He arrived unexpected,
and unknown to me, excited
but uncertain. Returning home
demobbed, still salty from the sea.

But nothing like the pictures
on Grandpa's pack of Players.
No bushy beard,
a sad weary smile,
a warm embrace.

So this was a father - mine.
Would I grow up like him?
How would Mum be? No welcome
home for others from our street.

We're on the culture bus to Woburn.
Our teacher's got a sculpture crush.
He talks art to us and trusts we'll learn
to treasure beauty in artistic form.
We'll see the Three Graces, god like faces.
Fabulously fashioned in white marble.
We're not to focus on their private parts,
but concentrate on carefully crafted,
sensuous, sweeping, silky surfaces,
shaping youth beauty, mirth and elegance.

Smithy says you can safely stare.
Our girls giggle at our faces,
then blush when we compare.
Seems it's unfair. What's a boy to do?

A dusty box full of paperbacks,
a cheap auction haul, an archive
of someone's memories,
old enthusiasms, enchanting
stories, exciting action yarns.

Time was too short to read them again,
more recent ones waiting attention,
unread juniors ambitious for
promotion, leaning out of bending shelves.

These dog-eared browning pages, acid etched
in someone's memory, ready to serve
again, resisting pulping or
landfilling illiterate soil.

I leaned on the rail, stared through
my mental zoom and wondered.
Were ther footprints in the sand
of that island to the windward?

No sign of man. Startled cliff caves
gaped at us, seagulls dived at us,
while whales schooled us and led us away.
We passed by and the North Channel sighed.

Now it's just a floater in my eye,
a landscape's distant daub of grey-green,
a mystery mote that still returns,
but I pass by praising Gaia.

There's that feeling again,
a pressure to return.
It could never be the same,
next time no longer unique.
I'd need something new from it.
For now, I'm waking from
the author's dream.

There's that feeling again,
a pressure to return.
It could never be the same,
next time no longer unique.
I'd need something new from it.
For now, I'm waking from
the author's dream.

They're sorry to announce she's dead
peacefully passed over in bed
with family and dearest friends
a blessing for her in the end

They always use such clichéd weasel words
to avoid offence or create pretence
kindly perpetuate lying-in-state
wash the slate and cleanse cool reference

Seems strange I don't see her going gently
I saw her manically playing the Shrew
she cast two gentle husbands aside
ever the screaming cheating bride
but on stage and screen ever the radiant queen

We're told to celebrate A-list lives
but I contemplate my own losses
those parts of my life that passed away
watching old films is my afterlife.

All day it rained,
watching through the window, pained.
Children restless, stuck inside.
Nothing doing in this tide.

To the shops, join the queue.
All the drivers in a stew.
Parking chaos, anger raised,
deftly weaving through the crazed.

Money flowing like the rain.
Credit cards delay the pain.
Mac sales up, swimsuits down,
hunting bargains like a clown.

There's a postcard on the mantle.
Where did they get to this time?
Egypt - They're cruising the Nile,
touring temples, pyramids, tombs.

They've come a long way from Blackpool.
They won't see the tower.

Will the pharoahs mind?
There treasures picked millenia ago,
deprived of their worldly needs
for a market in plunder.

Still there won't be a space for my charriot.
I don't expect to cross the Styx
or see Akenaton's face.

Postcards don't give you the smells and sounds,
the moments effect of light and dark,
the lift in spirits as you gaze on each new view,
the urge to closely observe.

Why go to this broken landscape
  to claim you've been there you've lived
  to add the graffiti of your presence to these precise hieroglyphs
  to see an unusual land that's been usual for centuries past?

It's Blackpool by the sea for me.

Gone are the glory days of jam butties
when marmalade was shredded gold
and spam pretended to be ham
and plum jam tested for a cold.

The wireless was our window on the world.
The Weekly News and Guardian
gave local news, views and reviews.
Street chatter made stories that much fatter.

That world now reappears to me.
But in it I take no part.
No good, no bad, no clumsy me,
no touch, no sound, no sacred heart-to-heart.

Who may not talk must fight,
engage the diplomacy of guns,
though having supped the devils' ***,
we look on our works and despair.

