someday I'd like to sit
in my armchair
by the window
bathed with sunlight
book open at a portal
to drift off into storyland
like Alice
down the rabbit hole

If there were a story asked,
and the asker were as weary as me,

I might ask the asker what good
could a half told story be.

The asker answers, well then,
begin at the end,
then we all rest easy, knowing
it all works out.

my love.
folded behind dog-eared pages
you're a book I've yet to finish
yet before I've reached the ******—
I shelf you with a bookmark
that will never be revisited.

I remember dad sitting and reading
each evening after dinner
once he and me had washed up in the galley kitchen.

After, I remember him stripping down to the waist
and body washing at the sink, then completing
his evening shave.

I remember his big old badger shaving brush
and a shaving mug refilled with Old Spice.

I remember the odour, filling the kitchen
and sticking to him.

But mostly I remember him in his white vest
in the brown armchair under the warm standard lamp,
feet up by the fire, reading his books.

Wilbur Smith.
Alastair MacLean.
Jack Higgins.

The Sound of Thunder.
Ice Station Zebra.
Wrath Of The Lion.

Always a hardback. Always a loaner
from the regular family trips
to the woods and the library.

Always sitting in his heady mix
of Old Spice, Brylcreem and St Bruno,
reading and relishing the opportunity
to pass the book on to me
telling me of his envy of my first read
of the adventure he’d just finished.

Sadness is finishing a great novel
on the train to work
and carrying it home
empty of suspense,
with a faint hope
for the yet unpublished sequel.

as in clouds so in words
many things seen and read
hiding keys affirming revelations
in the unseen and unspeakable

i wanna write you
as much as you wanna
read me