
might even have been God

or then again Picasso(who justifies(more than most)
his capital letter)
he really didnt need
the pablodiegojoséfranciscodepaula
     nepomucenomaríadelosremedios
          ciprianodelasantísimatrini­dadruiz
that he was lumbered with from birth

ok it's easy enough to make
    f  u  n    
of people with flatfish faces
both
éyès
on one side iaskyou
!
but who can look at faces the same
since he drew them that way(?)
and if people don't (real
ly) look like that
some of them
   jolly
     well
        ought
           to

(based quite closely on The Naming of Cats by TS Eliot, my favourite poet, and one of the greatest writers of English poetry)

The showing of slides is a family matter,
It just isn't something to do to a chum.
Let the family watch while grandmothers natter,
But don't show outsiders those views of your mum.

First of all, at a pinch, try them out on the daily,
But watch for the yawns - you don't want her to leave.
Are you sure your wife liked them? Did she smile, or sigh greyly?
It can cause more divorces than you would believe.

Matching programme to audience you must be particular;
Consider the person, consider the slide.
If your buildings all lean from a neat perpendicular
Can you really expect to keep friends on your side?

The pick of the bunch you may show to another;
If you have any doubts, leave the slides on the shelf,
And reserve them for one who's more close than a brother,
And will truly enjoy them - just view them yourself.

There was so much more
     that we could have said and done,
          but we said goodbye.

Lines we travel together
are parallel
but not infinite,
never meet
but O too soon
end.

If I wanted to write a poem for you, what would I write about?
   - Better not go too far
Other eyes than yours may sparkle
    - Better be very careful  
Other lips may smile
     - Better not say too much
Other cheeks may blush
      - Better not seem to have said too much
Other names may have music in them
       - Better say nothing at all
But my poem would not be for others; it would be for you
        - Better not even consider it
So this is just to say, this is not a poem
        - But it could have been.

The mother ***** died at the side
of the road, another hit-and-run
victim. Her still warm fur
unblemished, luxuriant, russet,
now with life's bloom on it,
will soon be a shelter for worms,
must turn to dust,
her milk-heavy teats return to earth.
The hungry cubs whose birth
gave fulfilment to mother-love
will cease their shrill
unanswered pleading, become victims
in their turn. I can't pass by
and do nothing. Lay her at least
on grass, where soul of beast
may be at home,
not on concrete.

This is my husband, my mother said
to the nurse with pride,
only she meant me.
Everyone in the day-room knew
who it was she had been expecting all day,
waiting like a birthday child.
We all laughed and put her right,
and she laughed and continued
... and this is her husband
(only she should have said, This is his wife) .
So we all laughed again,
and my mother laughed as much as anybody.

Later, walking round the garden, she showed us the flowers
– roses, geraniums, poppies –
only she called them all lilies.
You can go home, the doctor had told her,
when you remember your name.
Who are you?
– Lily, she said, Lily.
Lilies out there – pointing at the roses.
Well, at least she knows lilies are flowers.

It isn't as if her mind has gone,
I keep telling myself,
it's only that the words won't come.
A week ago she knew her way
through the dictionary blindfold,
amazing at anagrams
scholarly at Scrabble,
and quicker than anyone she knew
to finish the daily crossword.
But now the thoughts that chase round
and round her puzzled brain
find no expression.
How can you say it's 'only' the words?

Having survived the first critical week
she is in no immediate danger.
She might last any time;
she might go any time.
All this, somehow, she realises,
and hasn't even the words to tell us
she knows and is not afraid.
Then after awkward silences
and awkwardly cheerful conversations
it's time to leave.
Will you help me on to the bus? she says
– meaning the bed –
and she laughs again.
After all, it's better than crying.

