Four hundred years I stood  
a mighty oak of vast and stretching limbs  
until I fell, and then I lay,  
the home of scurrying beetles that you see today,
an old maid with a cap of spider lace
quite peaceful and content within my resting place

How many dreams,
how many wild and uncompleted schemes,
how many words
and the infant ghosts of poems I will never write
do I leave on my pillow at the end of every night

Depression,
a dark and empty place to fall
a tube of silent closing walls
which sneak on in and wrap you tight
they **** the air and drink the light
to leave you crushed in body and soul
a resident of the rabbit-hole

The woman in the wheelchair
still finds you funny although her laugh is silent
it is lost in shadow and smoke
hid beneath the cloak
of her stroke,
you can tell her a joke
she will probably get it
although the speaker may have gone
her sense of humour carries on

What am I ?
not wind nor rain
nor endless rolling sky,
I am not sea
or green and falling land
not trees nor beach
nor endless shifting sand,
not sun, not moon, not stars
so help me now,
to understand
if am fish or beast,
or calling bird which sings
which part am I
or maybe I am all these things,
as for why I came to be
or when or what or even how
I do not know
but call me nature
just for now

Today I will hang my winter curtains
thick and soft as a cat's full belly,
December throw your gauntlet
full blast the rain, the wind can roar
they will not step inside my door
for every sound becomes a purr
once I have donned my seasonal fur

Head first down the rabbit hole
and into the labyrinth,
we could only follow behind you
winding the string and hoping to find you,
through all your various twists and turns
that lamp was bright and still it burns
the monsters fed till you were gone
but the light within you carries on

Morning beach
flat calm but bright
sips with ice the winter light
glass reflected rockpool puddles
fill with tangled seaweed muddles

We were given a lovely world
but we trampled it and mashed it
beat it up and trashed it,
nobody else to blame
we did it to ourselves
and it's such a ****** shame,
we can't walk away,
we can't say I quit
we made this awful mess
now we have to live in it

Imagine a world
where we just said I quit
you started the war
so you finish it

We were given a lovely world
but we trampled it and mashed it
beat it up and trashed it,
nobody else to blame
we did it to ourselves
and it's such a ****** shame,
we can't walk away,
we can't say I quit
we made this awful mess
now we have to live in it

Love is a peach,
a sweet and luscious fruit
set high upon a garden wall,
we climb, we taste
we scrape our knees and then we fall,
then through burning embers
one remembers
it was worth it after all

Listen cat,
make up your furry mind
in or out?
I cannot guess which way you are inclined

January starts its journey
as a wet and sorry thing,
a limp balloon in a leafless tree
and a soggy bit of string

The sky has made her bed with the waves
together they tumble, windward blown
star crossed lovers, never alone

A poet finds no joy in errant words,
those misbehaving dogs  
which will not come to heel,
how can they delight us  
they may turn round and bite us

This turning year  
a child of war so newly born,
could we give it a day
to dream its infant dreams,
the simple gift of a little peace
apparently not, or so it seems

Winter has decorum
unlike his sister Spring,
he is slow and ponderous
but she's a giddy thing

There is no schism,
no gulf between the winter, fall, and spring
there is a reason for every season,
each takes the best
then adds to what the others bring

We knit idyllic hopeful schemes
and fashion them as garments made from dreams

We sipped our fill from this years beer
until at last we came to winters snowy dregs
with whetted lips and foam still fresh upon the tongue
knowing that in time spring’s ale will surely come,
for now we mourn the empty ailing year
what once was fine and foaming full is done

Today I will hang my winter curtains
thick and soft as a cat's full belly,
December throw your gauntlet
full blast the rain, the wind can roar
they will not step inside my door,
for every sound becomes a purr
when I have donned my seasonal fur

To be a poet
is not to burn the paper with your words
but to be heard,
when ink and page and pen are embers
it is the beauty one remembers

Oh, sea of tranquility,
we came, but we could not swim,
so we claimed you with a flag
and put a towel down for the race,
then we left our grubby footprints
across your perfect face

5am,
snuffed between the fingers of the day
slumming stars and a night not fully broken,
the waking world, its petals still to open
is filled with silent promises unspoken

They cut out the face of girl that was me,
and filled up the space where I used to be

If you take my words
you are stealing sand
which belongs to everyone,
there is plenty on the beach,
we share a bucket of language
play, make a tower of your own devising,
the castles I build are mine, and mine alone

Close the curtain
stem the night
feel uncertain
light the light

Winter
is a monochrome beast,
with freezing paws, an icy purr
and bits of autumn stuck in his fur

A 3am wind
disturbs the fallen leaves
which once lay dull and flat upon the pavement of your day,
those might have beens and maybe yets
which dance and fly with skipped regrets,
they only blow on you it seems
to taunt your mind and seed your dreams

Life is the threshold
existence is a windy doorway

December night
plays at sip my shadows through the door,
drunk on light
it drains the glass of this short day
and dims the sight
like many winter days before

Propagate some imagination seeds,
grow them on the sunny windowsill in your head,
water them with words,
and watch the stories bloom

To read a book,
is a sharp descent,
and a swim in the author's vanity,
to write one,
takes a different skill,
I think it's called insanity

Each and every place we look,
it's not the dying light which smokes upon the pyre,
but truth, and plain reality
opposed to that which we desire,
we cannot trust if all we know is doubt
and certainty is cast upon the fire

Not quite strong enough to pass,
although I try,
and beat with painted wings upon the glass,
the world beyond the window is where I want to be,
success is the garden, the butterfly is me

Dear celebrity crush,
I wish that I could clone you
so I could have my own you,
my creepy devotion
would fill up an ocean

Mycelium hair
frames her lovely face,
arms flung wide
in silent embrace,
fingers float
lilies uncurled,
peaceful she floats
slipped from the world

Crows on wind-blown corn
citizens of winter

We sit together at separate tables,
two bitter old nags who share the same stable,
once we shared every beat of the heart
but somehow we ended up miles apart

Adrift,
she fishes,
searching a foggy sea,
for a souvenir of long gone years,
and who she used to be

Home is a house that's in me,
the place where I begin me

Skip little skerry-boat
dance with the sea,
kiss the silver fishies
bring them home to me

My fox of the hedgerows has silver white fur
a sleek and dangerous cunning cur,
nails like needles, teeth like splinters
I’ve heard him howl these many winters

Fat crows
hop the furrows
of a thin winter field

Everyone starts out naked,
without baggage, direction, or will,
carrying nothing but promise,
and a big empty suitcase to fill

Who can know
just where the water flows,
we can only ride
travelling with the tide,
life is a journey
however brief,
each of us sailing
a helpless spinning leaf

Postcard memories,
a sky too blue
and a sea too green,
shown in brighter colours
than they ever could have been

Fast falls the rain,
cold upon the summer of my expectations,
and yet, I do not feel it wet upon my skin,
it puts a damper on my aspirations,
the earth is dry, my sense of drowning lies within

Today is jade,
cloudy,
with a chance of tears