Empty flowerpots, their soil crusted
Insides clue us to once precious
Clasped bouquets. Will they hold
And love again some tender stem?
Discarded with the half-bricks,
Where the millipede roams, his
Thousand miniscule feet implore,
Beating the whispered rhythms of night.
By degrees, with each passing season,
The gathered moss gently mutes,
A glorious world of commerce,
Erupting between the little things.
Imperceptibly, away from brash
Petalled beauty they find
Steady destiny. Outside
Expectations and away
From where we see.

Bach takes a theme.
And Bach takes another theme.
Below, the first theme Bach takes.
Above, together, the themes all make,
A joyous celebration of the theme.
And finally the many voices cadence.
But then. The theme, but in
Another key. Again, the theme
But awkwardly, diminished and
Augmented. The fugal dance,
Around it wraps, until,
A flourishing.
A cadence.
Because when Bach takes a theme.
Bach takes a theme.
And plays it.

Young, bold, reckless love,
Breaking hearts and mending.
Spilling silky words in minds,
Regretted after sending.

Peer inside the blackened ***,
Where witches boil their potions.
Born from stirring body parts,
These spells for false devotions.

Give me love that's grown old,
Through wrinkled hands held fast.
Carried high on effervescing
Bubbles from the past.

after the velvet blackness
made born blinking fur
plucked out, top hat
the metal lights
trance white beams
from a high bolted rig
suspended perilously above
the painted plywood stage
illuminating the magician's rabbit
held scruff by his silk gloves
ta-dahs us into startled
appreciation and for a moment
we grin marvel at this thing
we knew was coming
we knew was fake
we knew would
startle us like a pop gun
before basking briefly
in the fleeting
incomprehension
before we turn
hop away, hop away

It used to be quite unusual
to leave pound coins
in the money jar
and ever see them again.
Apparently, in my son's eyes,
each one could be
a Greggs sausage roll token,
to treasure after school.
I couldn't tell you when
I first knew about these silent
transformations happening.
In the beginning,
as now, the pound coins
just lay; untouched.
That's why, whenever
I see them lying there still,
I feel a little pang of sadness
at his budding independence
being robbed.

My waking, sleeping journey,
turns thoughts onto their side.
The falling words of consciousness,
untangling like lies.
I feel a rising otherness.
Misting up;
rolling patterns,
haphazard phases.
Observe too keenly
and they fade.
Watch sideways
and they grow,
into a twisted cadence
of heavy silence.
Ticking over,
before the drive into dreams.

when our bold new era
first stood up
a painted face
on a makeshift stage
and flickered into life
with the rhythmic certainty
of stuttering florescence
we all applauded
enthusiastically
you recall
men of science
were there beside us
and soon our folk memories
of war and plague
scuttled off like rats
to hide inside the taboo
and now the interval bell
compels us back
but we've forgotten
what we're to do