Ideas have become principles
and our givens must be taken.
Vile words replace understanding
or mitigate our unfound trust.

Perhaps one should contemplate
or denounce our loss of grace
displacing belicose thoughts.

Monday morning and here they wait
proffering their passports - pleasure cards
submitted to scanning for our next date.
Returning regular regards.

Brave Ben Hayes benign war hero
veteran of bellicose books
stalker of the cinema's front row
lover of library ladies' looks.

Miss Patterson reads the romantics
that free her from kindly caring
and meddling medical antics
that prevent her feelings flaring.

Finally here comes Francis
who craves crime and thriller novels
demented detectives dangerous dodges
devoted while the narrative unravels.
Then there's me. I'm normal.

No others passing near,
deep breaths feed well-being,
freedom to think, to dream,
anarchuc senses in control.

Listening for the least,
making the most, smelling the green,
tasting the earth, watching the shadows
innocently exercise.

The short beat of an instant.
Reluctantlymoving on.

His innovative drives
- passionate, natural man.
The knotted grains of his life,
bringing pleasure and distress,
making a disorderly mess.

Departed, is he forgiven?
Some refuse to judge. But what
of those whose lives were riven,
infatuation driven.

Lives passed by with many sighs.
Judged his life ignored his life, ignored his work,
leaving us unopened eyes
on mystic crow, tortured lines,
raw nerves, coded signs

I'll just read the birthdays now.
Good gracious! Is he still alive?
It's getting late for fifty-eight.
I thought he'd taken his last bow.
How much more can he survive?

I see he's still on fifty-eight,
while she's now owning to forty-five.
What will tomorrow's lot contrive?

I'm told they marvelled
at the winter sun
rising through the henge
symbol of times gone
times to come, longer days
renewal of life's ways.

We think we understand
the coming and the going
the passage of the seasons
nights days fortunes made lost
death's cost and yet we fight.

Stitching our times together
threading patterns through the day
leaving nothing to chance but ourselves
dropping stitches of thought by the way.

Putting feelings and failures aside
pleading pressure of work not to play
bleeding our time through the void
wasting our minds in the fray.

Are we abusing our strengths
leaving fallow to follow the clock
letting means transcend the ends
should we now be taking stock.

I'm partly this and partly that
partly veggie and partly fat.
Trying hard to be the new man
and as she says 'partly human'.

A patch of sunlight
like a slow spotlight
searches the table-top
for stuff to browse.

It warms my clenched hand,
cold-blooded creature,
charms my temper's inner,
all too selfish strand.

Picture portraits in a small photo,
generations on a great hall's walls.
Prominent people of the past,
lives emptied out in a room now empty,
but still present in its patinated patterns.

Like pretend gods they covet their ill-gotten goods,
while the room fills with artisan phantoms,
championing their creative crafts,
charming the furnishings they fashioned.
Their lives survive only in their works,
some unattributed, unfamed but unshamed.

Buying, vying for space in the crush.
Queueing, rueing the race to spend.
Sighing, desiring a place to sit,
a vacant seat another target.
But this time shaded and discrete.
A place of grace to contemplate
what pleases and how it teases,
leaving the blight of appetite.

Market car parks all but empty.
Wind blown bags and wrappers plenty.
Windows mirror dark depression.
Wily ****-kids lack discretion.

Hoardings, dulling, staining, tearing.
People facing lack of caring.
People scraping, scrounging, screaming.
People coping, calming, hoping.

Market car parks all but empty.
Wind blown bags and wrappers plenty.
Windows mirror deep depression.
Wily whizz-kids lack discretion.

Hoardings, dulling, staining, tearing.
People facing lack of caring.
People scraping, scrounging, screaming.
People coping, calming, hoping

There's a flap on - flying fluttering
olympian feeding before the frosts
competitive cooperation
repetitive consternation
tribal territories transgressed
survival of the fattest.

Darker days dominate.
The land browns bare.
Animals hibernate.

