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

Hills can be short

And they can be tall

Some people make them

From nothing at all

The climb’s not a question

Of strength or of will

It’s always the climber

That makes the hill!

Love is like chocolate

Sometimes Sweet

Occasionally bitter

Now and again a little too much

But you always end up wanting more!

Wallop, then you hit me with a ten foot pole
love is supposed to be a gentle beautiful thing
not a sock to the jaw or a knuckle sandwich
what did you do to my heart you ******
kicked it into the gutter that's what
then you jumped up and down
and ran me over like a number nine bus
driven by a maniac
ok I give up
hands in the air and waving a white flag
I love you!

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

A day escaped,
released from the sticky womb of night
held firm in the arms of midwife morning
listen to its infant cries,
the wails of a newborn child unfed
demanding of your bed and sleepy scant attention,
it matters not that you turn your back and try to block your ears
to tears of open-window traffic rage
and screaming gulls that dance on bins with shoes of lead
invade your head and work themselves within
to violate your peace with a surgeons skill,
phone alarm vibrating shrill and shaking
leaking decibels that penetrate each waking fibre of your skin
you know you must begin, attend that fractious babe
fill its hungry mouth to stop the bawling
lured as ever by the bathroom light
Thursday screams, and you her faithful moth come crawling

So falls the willow,
splits among the calling green
those fronds which clasped the years are flailing,
trailing soft, where once you fought against the stream.

Spend an early hour on the shore
sit for a while
talk if it helps to calm your fears
tell the wind
let iron sand and rushing water be your listening ears
for only they can hear

A wilderness heart

Wrapped in thorns

Tangled spikes, to keep the hurtful world at bay

You sought me out

And you cut them anyway

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

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!

Milford Sound,
how can I hope to chain you
contain you with a word,
captured like a beetle on a card
for other souls to marvel and to see,
that’s patently absurd
how could pen or brush or eye
portray the loveliness of thee

Walk to the edge
where words lie unspoken
silent and broken
on the rocks of the sea of you
if you cannot fish for words
how can you feed yourself
when you hunger for more
along this lonely and uncertain shore

Fat crows
hop the furrows
of a thin winter field

Winter's cotton collar is white
spring wears muslin sprigged in green
summer is floral poplin
and autumn cinnamon bombazine

A leap into darkness

Where dragons may reside

A step into the infinite

Is for you to decide

Float free on the air

Before you crash and burn

Chaff on the winds of fortune

Embers falling to the rocks below

Washed by cruel waves

Ashes returned to earth

Grey and trodden underfoot

The crunch of cold dead hopes

On weary shoes

But fortune favours those

Who dare to test their newly feathered wings

The bird of freedom only sings

For ones that risk a fall, to reach a greater height

Only those who take a chance in flight

Will ever know if they were right!

The grave
a quiet place of tumbled stone
which covers cold and ancient bone
which once was warm as you or I
and in our turn we too will die
fragile life to fragile dust
we live as every creature must
fixed in time of certain span
and then return whence we began

The definition of a maniac
someone who shares
the same locked wardrobe of dark thoughts
that you do
but they found the key
tried them on for size
and wear them to dance in the streets

To be a writer
Is to burn with words,
tiny living birds risen from our ash and dust, because we must.
We take a part of ourselves and give so that we can live and fly and fill the smoky amber coloured sky with wings,
although we know not why.

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

A stew

That just about describes our human zoo

We are all mixed up and bubbling in the ***

Don't much matter if you like it or not

No never minds, what if's or what ever

Everyone eats if we all swim together

So bring up your bowl, eat as much as you wish

A lot of different vegetables will make a better dish!

Frustrated angry people

Pushed to the brink

Cease to think

They act

It's a fact!

Leaden angry sky, why wear a sombre suit
dyed lantern grey to match the ocean’s roar
a shredded howling wind completes the set
it stings and sings a siren song outside my door,
be off, be off with you I say
go find a better attitude and temper
I do not like the mood you bring today

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

When the wind blows chill

Withering fruit on the vine

It takes the music

From a poets soul

Snuffs out the lighted candle

Silencing notes that only you can hear

Rhymes in your head dry and cracked like forgotten paint

In an alley leading nowhere

The skull beneath the skin

The emptiness within

The meaning

Is gone

But the frost lives on

Winters song

You hope will bring

New hope of spring

Green shoots that bind

And heal within your fragile poets mind

I want to burn the page

Use my pen to fuel the ash of memory

Let my words take flight and lift your weary heart

Set the world alight in syllables of flame

To bring you written beauty in my name

Feed the hunger raw within

Satisfy the ache inside the skin

But that is where my rhymes begin

I cannot give what I desire

And write to set your soul on fire

Something deep inside of me

Demands a certain symmetry!

