I am tall - though not tall enough to see beyond the trees.
I hear screeching gulls but are they mere Sirens?
I smell and taste salt on the breeze. Does the ocean pulse?
Cradling my head, I wonder.

The red dress hangs, still.
Awaiting your form and flesh -
A matador's swish.

The osprey
plunges

an unerring
spear

with
atlatl instinct.

Talons
slice surf

a
loch picked

of
thrashing rainbows

Icarus’
folly eclipsed.

...you're a slippery fish;
a swirling rainbow
beyond hook and line.

Dodge well and
weave with perfection.

Rolling sky like,
the grey and blue pushchair
became a cloud.

Odes, condensed milk;
Reduced, sweetened brevity.

You are like bed sheets flapping in the wind;
Snap happy giggles alive with the thrum of Summer.

Lung's heaving,
Breath trapped in treacle pools.

Lake blue lips, quince skin -
Larghetto drowning.

Dusk…
…in the
space between
jigsaw pieces –
lost.

From the beach
We see a
Wind farm wave.

James calls them
Windmillows,
And I smile.

Now he calls
These windmills,
And I frown.

Soon they will
Be turbines -
I shall grieve.

Blue flames lick
the copper-bottomed pan.

Inside, hot milk rises,
underneath a white, foamy tarp.

A whoosh and frothy surge of
swollen milk cascades down steel sides.

Blue flames
turn red and extinguish.

Gas and acrid vapour mingle,
a beach of volcanic ash cools.

...moon's shadow,
Intentionality free -
A lacuna exists.

On beaches of buttery biscuit,
Martian fruits drip
                                  red
                                            syrupy
                                                          goo
Onto time frozen swirls of cool surf.

...unwinds from the silver birch.

Sinewy branches, twist, rip,

Dangle and fall; crushed and swept

Under carpets of roots. All

But clustered dust, resting now.

Squeezed like toothpaste
into the world,

minty womb fading,
rinsed and spat out.

pillars reflect water
fireflies skate on optic nerve

sunlit leaves flutter -
wafting emerald silks
flicking atoms

Rolling sky like,
the grey and blue pushchair
became a cloud.

…moonlit, the swing sags;
lank chains rust, steel corrodes.

Warm neurons fire –
salad days and grassy knees;

swinging higher,
factories loom beyond the trees.

Cold neurons fire –
churning ache, reality’s breeze.

The greenhouse - plants
removed and pots upturned;

a coffee shop of stolen breathers,
the wheezy breeze of whining.

Tobacco tendrils twist, amber
sludge hazing sun-kissed panes.

There was a thinker called Hume,
Whose bundle theory did bloom.
So, what of my self?
A curious elf,
Alone in a unreal room!

Five-years-old and school
shoe shopping, I saw a sparkling pair.

They won't last five
minutes my mother declared.

Although puzzled
and disappointed -

clearly and distinctly, I knew
my mother would not deceive me.

...snowman.

Ruddy jowls and
coal dark mouth,

its coiled, springy
conk sniffs.

Beach ball bodied with
scarf belted at the waist,

its aluminium legs rooted
in black cartoon clogs,

wobble underneath
a crab topped tall hat.

Blue flames lick
the copper-bottomed pan.

Inside, hot milk rises,
underneath a white, foamy tarp.

A whoosh and frothy surge of
swollen milk cascades down steel sides.

Blue flames
turn red and extinguish.

Gas and acrid vapour mingle,
a beach of volcanic ash cools.

...a sibilant lullaby.

Conch shell sounds,
sweeping surf
scrubs ***** skin.

Soon -
the lullaby ceases.

Soon -
the sand dune
bassinet creaks.

The sponge
is soft and as
light as innocence -

the colour of
honey and distant
fields of corn.

Lemon zest hangs
like paper lanterns
in vanilla coombs

and sugar glistens
like specks of glitter
in children’s dreams -

illuminating
crumbs in the
labyrinth of ****.

...trickles down the windowpanes of
the blue summerhouse.

Inside, folded wheelchairs rest,
tyres wheezily deflating.

Words –
hammered like
nails into
****** pine.

Spilt resin,
knots and splits;
scar tissue
planed and jointed –

a flat-packed son.

The bus stop
was there,
but not quite there.

Something was
missing. Or had,
perhaps been added.

Buses passed,
all with the
same driver.

That was odd,
but not quite odd
enough to be troubling.

The F11 wouldn’t stop.
Yet, it stopped long ago,
a green streak fading –

a tail of memories,
the ghosts of boats –
under Bella and Bertie’s gaze.

Going back
can never
be going back –

chocolate bars shrink
and the wrappers
rustle, differently.

Pines prickle ruddy cheeks,
I tickle itchy peaks.

The osprey
plunges

an unerring
spear

with
atlatl instinct.

Talons
slice surf

a
loch picked

of
thrashing rainbows

Icarus’
folly eclipsed.

the osprey plunges
slicing surf smashing spume towers
skylarking talons

The blue
flower of
ill distinction,
unfurls.

Parchment
petals,
pledge adorned,
crumble.

Dust is
truth. Each
unfiltered breath
pervades mulch.

The purple doll
ages but never grows -
unlike broccoli withering
into winter soup.

Fading instead -
cobwebbed, each
thread a singular
nightmare - a set, silky,
smooth malignant mousse -
bleak, black and shiny.

In those 80s days,
a nuclear fire burned
in the hearth.

From the Bradbury,
Wyndham trees,
leaves fell in which to bathe.

Star Wars and Atlantis –
were fables and facts
in the scientific age…

…Today is an
unresponsive page
in a world of stranger things.

... acquiescence to Nature's breath,
blown into the bliss of nothingness.

Tap, tap
at the door,
the news
brought home…

carsick
journey,
no map
no compass…

just a face…

a face in
the crowd,
forever
impassive.

Monochrome sphere
cyclOptic gaze
Opalescent pearl
sentinel of Night

The graveyard is a
mouth of crooked teeth,
with an ambiguous smile.

through raindrop windows
another point of view
trickles into gravity's maw

Names etched in sand;
snaffled by the surf's frothy fangs.

...black In petrified repose
takes the shape of
lightning tongues.

And amongst the aroma
of ozone and charcoal crisps,
flakes flutter -
sloughing sadness.

From plump cushions
with unravelling seams,
silver threads cascade.

A vertiginous plunge
into sullen carpets.

You are a rock
smashing smaller rocks.

However, creeping
fissures crumble stone.

The wind torn sunflowers
hang like broken clockfaces;
leaden pendulums swaying.

Light bounces from
the wing mirror housing;

for a moment, a window
into the universe opens.

The straw is now my only connection to you -
a figurative bridge ornate with humanity.

Dark roots and boughs -
tentacular wraiths
poison earth and sky.

The free market ecology blooms.

The tree,
like a curtain,
veils the clouds.

Scudding clouds -
a marshmallow armada,
invading summer.