'It's not the same', the doctor said,
'Don't do it or you'll become obese.
Their diet would put you in bed.
You'd die before your time
of some terrible disease.
Follow my special diet.
And run if it's fun .'

'But don't be a convert to anorexia.
That's a perverse faith.
You'd never make it as a wraith.
Take a tablet for your headache.'

An unwelcome shock to see them again,
their faces no longer a part of the place.
His memory oiled by how things were
back then, in nineteen hundred and when?

Existence now seems full of persistent
memories, though there are false ones too.
Does he rely to much on them for what to do?
When people tell him words that chime,
should he so readily comply?

Should he trust himself to think things true?
Use his knowledge or review his ideas?
Retry those memories beyond a reasonable doubt,
seek out the false ones, chuck them out?

All winter waiting,
glowing warm inside,
with welcoming windows,
defying tide, wind and snow.

Trolls maintained a loathing
malicious watch from icy
mountain galleries above
for mishaps - so called accidents.

Then house fronts sprang to life
in rainbow colours
strung like bracelet charms
around the bay, beckoning
ships whose rigging pierced the spray.

I'm at the forge again today
heating beating hammering away.
But words don't come without cliché
so I must let them run and play.

Playtime's hard upon the desk
these walls are hardly picturesque
the shape is wrought the work annealing
a product of poetic feeling.

The dark second floor passageway
celebrates its one blessed feature,
a sash window, tarnished panes,
pixels, lit in colours beyond RGB.

An ordered scene of chevron gables,
an art deco arrangement, apex
clasping serpentine rust red pantiles,
pitched protection for the action below.

Steam escaping kitchen windows,
conveying today's menu,
while shining expectant plates await.

A clustered community,
mutering togetherness,
jealousies beneath the breath.

They say that mirror smashing
leads to seven years of fear,
and ladder dodging
leaves you in the clear.

I don't believe in luck,
accidents perhaps,
but just make sure you don't
step on the pavement cracks.

What should I write about this life?
Should I think in terms of strife?
When I write should I add gloss?
What should I leave as dross?

It can't have been a life of gloom.
He must have had a time of bloom.
Where others jibe, should I proclaim,
or blind myself to shame?

Some birds can't keep formation,
stretching every sinew,
exhausted by the effort.
Many are blown off course.

Others defying a common purpose,
seek their own promised land,
shedding feathers, cutting tethers,
revising what we understand.

Two brothers at arms length, both
earls of Orkney. Internecine
feud, inherited condition
or consequence of tradition.

Magnus sacrificed himself
to Haakon's axe man, saviour
of Orkney from civil war.

The memorial Cathedral of
St. Magnus, built by Earl Ragnvald,
tribute to his uncle's martyrdom
inspires the Bay of Kirkwall.

Within a pillar south of the ***** screen,
above head height and easily missed
was laid a block of lighter stone,
inscribed with a cross that guards the bones
of St. Magnus, focus of the pilgrim's dream.

All I could see was blue,
a barrier of confusion,
or some kind of illusion.
Unbelievable. Unreal. Untrue.

Was this my final scene?
An unfamiliar stage.
No one to help my dream.
No gentleness, just rage.

Bright white vase, pink roses
rousing the blue walled sick room,
pointing to the beckoning sun,
drawing the patient on,
dosing her with life,
draining the manacing blues.

She rocks in her chair, tuning
to the fraught street air,
but soon it will be night.

The interrior was dark and dusty,
a second-hand treasury for searchers.
Deeply breathing the particulate air,
I squeezed through to my secret back room.

Care of J.M. Dent and Everyman,
there for sixpence, at pocket money price,
an unexplored world could be had.
Dickens, Dumas and Stevenson.

Some birds can't keep formation,
stretching every sinew,
exhausted with the effort,
many blown off course.

Others defy the common purpose,
seeking their discoveries,
shedding feathers like words,
revising what we understand.

You made it to the Top of the Pops.
What was it like to be idolized
- do you still savour the fame
- does it remain or fade?

'I am left with what I am,
needing to recognized myself
for what I am and always was.'
- But is nothing left of stardom?

'A star! A shooting star more like
that quickly falls to Earth
dazzling itself, burning away
its substance in the flames.'