S pring always comes, however slow it seems,
A nd on the trees at last from sleeping wood
N ew growth sprouts green where black twigs starkly stood.
D istant the winter now; like far-off dreams
R ecalling snow, white blossom-petals fall
A nd throw confetti down on warming earth.
H ere after months of sleep the signs of birth
A s daffodils ****** up and songbirds call.
N ow the breeze blows more gently on fresh grass,
S un gives its blessing, sky's a softer blue.
F rom greener woods then pipes the bold cuckoo.
O ur thoughts move on to summer. Spring will pass,
R ipe summer turn to fall, and winter, then,
D epend upon it, spring will come again.

[Inspired by a photo by Munia Khan posted on Facebook]

I gave you red roses
as a sign of my love,
and now they lie there,
cast down on the pavement.

Red petals, green leaves,
faded and dry,
all life gone from them,
shrivelled and dead,
like the love that you once said
you felt for me.
Only thorns are left
to remind me of your heartlessness.

Is this what my love means to you?
What did I do
to change your mind?
Is there no hope for me any more?

The setting sun shone on the lapping tide
as pensively I walked along the sand.
Above my head the soaring seabirds cried
their wild, sad cry from some forgotten land.
That golden evening, there among the rocks,
far from the noisy city's roar and rush,
I saw him sitting, on his knee a box
of watercolours, in his hand a brush.

Oh, had I but the skill, the painter's art,
to fix the scene in colours like that man.
I went towards him, stood a step apart,
over his shoulder tried his work to scan.
A masterpiece . . . . . or was it? No such luck!
Just filling in cartoons of Donald Duck.

(well, this man, anyway)

My passport knows my calendar age
and, while I keep it,
my driving licence

But in my head
I am still thirty-five

And in my heart
I hope I can stay
seventeen
for ever.

About half the world is female, while the rest of us are male,
and some of us are rather young, while others are quite a bit older.
Some people are emotional, and wear their heart on their sleeve,
and others, from the outside, may appear to be rather colder.
Some writers are extremely careful to obey all the rules,
while others in their attitude are very much bolder.
Some may be quite tolerant and easy-going,
but others seem to have some kind of chip on their shoulder.
In fact, from what I have observed over the years,
in some cases it's not so much a chip as a boulder.

Oh yes. By the way, please write this down
and store it very carefully in your poetry folder —
It is most definitely not a definition of "well-balanced"
if you are carrying a chip on both the left and the right shoulder.

Waiting for a train,
I am thinking about nothing in particular
when ...
- "Excuse please.
Can you tell me?
What is Time?"

Time, that invisible dimension
in which we live
and grow
and die,
which goes relentlessly forward
and never back.
(Words move, music moves
only in Time, but that which is only living
can only die.)
Time, in which the future advances,
oh, so slowly
as you await the arrival
of the beloved,
and in which, as you grow older,
the past recedes
mercilessly faster
(Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
and the end and the beginning were always there
before the beginning and after the end).
Time, which rules
the natural world.
(The time of the seasons and the constellations,
the time of milking and the time of harvest).

Time, in which each observer is in a different moment,
according to where in the universe
you are standing,
and how fast
you are travelling through it.
(You are not the same people who left that station
or will arrive at any terminus ...)

- "Excuse please.
What is Time?"
Can I place that accent?
Ah yes, Russian...
No definite article in Russian,
no word for "the".

- Sorry, I was daydreaming.
It's half past two.

What can I do to comfort you?
Would talking help at all?
A gentle, friendly touch?
(Or would that be too much?)

I don't know what might do any good,
but I know you'd tell me if you could.
Perhaps you just need to be aware
that I am here, and that I care.

But did you mean it?
did you? like that, I mean,
did you really mean it?
What you said was nothing,
really nothing at all,
unless you meant it.
It's just that ever since then
there is a hollow inside me.
You can fill it so easily.
Tell me you didn't mean to hurt,
but only if you mean it.

Once we were friendly.
Then we were more than friends.
Now there is nothing.
Must this be how it ends?

