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.

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

Grief is a room

It has no doors

No one can join you

For each of us has our own


You sit in the centre

On the hardest chair

Wondering how you will escape and join the world again

Leaving the sorrow behind


You take the sadness with you when you go

It is a burden all must carry

You will learn to manage the load

One of the many rocks we must bear on our journey through life


One day you will leave

The walls will know when it is time

You will see the crack of light under an exit you never even knew was there


Do not fear it

Embrace its protection

This room

Is a womb

In darkness
when fear of fear itself and the unknown
ensures that certainty and other showier birds have flown
an unremarkable bird of no particular renown
will sing to you, her feathers plain and brown
no matter how hard the road, or the steep the stair
nothing is ever hopeless as long as I am there

Spring you called, how kind
I see you’ve settled your wandering mind
you brought a leaf for every tree
and flowers for every buzzing bee
sit a while we’ll have some tea
I made a cake so I hope you’ll stay
if not, can you visit another day

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

Anglerfish anglerfish
you clever lightbulb dangler-fish

Fiction causes friction

An untruth uttered and whispered, gets muttered

It grows until it throws  a shadow on the truth

Fake news screws and skews what we see

In a deception of perception

A false perfection

Losing reality

In a flood of banality!

When I am gone
think of me often
for I will be a butterfly free soul
a forever spirit of the air and wind
dancing among the flowers
in endless summer

We are chequers from the same box

Sailing in the same leaky boat

We all bail

We get to stay afloat

We don't bail

Then we fail

So think

Do you really wanna sink?

The winged things

Feathery worries

Ills of the world

Released furies

Moth like

Tearing holes in the future

To feed their ravening savage mouths and starving offspring

A plague of stinging hornets

Free to fly and drop their bombs of despair where they will

And yet beneath this hateful cloud

Lives hope

Crushed but never defeated while it lives

Yin to the vile Yang

Fluttering slowly behind

Always there until the very end

A tiny crumb of comfort

Oh Pandora

What did you do?

The profits of crime

Are not half as sublime

As the wages of sin

So jump right on in!

Design me a coat for the seasons
remember as you sew
to add vents in the sleeves
filled with crisp Autumn leaves
and to let Springtime breezes blow
why not add a long Summer
as that is in style this year
please try to shorten the Winter
it is looking a bit severe

Words you once read

Voices long dead

A silent sonata

Of sounds in your head

Smooth

Sometimes round

Sound as a pound

A chamber for nesting

For sitting and resting

Awaiting the call

An egg has it all

Soul flame

Flickering  life

A gentle burning

Smouldering until the end

When the light fades

A tiny glow

Then out

Leaving only smoke

And the essence of memories

Dare you follow the old road?

The one that leads to everywhere and nowhere

You with your masks and Jack ‘o’ lanterns

Will you take that path into the mountain?

Where midnight pixies dance to the sound of a flaming violin

And the night birds with their wicked lonely eyes hover, ceaseless in their search for prey

Keep your gaze on the way ahead

Never look around

You don’t want to see

The darkling things that are waiting

But they can see you!

Come with me to the broken table

Give up your Soul

Sit and dine with the dead and the ****** and those that aren’t too sure

Feast with us

And leave this tattered weary world behind

Halloween is play for children

Follow me to the old road

Real darkness lives there…

The waving wheat in Picot’s field
is burned to yellow sand,
a harvest tide of buttered rain
salutes the combine’s hand,
one last defiant gesture
before the cut and fall,
bowing at the reaper,
who comes to scythe us all

Margaret's hands are small and white
they will never hug her mother
or feel a lovers hand squeeze hers
never play piano like her sister Maud
or wear a wedding ring
not any of these things
Margaret's hands are marble still
each dove at rest upon her chest

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?

I watch at first light

Summers dawn

As it ripples over daisy fresh grass

Not yellow like syrup or honey

Sharp and green and cool

With the possibility of peace

He sleeps

Quietly folded into a bedside chair

Like an old newspaper that someone else has read

Time to shut the pages and say goodbye

For me the tale is told

He will wake and find me gone

Our story is done

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

Savage birth

A flaming child

Of fire

And light

Fills the dark

Drowns the night

The Universe is set alight

I have walked the bitter road

Where tangled briar romps

It is a place for dying

The twisted path for twisted thought

Minds bent out of shape beneath hanging branches

A narrow lonely place, built for one to travel

Uneven ground beneath unsteady feet

Landing is hard, rising harder still

Some fall, some follow the sign to lighter daysWhen you leave the bitter road

A little dry earth will cling to your feet

Because It never leaves you

They applauded the president
those with no hands stamped their feet
those with no feet clapped their hands,
and the president smiled his crocodile smile
because he hadn't fought for his country
and he still had hands and feet
but he had no heart
not even a painted purple one!

Music is a joy
more pure in every fluted ringing note
than we could ever hope to find
forgetting all our own desire
on ever soaring wings of smoke and fire
it leaves the petty cares of man behind
and reaches out for something higher

Today is jade,
cloudy,
with a chance of tears

I liked the way sounds jumped into place

Gained their own pace

Made a poetry space

All their own

An exclusive zone

Where words, like flocks of birds

Made patterns in the sky

I used to wonder why

They only danced for me

And nobody could see

There are tulips in the gutter
perfect blooms,
destined for dinner with a friend,
they were meant for the table
but alas she was unable to attend

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

The sound of busy wings in flight
sweet song in mellow April light
carried on an early breeze
which shakes the limbs of new leaved trees,
pleasure after winter’s sting
a simple yet essential thing
we could not start the season
without the birds in spring

Ploughed fields
stark after rain
standing proud, brown and plain,
this year's crop will be planted soon
on corrugated paper
in the steamy water vapour
of a spring afternoon

Spring tide
deep and wide
sweeping clean
the beach where winter once was seen

Close the curtain
stem the night
feel uncertain
light the light

My sly and stalking beast

Which jumps and catches unawares

Grey light from within

A candle dimmed

Hidden from the world

Exhausted heart

Of half remembered dawns

******* slowly

On the fog

That is myself

I cannot feel

Until I cut

And bleed myself  

A path of living words

To follow to the light

A borrowed  knife without a blade

The sharpest sting

Slices deep and plunges in

Down through mango stone and bone

Soft beneath the outer skin

Reveals the running juice within!

Falling light on springtime leaves
shadowed fingers stroke the breeze
sunlit table, awning up
proper tea in a china cup
supper cooking down the road
a neighbours grass efficiently mowed
cat on a cushion flicks an ear
rock doves calling somewhere near
new clad branches swing and sway
peace at the end of a busy day

Stones in my pockets
weigh me down
and roll like eggs while I wade in the blue
further than I thought my nerve would ever hold
chill creeps a frosty band around my chest
feet no longer touching sand
hands two waving fish among the ****
gulls as they cry pay little heed
I am beyond them now, those earthly things
Ophelia has her water wings

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!

I shall not come this way again,
I cannot hope to travel on the time I borrow
so I shall seize the chances given me today
and cast away the worries of tomorrow

Grief is a sea

A lonely place

First comes the shock

That slap in the face

It tells your brain

You can't take the pace

Leave the pain for a while

Drop out of the race

Sit on the side

Watch the world go by

Numb and chilled

Too stunned to cry

It will be too much

When Reality hits

Let's take it slow

Face the news in bits!