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

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...

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!

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

Bobbing
that is what we know,
not controlling the flow
the river turns and off we go
floating or still,
following every curl and rill
every drip,
every rippling shaded shallow
every stately wallowed williow, calm and still
every bump and gravelled hollow
each of us is bound, to follow in its wake
each reflected new direction that we take
is not a vast and empty ocean
or the gentle forward motion of some shimming mirrored lake
it’s a gentle stream of bubbles,
that we have caused to be
bobbing ever on onwards, always looking for the sea

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

Wouldn't you like

To jump on a bike

Ditch all the pain

And the strain

Be ten again

No need to worry

No need to hurry

Fill each day

Full of play

Just like you did

When you were a kid!

My soul is a bird that is flying free

Soaring high

Swooping low

It takes me to places where I can't go

A joyous

Ragged

Wind blown

Crow

It sits and watches

From the memory tree

The one that grows

At the heart

Of me

No one asked for this year

For universal fear

Or tears for those lost

There is no division

When every home becomes a prison

We are all scared

By what we have shared

We were in it together

Whatever the weather

Now we need a jump start

A shock to the heart

To get the world turning,

New life and learning after the burning

Fresh seed from the ashes of clashes

Will grow

If we want it to be so

I wait for a bit

Watching my legs as they dangle

Bare feet

Not cold

I wonder

Try to talk myself out of it

Should I

Shouldn't I

My head is cloudy

I need to think

What's to lose?

Not much

What's to gain?

Brief pain

And then release

Peace

Hey that's a rhyme

It tickles me a final time

Should I try again

Be braver

Go back in and make it work

Sirens cut my thoughts into a thousand pieces

A smashed bottle on the sidewalk

They cluster below me

Ants around the leavings of a picnic

I'm here I call

But nobody is looking up

Because I already jumped

My glass is shattered

What's left is here

Roosting with the windswept pigeons

And the tiny plants that grow in the settlement cracks

Filling the voids in the building

And the one in me!

Dreams die

Stars that fade

In our personal heaven

Leaving only the memory

Of tomorrows

And what might have been

Moonlight slivers

Tear the sky of frozen grey

Shattering the ocean

A thousand sea glass fragments

That pitch and yaw and roll together

Long lost sailors raised from the deep

The concrete mixer chorus

Of roaring bells and gulls and ****

That shrieks of mermaid voices raised in  song

A never ending chant

No banshee wail could ever hope to drown

The  symphony of the sea

Tread lightly

Hardly make a sound

Bow your heads

A gentle soul is leaving

No footsteps ring out

As he walks

He went as he lived

Without grand gesture

Or ringing bells

Just the whispered shadow

Of a good man passing

It's your first day

Don't worry

You are new to life

I am older

I will hold your hand

And show you the way

You have so many roads to discover

Some we will travel side by side

Others we walk alone

One day you will leave me

Quietly in the shade of a tree

Following your own path

Don't worry

Memories will always lead you

Back to the roads we walked together

To Create
Is the highest point of man
Not because you should
Just because you can!

No matter what deeds are done

No matter what words are said

Blood that flows in a gutter

Is always the same colour red!

A stiff breeze

The ribbon bends

The world turns

Your world

My world

Our  world

Turns

The rope twists

This way

That way

The world turns

A strong wind

Blows the cord

Side to side

Up and down

The world turns

A strong wind

Blows the cord

Side to side

Up and down

The world turns

Flat calm

After the storm

Battered apple

Bruised to the core

Spinning

On a slender thread

To the metronome tick

Of time passing

The world turns

On a spiders web of glass

Your world

My world

Our world

Still hanging

Still turning

Still spinning

A Heart

Is the start

The part

At the centre of you

It will see you through

From beginning to end

You can always depend

On your little red friend

A large black cat you never owned but once admired because you thought you should

Just to be polite

You follow it and watch it run through an open door and find a house you knew

But not

Because the house is in a place you never lived, and waiting for you inside

Is a weird girl from long long ago, from school

You haven't given her much thought in over thirty years

Although she lived next door the Richardsons or was it the Taylors and once worked in the chemist where your dad got his pills

Before he moved to the coast

You never liked her

She tagged along and always wanted to be your friend

Perhaps this dream is in her head

Not yours!

Writers and Poets

We knights of broken sleep

Are we masters?

Or servants?

Foot soldiers

Willing slaves to the word

To seek

The hanging bough

Just out of reach

To try and fail

And try again

To stretch a hand

Beyond the world you know

To pick the apple in the darkness

Take a bite and

Feed the soul’s desire

And then to venture higher

Hear my gentle song when the wind blows

The lyrics of faded memory are my words

The score was written long ago

Upon my heart

So let  our music start

A reminder around every breezy corner

In the tops of the trees and the waving branches as they shake their fingers at the moon

Follow the notes as they stir cobwebs spanning windows with hollowed eyes

In the dry space behind faded yellow curtains

Everywhere you tread my tune will follow

You will never be alone I promise

Listen to the band playing in your head if you need company

I will be there for you

Always

I won't forget

You caused my end

On that you can depend

Hear my song

Peony sweet and smoky Jasmine calm

Foxglove fresh among the hedgerows

Clouds of summer colour

Splashy sweetness spice and sugar

Honey for the bees to sip and kiss the lips of flowers

Gently passing through the scented hours

I thought I did

But I don't

Need you

To validate me

I can be

And do

Whatever I like

So take a hike

Get on your bike

Pedal away

It's independence day!

If you loved me as I love you

The tides would stop their pull and the earth be stilled

All would be in darkness for we two

If you loved me as I love you

Spinning under the universe

Where scattered stars are spilled

Diamonds on black velvet

And my lone heart would be filled

It could be true

If you loved me as I love you!

Behaving like an 'Animal'

Means you have descended

To acts so vile and human-like

A chimp would be offended!