(a minute poem)

October turned the leaves to gold
but now the cold
November wind
rustles their thinned
and tattered remnants on the trees.
No kindly breeze,
this bitter blast
will tear the last
few faded leaves from oak tree's crown
and cast them down
onto the earth
for spring's rebirth.

I look forward
against all my instincts
with a kind of sad pleasure
to the moment
when we shall say goodbye,
even though I know
I shall never see you again.
And without a photograph of you,
which can never be mine,
I must inevitably lose the detail
of your lovely face,
your gentle smile.
But the real you,
open, welcoming,
tolerant, friendly,
– the nervousness
when I feel I am about to see you,
the pleasure
that lights up in me when you are there,
the disappointment
when you are not there –
you will remain in my heart,
a dear memory.
You will be in my mind forever,
I am certain.
That is the least you deserve,
and I must be satisfied
as far as possible.

HEART, not only are you much taken for granted
- how many million beats do you make
in one lifetime? and rarely a grumble -
but you are not even responsible
for most of what you are blamed for.
Am I hard-hearted?
Am I half-hearted?
Nothing to do with you, blame the brain
or wherever the soul or the spirit is.
As for heartburn, that is merely a slander
put about by the digestive organs.

Who knows better than you
that I may experience a change of heart
without a transplant?
or search my heart,
without needing surgery or a body-scan?
a heart of gold, or of stone,
may do for a statue, but not for me, thanks.
And if I hear a heart-warming story,
you still maintain
your good old ninety-eight point four.
I can pour my heart out
but you always stay put.
If my heart aches,
do you need an aspirin?
If I say my heart is in my boots,
or in my mouth,
if I wear it on my sleeve,
we both know you are where you always are.
(Thank goodness my heart's in the right place.)

OK, if I see a face of heart-stopping beauty,
you may pump extra blood to my giveaway cheeks,
even palpitate a little,
but stop? No, not you.
And when I met (long ago)
a girl after my own heart,
and she stole my heart away,
was I left heartless? Of course not, because you,
faithfully beating inside me,
are only one of my hearts, and the other,
though it may well be less *****
than metaphor,
is as necessary to a lover
(or a poet)
as you are.

today I bring you
no secondhand poem
no recycled emotion
only a very special offer
you cant refuse
(I wont let you)
a part used bargain
from the hearts department
not quite perfect
but its yours for nothing
do with it as you will
only
pause before you throw it away
(please don't throw it away)
if you don't want it now
save it for later
keep it like a lucky penny
press it with rose petals in a book
put it at the back of a drawer
take it out from time to time
and remember
or find it maybe when youre looking
for something else
and think of me and smile
(I hope youll smile)
but please don't throw it away
its bound to come in handy
even if you never use it

My ultimate ambition in life
is to be recycled. When I die
I shall not be put
with the newspapers, plastic bottles,
glass, cans, batteries
and aluminium foil
into the box to be collected
on alternate Tuesdays.
That is not dignified
for a human,
and besides, it is unhygienic.
But recycled I will be
into soil and air,
beetle, centipede and blackbird,
and the blossom
that every year comes
and fades.
Yes,
I'll be back.

Stand there, he told me.
Look up, try not to move.
So I stood there
while he painted me in half-profile.
I looked at the sky
tried not to move
and thought of nothing,
but (you know how it is)
the thoughts come into your head.
So I looked at the sky and remembered.
Tears in my eyes?
No, it was just that the sky
was very bright that day, I remember.
I remember a lot of things.
Some of them I’d prefer not to.

A body on the line at Basingstoke -
the train to Waterloo has been delayed.
You'll have to wait; the plastic bag brigade
are clearing up and trying not to choke.

Commuter suicide's no news to us.
We don't suspect foul play; it's by the book.
But one train driver, terror in his look,
takes the day off, wishing he drove a bus.

Neighbours or strangers, those who saw him leap
could never know what so possessed his mind.
His unwished legacy - they long may find
the image of his death disturb their sleep.