An old violin
Is seasoned with tears
Hundreds of years
Of playing out loud
Pleasing the crowd
Have soaked right on in
Something strange
In the range
Of an old Violin
It's a reality
They form personality
Their own unique sound
Which can only be found
On that set of strings
And the music gets wings
Beauty and death
Laughter and sin
Are the notes that you play
On an old violin

Romeo
you were the East
but there was no sun
for you and Juliet
a drip of light
new sprung
from a talented quill
then darkness
stolen moments
briefly given
then taken
puppets
in the mind of your
creator

Water on my mind
Sometimes murky sometimes clear
A pool of thought fish

Autumn nights
smoky dusk possess us
brings on a certain melancholy feeling
there is a quality of ending
in this falling light unbending

To let our wildest thoughts take flight

On gentle feathered wings of night

To break the bonds of earth and find

We leave our human chains behind

To soar and dip and skim the oceans roar

Released from all we were before

To feel the light and taste the air

Is not a gift that we can share

Still shackled to the ground it seems

We must content ourselves with dreams

Leaving birds to own the sky

While we look up and long to fly

Walk then,
touch the silent acres
dew pond wet
and shining grass unbroken,
a day still new
wrapped in promise newly woken

Early morning

In the cool calm of a Sunday

Before the world has got its boots on


Flat and calm with possibility

Grey water

For a sleepless wanderer


Listening

To the roar of silence

Both deafening and beautiful

After the rain
during the silence that follows
in that cool calm moment
when sodden the earth retreats
and all is still around your feet
where there is no time,
just space
a thinking place to listen
the cicadas of memory start to sing

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

Why do we do it?

we who pluck the air

for spare and fleeting words

which do not come

although we call them

to our waiting arms

they do not play the servant

but we call them master

as we seek to turn them to our certain will

they twist us in return

riding on the freedom of their sweated backs

to have them cast us falling

to the pit below

we taste the bitterest wine

of dark despair which fills the foggy air

they will not let us sleep

and keep us trapped and tied

to do their restless bidding in our heads

although we know full well

how words are fickle fleeting things

we cannot help but wait and long for further flight

beneath the shadowed freedom of their ceaseless beating wings

Everyone brought flowers
oh so many pretty flowers
to grieve with me through the hours
and to take the pain away
roses and daffodils in every shade and colour
because they wanted to say something, but they didn’t know what to say!

Clinging spider webs
settle on the frosted tomb
of a loving heart

I cheered for the President
and raised my hat to the great man,
he promised prosperity
for all his supporters,
then he started a war,
when the rockets came
they did not know the difference
between me and my neighbour

What is left,
what remains
beyond pain at my leaving
as memories fade
at the end of your grieving
when the tide in which you wade
is not so cold and not so deep
what then my love
which memories will you keep,
the echo of my voice
wrapped in memory,
pressed in a book
will you take a look
but not too hard,
don’t stay too long,
remember me fondly
when I am gone
then take down my picture
and carry on

The sins of nightingales are always forgiven
as pardon for their music,
that sweet song which brightens the world

Peacocks should never be absolved
their cry is harsh and their beauty skin deep
they believe they do no sin at all

Wrap me in Autumn
warm among the leaves
wind up my colours
take down my flag of living
see it fade to memory
wave it no more
shroud me with October light
think of me as a year
that is slowly dying

We will not walk again
eat or drink or laugh,
love or **** or sleep or cry
it is the end
when we say goodbye,
all that we were
or could have been is gone
only memory carries on

The lark awakened,
she took to the sky
between the pylons
singing sweetly,
her notes were clear,
fluid and beautiful
her tune unchanged,
since the world was young
she finished her song,
and flew off to find breakfast
unaware that nobody heard
after all,
she was just a small brown bird