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

You cannot conjure love at will
capture it like rain and drink your fill,
there is no pill to ease the pain and make you whole
no balm to calm the lonely soul,
for love is a seed we need to sow
and lasting flowers take time to grow

One who will give

Instead of take

Most of the income that they make

A lot of them are merely fake

They splash the cash but all the while

The guilt is there behind the smile

How do you think they made their pile?

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

A room full of dark

    Hungry crows of worry peck at sleep

        Morpheus it seems is grounded

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

Change in my pocket jingles
I wonder how many ears
in previous years
have also heard the music
of these little clanking bells
who could ever tell
but the feeling lingers
as I move them through my fingers

I was born with a Woolworth’s spoon in my mouth
not for me a silver stem and bowl
because my mother was a practical kind of soul
she fed us and she clothed us,
and she never forgot to love us,
then she taught us we were just as good
as the cutlery above us

Expectation leads to realisation

You think you climbed the wall

To discover that your pond is very small

Not a big fish after all

Poetry is not spaghetti
you cannot herd, strings of complicated words
and hurl them at the page, one by one
to see if they stick, when the poem is done

Shadows caught
waving curtains
nervous fingers
ever tapping
never still
beyond
and
beyond
and
beyond
the endless glassy spirals
filled with glassy spirals of their own
shattered fractal light
tight and broken pieces
filter
flicker
gutter
fall
in darkness
lie in muted heaps
so die the painted shades of sleep

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

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

In the bungalow of your thoughts
you can sit and fume at the world
while you wrap your soul
in angry net curtains!

From the beginning

Lets get things straight

I'm not your nation

Or your state

I'm not the moon

Or anyone's world

You cannot claim me

So leave your tiny flag unfurled

You didn't mark me

Like a dog on post

Leaving your scent

So you can boast

She's my *****

Because I'm not

Use the brain cell

That you got

Think real hard

And you might see

That I am laying claim

To me!

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

When velvet night

Gives way

Before the light of dawn is day

And lights the  eastern sky

With soft and painted grey

To chase the stars away

Happy is a department store
something to look at on every floor
if we know what we are shopping for
but generally we don't, do we?

I am keeping watch
as you lay in your nest of wires
an electric symphony plays
in the background
beeps to wish you goodbye
it is the hardest thing to say to anyone
but I want you to go
because the waiting is killing us all!

The tiny bit that you don't see

I only keep it around for me

The one that's there when I'm on my own

Who I am when left alone

I have others I don't hide

But that's my public facing side!

Soft falls the light upon your face
shadowing each trace of sleep
who am I to know or see
the secrets that you keep
we give our minds
to flights of dreams
but only to ourselves it seems

When I was young

I always wanted to ride on a Unicycle

Quirky

Eccentric

Slightly odd

A bit like me I thought

I never did it

I was too scared

Now I am old

I want to ride on a Unicycle

Quirky

Eccentric

Slightly odd

A bit like me

But braver

I think I'll do it!

Spoilt and pampered season
indulged and petulant spring,
please don't pout and drag your heels
we need the light you bring,
the birds and bees are waiting
so could you make a start
be a dear, stop sulking
it's time you played your part

Frustrated angry people

Pushed to the brink

Cease to think

They act

It's a fact!

See your face in standing water
it reflects back the truth

No airbrushes in nature
no photoshop filters
you get what you get

Staring into the clear and glassy depths, right to the bottom
You think you can see through it, but really it sees through you!

Lay quiet as if sleeping
tide take you now
sea foam as your comfort
pillowed by the ocean
rest for a head that is weary of dreams
sleep soft my lovely
so pale on the waves
among the shells
and the waving water weeds
safe in Neptune's garden

Clouded cattle breath
released to this November morning
a rising sun scarce dares to show its face
no fond embrace will grace a leaden sky
no warm & loving arms
to melt the chill on lonely farms and hills
all is still
as smooth & white
as paint upon a windowsill

Words have no walls
except for those enclosures we build to keep them in
some are hollow
splendid fruit containing wasps within
others fill with meaning
fattened ears of corn
they are mysterious
invisible as the wind
with the power to destroy
or to fill our sails
if we find ourselves becalmed
words can be everythings
or nothings
without ears to hear
or grace of page
a stage in which to share
they are nought but empty promises
the sound of passing air

Without you,
there would be no smoke to fill the empty heart with clouded joy,
no birds to sing and beat their wings to flame upon the fire
no melancholy note
which plays upon the heightened tightened string of deep desire,
no skies which fall and leave us chained
imprisoned on the altar stone, vaguest remnants of the fall,
we cannot know, we cannot tell
as the Master said when he was young
‘hey-** if love were all’

Yearning

When soul fire

Longs to be free

Heart and Bone

Ache

But the words don't come

And beauty is stilled

A dry garden

Dust in the wind

A living thing

empty

With the promise

Of rain

Tomorrow

Hark to the winds of Autumn
Long dead voices raised in song
Saraband for the living
A choir for the dying
Eternal music of the ******
A fading year
Carried on the breeze

Don't look back in anger

You cannot wipe the sins of the past

Remember them

Use the fuel to spur you on

Work for the living not those who have gone

But remember

Live for today

Find your own way

A better path

Build a place where you belong

Remember those who were done a wrong

Then move on

But remember

It's your world now

Children play

Mouths open in silent wonder

Purple waves

Begin to roll

Lovers love

Holding hands

A final time

Together

Drowning

Faces lit with

Jasmine yellow

And fuchsia fire

Reflect the falling embers

Burning sky and haunted beauty

Sunset at the end of the world

Word butterflies
free on the wind
they escaped my head
while I was sleeping
the window in my mind
it seems
was open

We live in crochet

complicated webs interweaving with each other

beautiful and endlessly complex, drop one stitch and it all unravels

stop picking holes in it

we don't have the pattern to do another one!

We are all dust.

Mere chaff blown on the hot winds of an African summer long ago,
when the world was fresh and humanity still sailed on clouds of air we soared above the baking earth and knew the freedom of the stars, not tethered to the ground in bonds of flesh and bone.

Dust we were and dust we will become again, in the end it's all the same.

Just dust!