The quiet desperation of a life
brought by that final step over the rim
to its conclusion - weep no tears for him,
his torment's over. Who will tell his wife?

Of all the seasons, summer
is timeless.
The summerblown cornfield,
windwaving sunbleached white gold,
is forever,
and the time of wild strawberries,
small and freely given,
is outside time.

Happy dreams too
are timeless.
On waking I am filled with
an oceangrey
mistgrey
cloudgrey
regret
that the dream was not reality.
Yet I am glad to have felt joy,
and the beauty overcomes the sadness,
as the sweet wild sound of the pibroch
transcends the lament
that gave it birth.

Take a group of chimpanzees
used to swinging through the trees,
and sit them down at keyboards in a row;
lots of paper, lots of ink,
lots and lots of time, I think,
and what the theory says, I'm sure you know.

Yes, along with all the junk,
all the gibberish and bunk,
somewhere there'd be the full works of the Bard:
As You Like It, Cymbeline,
Richards 2 and 3, the Dream,
though Hamlet, Prince of Denmark might be hard.

But I'm sure the little blighters
would get on fine with Titus
Andronicus, The Taming of  the Shrew,
The Moor of Venice (that's Othello),
the other Merchant fellow,
and Antony and Cleopatra too.

The Winter's Tale would hold no terrors,
nor The Comedy of Errors,
and Verona's Gentlemen would turn out right;
Love's Labours might be Lost,
or even Tempest-tossed,
but All's Well That Ends Well, even on Twelfth Night.

Lear, King John, and Much Ado,
Henry 4, parts 1 and 2,
Henry 5, and 6 (in three parts!), Henry 8,
Troilus, Timon, Measure for Measure,
Pericles (a neglected treasure),
and how Romeo and Juliet met their fate.

All the Sonnets and the ****
of Lucrece (typed by an ape!),
and if they worked for ever and a day
they could fit in Julius Caesar,
that Coriolanus geezer,
the Wives of Windsor and the Scottish play.

I grew more and more excited ‒
even thought I might be knighted
if I could be the one to make it work.
But to realise my dream
I had to try a pilot scheme,
to prove I wasn't just a reckless berk.

I bought one chimp from the zoo
‒ didn't have the cash for two ‒
and gave him a typewriter, just to try
for a short while.  Well, a fortnight
was the time-scale that I thought right.
You see, I'm quite an optimistic guy.

Now, everyone who heard
of my project said, "Absurd!"
when I told them of my striking new departure.
"Teach a chimpanzee to type?
"Why, I never heard such tripe!"
Still . . . he did produce the works of Jeffrey Archer.

Shall these trees stand forever?
And the fields,
brown, green, gold, according to the season,
shall they remain?

But the hills,
the hills, they shall be there.
Always?
No, not even those.

What then shall be left of them?
Only the fact of their having been.
And when you are gone
and I am no longer here,
we too shall have been,
and nothing can be quite the same again.

Why does a cow say moo, Daddy?
  How many leaves has a tree?
Why am I smaller than you, Daddy?
  How does food turn into me?

Why is an elephant big, Daddy?
  And why is an ant so small?
Why can't a cat be a pig, Daddy?
  Can't you answer my questions at all?

How do puddles see their reflection, Daddy?
  Have unicorns ever been?
And, not that there's any connection, Daddy,
  Why is a tangerine?

I've puzzled as hard as I can, Daddy,
  But why can't I go to the moon?
Will I know it all when I'm a man, Daddy?
  Will I be grown up soon?

I know that the sky can be red, Daddy,
  So why can't the sun be green?
And the thoughts that go round in my head, Daddy,
  How do I know what they mean?

Where does yesterday go, Daddy?
  I don't mean to ask out of turn,
But with so many things I don't know, Daddy,
  How else can a little boy learn?

