I see you wriggling
little word-fish  
trying to get away  
behave now
jump in my writer's net  
don't worry, I won't eat you  
just borrow you for a bit  
as bait for bigger things  
stay still
let me fix you to my story hook  
I need to capture a reader

You don’t need religion
Or any kind of God
You can still be thankful
Because life can be a sod!

If you are still alive and kicking
And feeling pretty good
Give thanks your ticker’s ticking
Just because you should!

Find me
feel my pain
mend my soul
make me whole again

Touch me
calm my fears
hold me close
catch my falling tears

Love me
hold my hand
talk to me
try to understand

To live only in the present
means you battle the storms of today
without a coat or a hat
you cannot plan for future weather
without the rain of the past
experience is an umbrella

Not exactly floating
not completely sinking
I have reached a place
where there is no conscious thinking,
it’s a liberation
to be free on the blue and wide
just a piece of driftwood
taken by the tide

Gathering sky,
heavy folds of white and linen grey
wrap the day,
tight in a nettle scented breeze
a blanket with no escape
song birds call, sharp to each other
hidden in the hedgerow
where the cow grass grows
thigh high by the gate,
pierced by spears
of meadowsweet and celandine
and so we wait to look for rain
allthough the weather may turn fine
who knows which way the season blows
in British summer time

Do not worry
when I go,
I will not be far
for I shall be the evening star
shining, ever near
do not fear
for I had my time
and lived it well as I knew how
but the time has come
I have to leave you now
watch the birds
see them fly
home across the evening sky
feel their wings
hear their song
you can cry,
but not for long

Tofu tofu
it just won’t do
the box is pretty
with its dragon stencil
but it looks and it tastes
like it rubs out pencil

Toughened glass

Women like me

Still around

You just can't see

We pick up names

As we go through life

Daughter Mother Sister Wife

Our role is often mapped and clear

Then we get to fifty and disappear

We want to shout I'm over here

We're not glam, we're not glum

Just somebody's mum

A little bit shopworn

But we did our bit

We brought up the kids

Took a whole load of sh*t

So please don't ignore us

We matter too

Just you wait till it happens to you

And it will!

Do not cry for those who have gone
Make a better world for those who are to come.
Do not put your faith in shadows of the past
Step into the light and let them see you shine
Do not curse the broken time in which we live
Race both hands to mend the clock
Do not be scared of the future
Let the future be afraid instead
You have the power to change it
If you will but try

That intimate space

Inner sanctum of the discarded sock

That empty coffee cup

You meant to take downstairs

Borderland between light and dark

A place of extremes

Joy and love and sometimes fear

Where we can truly be ourselves

At our most vulnerable

When we close the door

We switch off,

The clock hits pause

We sleep,

Defenceless

Against the monsters under our beds

And the ones inside our heads!

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

Ploughed fields and tractor churning
yarrow, nettle, stubble burning
signs of a year at summers turning
blackberry, bracken, meadow sweet
showing the season is almost complete
chiff-chaff, pipit, pecking crows
bring high summer to an early close

Creeping frost

Cold and hard

As charity or jewellers knives

Which melts and quickly turns to flame

The *** that boils

Magnesium hot

Phoenix bright

Cold tears

Sticky with regret

Which sooth and calm

Balm for the soul

Beneath the skin

And healing can begin

Irish aer
brings the sweetest rain
from the bluest sky
which fills her streams
of brackish runs and rills
and paints the green
on lush and fond remembered hills

Larks don't need parks

They need ploughed fields and waving grain

If they are to remain

They soar and sing of joy unbound

But they are rarely found

Galway's tears are grey
soft they fall upon her cheeks
scarred and rutted with her age
weathered by storms
kissed by the sea
a faithful and remembered love
he visits often
and tries to bend her to his will
but she is strong
resoulute she will not change
only time can rearrange her features
often she is mild
her temper only stirred by the restless wind
who is her neighbour
always rapping on the doors
of her crouched and hunkered homes
yes, Galway’s tears are grey
but her grassy smile is warm and wide
she gets into the bones of you
until you know that can never really leave her loving arms
and if you do, know a little of her will be coming too

Victory wine can be  divine

A taste of defeat is not quite as sweet!