Guided by the stars,
a better life,
a safer life.
Their new world worth
the journey and its dangers
for their progeny.

We try to keep things as they are,
ruled by fallacies, and fears
of their strange languages,
faiths, mythologies.

Harsh voices shout with menaces,
'Send them home from whence they came
to their hollow caustic lands.
We should keep our own traditions,
Angles, Saxons, Celts and Jews.'

I saw him white haired, small bent.
There were pictures, Cheshire men,
comrades, serious, smiling, unsure.
His later trenches were for spuds.

On postcard he's crouched by a road,
grinning, rifle aimed at camera,
a shot of friendly fire from France bound home.

He didn't talk about the War,
except to say the food was good.
The youth grew into the uniform.
Gran said he came home mid blown.

Carpet wearing days.
Windowscaping ways.
Garden tending phase.
Lockdown crazes.

More pushing up daisies.
Unknown contact traces.
Some recovery cases.
Thursdays clapping days.

Carpet wearing days
Widowscoping days
Garden tending phase
Lockdown crazes.

More pushing up daisies
Unknown contact traces
Some recovery cases
Thursdays clapping days.

A peaceful morning
snuggling within myself
piecing together feelings
of well-being - inner cleaning.

The day viewed from a telescope's
objective lens suppressed at length.
Multi-screen imagination
until incursions grey the frame
mediating reality.

They're digging up the cobbles in our street,
moving them to a classier area.
We'll be given tarmac, black and soft in the sun.

Yes, even here it shines - on men's vests.
They're red faced, drinking from lager cans,
while their women finger scarved curlers.
At least, that's what others think they see.

But neighbours do talk with us.
There's a code of decency,
though Mum says, 'some have hearts
as black as the tarmac'.

There's a hierarchy,
in minds and heads,
if not in pockets.

Some day the toffs will turf us out,
gentrify our street. We'll be moved,
filed vertically, pigeon lofts in the sky.
Then they'll bring our cobbles back.

A small particle in a vast
universe, I accelerate
towards my collision
with my mortality.

A fragile loop, a wormhole,
a twisting bending journey,
picking up splintered experiences
through the pale lattice of my senses.

A repeatable experiment
with life, replicated throughout
generations of individuals,
trying to understand their collisions.

I wandered lonely in a crowd
a ghost among the people
whose arms were raised and heads were bowed
in solemn salutation to the gods
of contemporary communication.
She didn't, did she was the cry.
I'll never know. Why should I?

He peered from the bushes, half afraid,
our first cautious explorer.
Dreaming of fatter animals,
having no thought of factory man.

The Green Man lost his spirit
in our carvings and engravings,
conjured images of everyman.

Their backs to cold wet weather. Summer again.
Another pair of feet joins the queue.
The shelter won't house half a bus load.
Puffs of breath wind whisked away.

Secretly seeking sun in others' smiles,
that star has left their universe.
Stony stares keep their queue places.
Vital signs of stamping feet,
and fingers twitching keyboards.

One shy solitary smiles, a contact,
no contract needed. Granting her
his daily nod, his thoughts return to bed.

Sitting watching waiting on strangers
each engaged not returning my gaze.
An alternating flowing current
switched off to others' fevered feelings.

One dimensional emotions
switching through time and place.
They meet:
- discordant face to distressed face
- happy sad pained angered anxious
differing to those of professional pace.

My turn next. Look respectable
but not too well. Don't say feeling fine.
He'll think you're wasting his valuable time.
Calm down - B.P. up. Now what's my story line.

I think I'll populate this land
with menacing creatures,
others making mistakes,
vital dramas.
Perhaps there'll be a happy end.

He stands above the bridged weir,
watching the sunlight striking
the waterfall, where stream joins river,
bright silver spray, subtle spectrum.

Ripples exhaust their energy
on the black glassy surface,
obscuring the waiting menace
pervading his dark imaginings.

He's beyond its reach, sheltered
by artifacts, though exposed
in stillness to ghostly thoughts,
cloaked in ancient folklores' clothes,
savage rites, evil onslaughts.