(triolet)

Unthinkingly just now you said "my love".
    I made no sign, as if I hadn't heard,
but now my heart is soaring high above.
Unthinkingly just now you said "my love";
I'm all a-flutter like a turtle-dove
     to think perhaps you didn't use that word
unthinkingly. Just now you said "my love".
    I made no sign. As if I hadn't heard!

Of all the seasons, summer
is timeless.
The summerblown cornfield,
windwaving sunbleached white gold,
is forever,
and the time of wild strawberries,
small and freely given,
is outside time.

Happy dreams too
are timeless.
On waking I am filled
with an oceangrey
mistgrey
cloudgrey
regret
that the dream was not reality.
Yet I am glad to have felt joy,
and the beauty overcomes the sadness,
as the sweet wild sound of the pibroch
transcends the lament
that gave it birth.

The love of a mother for her child
is not the same as the child's love for his mother.
The love of a man for a woman changes
after they are married
from what it was before,
and her love does not correspond in all points with his.
Love between man and woman
is different from the love of boy and girl.

Love can be permanent as the tides, regular, unquestioned,
with no end and no recognisable beginning.
It can come suddenly,
violently,
as a thunderstorm in summer breaks
upon the thirsty earth,
short-lived
except in the memory.

But under any one of these emotions,
what is there for us to say?
Only, I love you.

Thoughts can be subdivided, classified, clothed with words.
Words fit feelings only approximately,
and our deepest feelings must often go unclothed.
So when I say I love you
I cannot analyse what I mean.
I only know that I do love you
and hope you understand.

(as T. S. Eliot might have written it)

Lady, three blind mice sat under the wainscot,
silently waiting, sightlessly waiting, while in the garden
the blackbird sang and the children
played at knucklebones. The farmer's wife
entered the kitchen,
entered the warm kitchen,
preparing to prepare the meal for the children.
Crumbs fell from the table
but the mice said , We are not
worthy we are not
worthy. And they all ran
after the farmer's wife.
     Well, I ask you. Did you ever
see such a thing? Did you ever?
Quick as a flash she was,
took the carving knife to them,
chopped their tails right off.
Sorted them out good and proper, I'll tell you.
Did you ever see such a thing in your life?
Did you? Did you ever?
Three blind mice!

Just as when looking into the sun
I am dazzled by pure light, which is invisible,
and I only see what is lit by the paler reflections of its rays -
or when my mind, refusing to hear a perfect silence,
creates its own thundering echo of that silence,
so that I may more nearly understand the incomprehensible -
your absence also is absolute, and leaves
a void in me I cannot come to terms with
until it is filled by a memory.

If it is considered offensive to make disparaging remarks about those of the feminine gender,
I guess that makes me an offender
when I say I don't understand why, if rabbits are cuddly, and kittens are cute, and furry things in general are considered quite nice,
women feel the obligation to be afraid of mice,
even on a farm,
where they may be a bit of a nuisance, but don't do much what you could really call harm.
Now the farmer's wife of my story was by nature slow to wrath,
but maybe on the day in question she had been disturbed by the telephone ringing while she was enjoying a leisurely bath,
or someone had left a gate open and the hens had got loose,
or perhaps it was just her husband being more than usually obtuse.
Only she was annoyed by three particular mice who were blind
- if that, in these days of political correctness, isn't considered unkind.
Oh, let's just say they couldn't see very well,
but they were quite good at finding their way by smell,
unless they used their whiskers and navigated by feel
as they followed the lady of the house around in the hope of getting a free meal.
However, this time, when she saw the mice in the dairy she broke her golden rule.
She lost her cool.
In fact she threatened to get them with her cleaver,
but either they were deaf as well as blind, or they didn't understand English, or they simply didn't believe her,
and by the time they had turned round and decided to go
it became apparent they were too slow.
Yes, she got all three at once, but I am glad to say
that as she only chopped their tails off, they lived to scamper another day.

If I loved somebody
as much as I love you,
if I loved somebody
as long as I've loved you,
how could I ever stop loving them?

