Fiery molten reds and flaming pink to make the birds weep in the trees

emerald greens and lapis blue to shame the sky,  so bright that we could never hope to see them with the human eye

Dragonflies are coloured with wonder

Pile them up
stack stone on stone
hold each one
bone on bone
feel the rocks
between your fingers
rough and smooth
the feeling lingers
weigh each pebble
in your hand
lift it from the shifting sand
let it fall from where it came
to a rock it's all the same
one tiny part of an endless game!

Hey I'm new around here
but I can see that you guys have plans for me
let me find my office, get a coffee
put up my wall charts and arrange my pencils
then I will look at what can be done
there's a lot of pressure being January 2021!

A stupid person
warms himself on the ashes
of his own pride

Anew
is not to wipe the embarrassing stains of the past
anew is to take them with you
wave them like a flag
wear them as a reminder of your former self
a new beginning
is often wrapped in the rags of an old ending

In the year of missing kissing

it was masks for simple tasks like queuing for bread

ditching foreign travel so we all stayed home instead

we swapped hugs for elbow rubs and waves from afar

coffees in the car instead of drinks with a friend

oh the fun of this year

Will it never end?

Unborn plans to which we aspire
broken daydreams piled ever higher
one day when we finally expire
they end up on our funeral pyre
a few lost hopes to fuel the fire!

Best and worst
words with no end
they can only be overtaken
by something else
because the future is a present
under next years tree!

Christmas marks the turning of years
the sparkle on this one is made with tears!

My poems may not be all that good
not near as much polish as they should
some of them wither on the vine
but *******
at least they are mine!

I don't want to follow your footsteps

with my two left feet in my two wrong shoes

If I take a path it's the one I will choose

my steps are my own

and I'll walk for a bit

maybe I'll find some shoes that will fit!

Winters bite

has teeth of ice and steel

polished sharp when chill winds blow

burnished white by gently drifting snow

Winter sunrise
sings of hope
forgotten fire
in a frozen world

Dry ink in my head

I have no pen to write what must remain unsaid

caged words between my ears

imprisoned by frustrated tears of rage

that grow to fill a vast and empty page

Flowers on winter wood, don't mind the dark and brave the stinging cold

they flourish as the frost takes hold

winter flowers know full well the joy they bring

is twice as much as blossoms born in spring

Release the mind and find
that earthly care is merely air
a puff of wind blown through your hand
a ripple over passing sand
for then we fully understand
our worries were the drifting snow
which covers all but quickly goes
revealing faintest hopes of spring
this final song we learn to sing
in peace that only death can bring

I want to write
to set the literary sky alight
with words, bright birds
that take me with them in their flight
transcending earth to give me sights
and views I never saw before
but I can only watch them soar,
as with other earthbound things
I look up and wish for wings

Word spaghetti, thin lies that twist and tease
studded with tiny meatballs of truth
covered in a thick sauce of deception
and served with too much cheese

Cookies are bright twinkles

fun and easy on the eye

they say 'come on, you know you want me, step up and don't be shy'

take off the lid

dip right in

everyone loves a tiny bit of sin!

The sun a golden earring
The moon a silver penny
The earth a marble
Lost down the sofa of the universe

I think I will go to the sea and listen for a while
to the roar of dark ill tempered waves and ravenous black backed gulls , ceaseless circling gods who scan the beach, hopeful in search of any offerings given, trying to outdo the wind with their endless calling

I think I will go to the sea and watch the sky,
the shifting clouds a pencil sketch as yet unfinished,
a symphony of graphite  grey and mellow umber tones,
smoothed beneath some restless artists hand

I think I will go to the sea, to feel the wind on my ears
the sharp sting of blowing sand, frozen skin nettles
as I shrink into my scarf, a futile knitted bastion against such savage elements

I think I will go to the sea, but not today!

Cobwebs hang white on the frosty air as digging begins

A lone bird on a bush makes its high call,

sharp as the wind through a broken window

a toothpick of noise

bouncing off damp bricks, that look as though they might fall softly
to the wet grass below

and lay hidden by tears

Is there anything more profound

than the mournful sound

of a shovelling ***** as it fills in a grave

and closes the ground

To change
to fundamentally rearrange
what you are,
or to alter the fit
just a tiny little bit

Lyric ribbon
dancing with words

I kept them for years
those fingerless stripy gloves
a last little link with my mother
who was a diva with the needles
the yellow strands of wool joining us together
in a beautifully knitted chain
although she is long gone from this world,
I found comfort in them once again today
although many years have passed
and I noticed her hands coming out of my sleeves

Your rock, the brick,
the stalwart mate you go to when the sky begins to fall,
who gives you tea and sympathy when you make that tearful call?
the questions begs an answer, who holds up the wall?

Today I held the ocean
measured the span with my own two hands
captured its sum with my fingers and thumb
it's very deep and blue and calm
but I held it all in my outstretched palm

Turnstone
Tumbled by the tide, over and over
Washed by rolling waves
Polished by the shifting sand
Dried out by the winter sun
That shiny pebble in your hand

Take the trail,

footsteps in the mist of a thousand misheard voices

follow the singing memories as they fade around each corner

time has left you on this journey through the mountains of your life

you go ahead, rest for a bit

enjoy the breeze and the pretty yellow childhood flowers

for you the walking is done

Fingers of fire
Flaming desire
Flirting with strings
Melted angel wings
Acoustic profanity
Electric insanity
Liquid bricks in your heart
Tearing you apart
A nuclear star
Now that is the sound of a proper guitar!

