The artwork a face
a mirror the frame
no portrait the same

Spring you total ****
what goes with you
you promise much
teasing us with summer’s waiting arms
yet still you flirt with winter
and make us wait to sample all your green and airy charms
it just won’t wash, the rest of us have had about enough
I know you think it’s funny
now come on out and do your proper stuff

A pause for thought in sunlight
observe the flight of bees and busy nesting birds
hear the whispered words of a sighing breeze
smell the green of fragrant singing trees
today I cannot write, no drop of ink will flow
not a single solitary minim scratched across a waiting line
it is a feeling difficult to define, and not as I would have it go
no matter how much I would want it so
spring has stilled my pen

Yes I am greedy
for a single tomorrow
no wonderful shining moment
no rivers and rainbows
nor sunrise sunset skies of gold and cotton candy pink
just another day, like many others I have seen
a belly full of living, would be food enough I think

On a blue black Monday when my eyes turned red
not a single word was left unsaid
as we left our marriage like an unmade bed
messy and tumbled like we had just woken
filled with things better left unspoken

Good brown earth
cracks and folds and tips and tumbles
rolls and flips and slides and crumbles
moved in space by a tractors churning,
bitter specks of last year’s burning
buried deep in a seasons turning
where once the plough horse trod with grace
heavy feet at a slower pace
there lives a fertile planting space
of furrowed ridges, rips and rows
and the hop and hollow of taunting crows

Be more gentle
the glue is not yet set
neither child nor man
but something in between
you are as yet unformed
a wondering restless thing
forever rearranging
the shifting sea
which constant breaks
and beats the rocks
with pounding fists
to make them change
they will not shift
be not angry at a world
which moves too slow
and way too fast for me
be more gentle, wait a while
find the shape you want to be