Where on earth did you come from
what on earth have you seen
so many things have happened
since you were young and green
flowing seas have washed you
smooth on a foreign shore
what places did you visit
when will you see some more

No love
No hope
No freedom
No voice
No future
nothing is the absence of something
and that can mean everything!

Once in spring
on a day without words
when the sky was filled with singing birds
every moth every dragonfly, wasp and bee
roamed though a world that was wild and free,
amid queer plants and evolving flowers
they spent productive and happy hours
until the time when humanity came
we ******* it all up
and it’s such a ****** shame

Let green grass cover you

A daisy covered cape of spring

One last growing living thing

A counterpane of flowers

To mark away the hours, months and  years

Until the tears run dry

On the earth in which you lie

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

She was always there
Britain's loyal royal friend
Working to the end

The sands of time
crunchy little bits of eternity
will one day grind to dust and scatter in the wind
everything ends, and begins and ends again
a sense of everlasting instability
is the only stable thing we have

What you are to me,
is a restless wind,
a boat that’s ever shifting
loose and slowly drifting
on a deep and churning sea,
always blowing, never knowing
where or what you are meant to be,
a moody cloud that’s shifting
through a grey unsettled sky
looking for a something,
although you never know quite why

Sixty suns have shone their light upon my freckled face
sixty years have bathed me with their time and infinite grace,
sixty falls and winters on a planet slowly turning
sixty springs and summers have forged me in the burning,
sixty poems times sixty more the authors of my learning

There must have been a time
When the world was quiet
just the moving trees and the breeze
and the waving meadow grass
When did that moment pass?
Now and again away from the din
a little stillness creeps back in
Maybe it’s been there all along
With its peaceful non-existent song
Perhaps we just forgot how to listen
to the silence!

A soft warm wall

Keeps reality at bay

When cold winds blow

Wrap yourself away

Stop the breeze on your thoughts

Bringing new ideas

To much comfort contorts

We all need a little pain

A shower of rain

It makes  us reflective

Sweeps out dead leaves

And gives true perspective

Life, that divine eternal spark
did it really start
as a shot in the endless dark
or were we fated
to be created
neatly planned
by a pencil
in some vast immortal hand!

Under darkened skies
Hope is our new horizon
Always up ahead

I'm tired

I'm not inspired

Poetic lease expired

None of us are sleeping

Fear is what is keeping

Half the world awake

Until we stagger up and take

Another step through another day

Six feet away

Advice not taken, words not heeded

The sharing of wisdom

Not wanted or needed

Now I am older and I know

Seeds on poor ground

Take some time to grow

Humble greetings all
we rise or fall
upon the swords which are our words
steel of critics teeth to edge the blade,
a thousand stings and stabs
or gentle and much softer blows
which fortune falls upon the writers head
is not for us to tell,
what literary hell awaits
who knows

We hunger when the grey doubt wolves are prowling around our doors, sniffing at the latches as we crouch inside

Our ears are stuffed with hopeful thoughts because their song is one of want and we cannot ignore their dreadful music

The newly  ******, searching for a light that won't be found

Chasing every spark, in search of faint salvation for our fragile shrunken world but mostly for ourselves

Stitched with good time memories and thoughts of better days to come

Thrown shadows, lit large on walls that once we thought were strong have lost their charm and turned from fortress into prison where we hold the keys to melted locks

Ravening, for days not so long passed when we were free to live in this tattered world of haves and have nots, when all are hungry the howling begins

The Ice dogs are howling

Hear them roar

Loose on the wastelands

They mean war

Patrolling at the margins

Looking for an ‘in’

Listen to them calling

Let fighting begin

Scarred of greying muzzle

Torn and rent of ear

They sing throughout the ages

A song of blood and fear

The world will always listen

To their glory tales of  war

We invite them to come calling

As they raise an armoured paw

Then we watch our soldiers falling

As we always have before!

Some people like introspection

And quiet reflection

They don't need connection

To give them direction

I hear his footsteps on the floor

Waiting just outside the door

On carpet like they had before

We don't have it any more

I wonder who he's waiting for!

Love

Where does it go when we die?

Does it still flow?

Spreading like a river

Watering new fields

The crops we sow in life

For someone to reap

In return

A fertile harvest

For the next generation

Does hate do the same?

Many acts have been done in its name

Will it outlast the hater?

Poison the ground

Spread seeds

Choking weeds

Wither fruit on the vine

Bitter wine to swallow

The love and hate we leave behind

Continues through tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...

Can you hear the stars,
sweet infinite music
the whistled song of the sky as it soars above us,
yes, you with your phone clamped to one ear
are you deaf to the whistled tune of the universe
then you have truly lost connection

The past is a ribbon

Threaded with shiny beads

A curled string of memories

That once belonged to someone else

Life is a river

Flowing across the landscape

Warm and slow in the shallows

Furious in the depths

Of the torrent that is you

There are mountains to cross

And valleys to flood

High times and dry times

And only sometimes

A waterfall

To send you spiralling downwards in free-fall

Carving the earth

To your own design

There are fields to water

Fertile ground

Setting seed that you carry

Onwards

To grow in another place

While you continue

With the wind and the rain

Listening

To the siren call

When your river

Becomes an ocean

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

The hammer blow

On your thumb

For a moment it's numb

A lightening flash

The clash of flesh and steel

Suddenly real

White hot rain

Reaches the brain

And converts to pain!

Flowers come in all shapes and sizes

Like people

Did you ever see an ugly flower

They are natures gift to the earth

Like people

Sometimes there are just too many

They take over

Like people

It can take years for them to grow

Then they flourish and surprise you

Like people

The smaller less showy ones

Are often the most loved

Like people

Smoke which drifts and curls
Feeding the senses
Frosty beginnings
Bacon on the hob
Snow in the air
Crackled brown leaves on warm wood fires
Frozen Pine and tar on the door
A needle sharp morning
Crisp as a whisper
Brim full
With the scent of a mountain winter
Essence of bottled sometime
A perfume of the past

Bottled words
Boiled down
Until all that's left
Is meaning

Everything bends to the singing wind

Frozen trees brittle and dark

Stark

Naked on hard and barren fields

All is sleeping

Resting in the cold

Fences crack

Rabbits nibble at freezing grass

Breaths frost the crystal air in hope of thaw

Silence rings

A cracking twig

Splits the purity a little

A pistol shot of noise

On a winter afternoon

We burn to learn

To seek to find

For a curious mind

The world is a mine

Of thoughts divine

And absurd

The written word

Is food

A layer cake

Built up and baked

Over time

Seasoned

With reason

I'm just a bit peckish
and ready for a skirmish,
said the early bird
who was feeling wormish!

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

Oh happy Sunday hour
after five and before the tea-time tide
when those who filled the beach
with grubby toddlers, toys and spades
return to roasting hotbox cars
and stow the cool-bag in the boot,
along with salty dogs who want to sleep
creeping under blankets kept especially for them,
farewell they wave,
with lollypop sticky, sun-touched infant hands
a tired last goodbye to the sand
that battlefield land of dug-outs holes and hollows
a ruined castle landscape
that the sea will fix tomorrow