If they had gone away from me,
if they didn't want to know me any more,
if they were dead to me,
even if they were  
literally
dead,
I could never imagine not loving them.

You don't go to that much trouble
for nothing.

(triolet)

I've been awake since half past two;
    if only I could sleep
instead of brooding as I do,
"I've been awake since half past two."
If only I could be like you
    and snore in slumber deep.
I've been awake since half past two!
    If only I could sleep!

This is where I came from,
and the place to which I shall come back at the end.
I have been away many times,
and between the setting out and the returning
there are towns, villages that are home to others,
rivers and mountains that are familiar to them,
but all are strange to me.
The people that I meet, good people for the most part,
even those with whom I travel some of my journey,
are not my people, and I am not sad
to part from them.
So I travel on, and each time
my journey brings me to the same place,
and I am happy to know it again.
Sometimes, alone and far away,
I see men and women happy to be where they are,
and notions may come to me in the night
that I too could be happy somewhere else,
that another place could be home.
But with the sunrise, as the mists disappear,
I see those phantoms for what they are,
the ramblings of a lonely soul, fantasies,
imaginations of what might have been.

Joy is not the same as happiness,
not warm, not comfortable.
It is unsettling, difficult,
painful even.

Happiness belongs to the world;
like the things of the world it can fade.
Joy is of the spirit;
it exists of itself, intense,
in the spirit.

Bach knew about joy. His Heaven
shines glorious in his music,
searching, yet certain of the outcome,
restless, yet at peace,
yearning and fulfilment in one.

If I could go beyond time,
And life be transformed into music;
If all that is subject to change
Could be fixed into an intricate pattern;
And what is expressed in words
Distilled into pure sense,

Perhaps what we experience in the physical sense
Could be extended to infinite time.
Then what we now perceive as words,
And what we think of as music,
Would all be part of the same pattern,
And things would not always have to change.

But if nothing were ever to change
Can we be sure it would all make sense?
Our life is part of a pattern,
But a pattern that is lived in time.
The emotions inspired by music
Have to be forced to fit into words,

And when I communicate my feelings to you, my words,
And your understanding of them, are liable to change.
When I hear what is deep in the heart of the music
It speaks directly to my sense.
Though I may interpret it differently each time,
The rhythm, the melody, the harmony form a pattern.

Then, as I struggle to set down that pattern
In what I know must be inadequate words,
Sometimes I feel the echo of a time
Before I was aware of life’s continual change.
Yes, I can be transported, in a sense,
To a time or a place recreated in the music.

Trumpet, *****, or seven-stringed lute recreate the music
That existed first only as a pattern
In the mind of one who could give it sense.
Thus in my own way I search for the words
To express myself in a way that will not change,
So that this much of what I have felt may go on through time.

And if I can make the music ring in the words,
If I can weave my thoughts into a pattern that may resist change,
Then, but only in that sense, maybe then I can go beyond time.

The painter adds more layers on
until he thinks his picture's done.
The sculptor has to chip away
until there comes to light of day
his vision from inside the stone.
Novelists too pile details on,
but poetry works a different way.
The poet chips the dross away.

It was a day when the sun rose out of the sea
washed and polished, shining gold;

a day when the pigeons, in a black and white flock,
flew out from the cliff and back again in circles
because today - surely - was the day
when that nice Mr Escher was coming
to paint their picture;

a day when the haze over the sea hid the horizon
and a fishing boat chugged slowly
across the sky;

an evening when the mountains stood out
so clear and close and sharp-focussed,
and the village halfway up luminous in the sunset,
you could have cut it up and put it in a box
for a jig-saw puzzle;

a night when the full moon hung brilliant and silver,
drawing a pathway of ripples across the sea
you could have walked on, all the way to Africa;

a night when the waves hushed on the shore
like the slow soft breath of a sleeping giant,
soothing you to sleep in the still warm air;

another ordinary, extraordinary day
in my home in the sun.