Whatever you choose to put in your glass

Finish it off then let it pass

Cork the bottle and shut it away

Drink the rest another day!

Winter’s lonely queen
grieving for her summer king
a lover long gone
he left his clothes
an Autumn coat of crimson velvet
lined with orange and a dozen other hues
without his light it faded to a duller forest brown
and she was left with shreds and tatters in her hands
that seamstress spring will come in time
and weave a cloak of gentle forest green
to see him though the coming year

You were always the fruit tree
new light of promised hope in spring
sweet pears within the summer of your days
the flowing wine of a full ripe season
and when autumn came
it reached with shadowed fingers
to pluck you from the wall
you stood alone against the wind
while we your living leaves were scattered
root and branch, stripped base and bare
it was then we watched you fall
there was heart in you my friend,
you gave your all

The world and all its many fingered thumbs
has me by the throat
tugging hard at the wire
gripping tight it cuts, sharp at the prospect of another hour
until I do not know if flesh is bone,
bone is flesh,
or some thing in-between,
all is pain, and pain is all
lightning in a head that is filled to the lips with rags and straw
raw alight and burning bright, although I wish it were not so
I want it dim to let me sleep,
let me hide in dull-thought darkness
calm beneath the leafy shedding midnight trees
with their echoed mindless hum
and owls, there are always owls
screeching brutes of talon tinted wings
that eat the other flying things that haunt my night
and I can only lay
and wait for morning light

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

You cannot possess a soul

Force it into chains

Crush a spirit and take what
remains

Make a slave

Own it from the cradle to the grave

You can use cruel ties

But you cannot bind

Freedom of the mind

Original thought

Cannot be bought

Show me the beauty, beyond our careworn world
where sighs of woe outnumber gasps of wonder

Show me the beauty, of a winter sky seen from a window
etched in deepest shades of elephant grey

Show me the beauty still to come,
Sleepless dawns above silent shuttered houses

Show me the beauty hidden in plain sight,
A gift for those who dare to reach beyond their walls to see

Peaceful, I protest against this morning,
grey and wet and dull, not fit for larks
I demand a change
no, I command the sun to shine
rise and get you out of bed
and give us something else instead
I like this not
any decent summer day should start off fine
and then continue hot

Why do we do it
tear a fragile piece
of inner self
a printed page
and hang it raw
for public crows to peck and gnaw
blowing dry for all the world to see
what need have we
but still we strive to write
to search our foggy tired brains
and sift the ashes that remain
to lay them bare
upon the hearth and stone
to carry on
and give a little blood and bone
with every word we make our own!

There are times when life’s knitting unravels
a major diversion in the direction of travel,
not a dropped stitch, or some existential glitch,
but a ****** awful tangle
a wrestle, a fist fight,
a complicated wrangle
a long overdue appointment with fate,
when we can do nothing but sit back and wait
let it run, see it through
think about anything that we can do
to find the loose ends
pick up the pieces
and start to make amends

What is beauty
If you see it with your eyes
and I do not share with mine
is it any the less beautiful
for being yours alone

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

The winds of change

Are blowing

We need to hear them sing

Open up and listen

To alarm bells as they ring

Learn from this experience

Like we never did before

This virus isn't kidding

It's already gone to war

Casualties are many

No-one wants a million more!

Teeth in jaws that snap

Beyond the tongue that twists and winds

The trap that binds you to your word

Once beyond those tombstone markers to the world

All hope is lost for yet another lie uncurled

To wind itself like smoke

To choke and wrap around your slender throat

To make you wish you never spoke a single scarlet word

And those you hurt had never even heard!

Your average girl

Is mostly Grrr

With a bit of whirl!

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.

In the eye of a fly

The world rushes by

They see it all trippy

And fractured and zippy

As if they were high

Not sure why

Perhaps we should try!

The reason I write
to **** the banality
of reality