Thistledown light

Released and surfing the breeze

Up into a cloudless sky painted memory blue

Dandelion puffs

These are the fairies

At the bottom of a suburban child's garden

Oil on the water

Gentle spilling colours

Tumbled greens and inky blues

Fade to yellow and pinky hues

Filling the puddle

A requiem for rainbows

The crown of thoughts that once did sit upon my weary head
is gone, fading gently into the distance
only the impression remains
vague marks of what I used to be
the other much more consequential me

Someone let her out
She slipped away
and never quite came back
although she had a key
each time she went I used to find
she left a bit of me behind

What is left is a badly knitted gift
A thing unravelled
Full of holes is what you get to see
The tattered remnants of the shrinking woman that was me!

The yellow balloon that was mine, got away from me

It escaped from my infant hand
waving gently as it sailed

I watched it go and realised that nothing was forever

It took off for for the sky,
with a little bit of innocence attached to the string!

Winters frozen earth my tomb below a shadowed frosty mothers face, a working boot with rusted nails that pushed me deep beyond the freeze to where I came upon another place, a womb of warmth within the soil

The fallen leaves which flew me to my doom, became a broth to speed me into verdant life.  I cannot say how long I lay within my room, growing fat among the worms which chewed my infant food and burrowing things all shiny on their backs like glass which passed and took me to the sun and light and air.

My growing place I knew not where, was ploughed and ready land where I so small could barely see above the plants which grew around me as a coat and shield from spring and summer heat.

For so it came to pass upon my second year and more when I did chance to see the floor the grass and daisies at my feet for I had grown so tall that they were hardly there at all.

A mighty oak I stand through changes to the times which seem to work though some mysterious and unknown hand. I heard the ***** of soldiers in their passing off to war and heard returning feet of some I heard before.

And when my limbs became so heavy and then thickened to  a width beyond what eyes could see, they changed the name upon my trunk and I became the famous hanging tree, it was not right, it was a man who pulled the rope and took a fearful struggling life, not me.

The seasons came and went and all around me in my view, began to build and change from what I always saw and knew to be my place, tall buildings sprang from what had been a lonely space, of solitude and wind that whipped my leaves and brought my children to the ground, as that surround which I had long held dear began to fade and slowly disappear replaced by traffic ever near.

I cast my green and shaded eyes upon grass and daisys once again, an old and fallen victim of the rain, now I with scurrying creatures lie upon my back to see the sky, so once I grew and now I die, to sink beneath the soil from whence my acorn came, I lived the life which all of us man beast or tree have only temporary claim.

A feather in the wind

dances

and knows nothing of direction

a free flying thing

without the slightest notion

that others find it beautiful

as they watch it skip and dive

gently landing and taking to the air once more

it has no cares

no timely worries

a happy child of the elements

chasing the libertine breeze

little knowing how much we would like to follow

Sea sound
The music of life
Wild and free
Noisy in it's joyous abandoned moods
A naked dance under the heavens
Unceasing and restless
Ever shifting
Like the sand which follows it
Snaking in it's wake
A yellow puppy anxious to please the moving water

Faces are our covers
They show the world what we want it to see and to believe

A replacement cover can make a tired old book look new

But hands tell a different story

On the ends of your arms are two gossiping wagging tongues

They always tell the truth!

The Ice dogs are howling

Hear them roar

Loose on the wastelands

They mean war

Patrolling at the margins

Looking for an ‘in’

Listen to them calling

Let fighting begin

Scarred of greying muzzle

Torn and rent of ear

They sing throughout the ages

A song of blood and fear

The world will always listen

To their glory tales of  war

We invite them to come calling

As they raise an armoured paw

Then we watch our soldiers falling

As we always have before!

There is a place, It has no name
Easy to get to just the same
Everyone has one, a room of despair
You can knock on the door
If you no longer care
It's the end, I have had it
I’m glad that it’s done
Can’t be bothered to fight
And nobody won
Battled ourselves to the bitterest end
If anything’s left
You can keep it my friend
You keep on talking
But I am walking
Today
Get out of my life
Get out of my face
Apologise to an empty space!

To see the stars fall , and have them melt as falling rain upon your face

the drowned sorrows of another day, run and leave no trace, upon your damp and salted skin

they leave their scars writ large upon the beating heart within

On days like these

Winter sunrise low on the trees

Bruised dawn of crimson pinks and yellows

silhouettes the waving branches

sharp relief against a cloth of birds

A bedraggled army of tattered hungry souls

clinging to straws in an empty field

feathers moving in the early light

as tinted day takes on the shift from frosted winter night

I blame the rain

It has a ceaseless patter

A rhythm on the window and in my head

It stalls my words

Drowning them with sound

Stones that sink that great grey whale of my thoughts

Stilling his song into empty silence

No poems today

I blame it on the rain