I set myself a challenge to base a poem on eight letters taken at random  - D-S-B-P-L-W-D-G.  My original idea was to use the letters as the initials of eight words that would form the start of a poem, to continue in any way at all.  I would be pleased if anyone would like to try my original idea, by writing the first eight words of a poem with those initials, and continue it in any way they please.

What I ended up doing was to write five sentences that I thought could each make a possible first line of a poem, but, having got that far, I realised that those five sentences could form a poem of their own.

If anyone feels like using those letters in their own way, I'd love to hear from them, either as a comment here or by private message.

*"Down some black places, look what dimly glows.
Diamonds sparkle bright, produce light where darkness grew.
Don't stop believing. Perhaps love will do good.
Day shall break peacefully, light will disperse gently.
Dreams spread beauty, perfect love when darkness goes."

A body on the line at Basingstoke
has caused an inconvenient delay.
(Unless it’s just a rather tasteless joke
- a body on the line at Basingstoke?)
What pain could make an ordinary bloke
do himself in? It’s just another day.
A body on the line at Basingstoke
has caused an inconvenient delay.

Would it be possible for me to feel friendship
for one I had never seen,
except in a blurred photo?
one whose voice I had never heard,
not even a phone-call,
not even a recording?

Would it be possible for me to love
one who had been a true friend,
who used to say she loved me,
but now felt nothing for me
but bitterness and anger?

Would it be possible for me to have confidence
in one who didn't write to me any more,
who would never read
what I had written?
who never let me read
what she had written?

Would it be possible for me to trust again
one who had told me very firmly
that she never lied,
but later admitted
without shame
that she had deceived me,
broken that trust,
almost as if she were proud of it?

Would it be possible for me to understand
how she could feel as she did,
when she refused to tell me?

Would it be possible for me to understand
if she did tell me?

The answers are
Yes
No
Maybe.

But which answer
might go with which question
I have no way of knowing.

So many years, so many miles go by.
In smiles and tears the storms of life we've passed
and made our home together, you and I,
through thick and thin, together to the last.

Well, not the last maybe - we're not there yet.
However many years behind us lie,
we're still prepared, however old we get,
to sail the seas or fly up in the sky.

We've seen so much, in all those far-off places,
we've shared so many moments in our life,
the years have etched their lines upon our faces.
We've been through such a lot as man and wife,

but still we'll go, forever hand in hand,
together till we find our promised land.

So quiet now, the ripples
    lapping on the shore
scarcely disturb the silence:
    a whisper, no more.
    But who knows the power
the growing breakers may have
    in another hour?

Have we known each other forever?
Or might we simply have met in another life?
But where and when,
or how it might have happened,
I cannot know.
And in that possible world
did we know each other
in good times and bad?

Were we friends?
Good friends?
Possibly lovers?
Or just strangers,
occupying the same universe,
not knowing each other at all,
but destined to meet again
in different circumstances?

Shall we go on through time,
meeting and parting
again and again,
with pleasure or regret,
or, most likely, a mixture of the two?

I only know that your eyes,
your smile,
speak to me in a language of their own,
which I hope will continue
while we both exist,
in this world or another.

People who indulge in tittle-tattle and rumour
put me in a bad humour.
Without wishing to be unduly formal
I can state that as a rule reality is pretty normal,
which I suppose explains the fun to be had
by folk who reckon they can add
two and two, but almost invariably make it more
than what it should be, viz., i.e., or to wit, four.
Call me cynical,
but too many people's approach to the truth is far from clinical.
So it no longer gives me any surprise to
know the conjectures that the simplest remark can give rise to.
A ****** of overheard conversation
in all likelihood has a very mundane explanation,
on account of (as I said before) reality
for most of us being of a mind-numbing banality.
The interest that rumour-mongers can find,
in the further imaginative reaches of the mind,
however, is considerably higher.
But then they have the effrontery to attempt to justify
     their outrageous speculations by claiming that there's
     no smoke without fire,