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

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

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!

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!

Wood pigeon, wren and linnet call
chaffinch, greenfinch, welcome all
dine with me, come pull up a seat
sing soft on the fountain, watch me eat
drink from a day that is near to ending
all fierce promise dulled and blending

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

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

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

Dreams die

Stars that fade

In our personal heaven

Leaving only the memory

Of tomorrows

And what might have been

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

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

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!

No savage charm
no ancient witches hex,
no juju whispered low,
no knuckle bones to throw
or runic text to read and call you to your fate
poets have no powers,
no dark and evil incantations,
we weave a net of words
and lure you in with our creations

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

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

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

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!

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!

Behaving like an 'Animal'

Means you have descended

To acts so vile and human-like

A chimp would be offended!

The world is all connected

And now we are infected

Years ago it started small

With a phone in the hall

And it grew-who knew?

Through telegraph, telex, fax

They sharpened the axe, and fed the fire

The flames of our destruction

Grew ever higher

And of course we made the plane

Do I need to explain

How miles of copper wire

Has caused us to expire!

Leaving is not hard

Staying is hard

Tonight when all the fight is gone

I have no strength to carry on

Leaving is not hard

Goodbye is hard

Your life has years to run

But I am almost done

Leave me

Let me sleep

But take a memory to keep

Don't judge us for how long the road has been

Give us credit for the things we might have seen

We may not be quite as young and fit as you

But remember we have seen it done it smoked it drunk it too!

No one wants to see your bubble burst

But honey we were there and did it first

So do your worst x

There is a thread that binds

And winds its way through living things

Connecting all

That live upon this ball

Letters returned to sender

My heart in the blender

Fingers burned

Lesson learned

Mother

Creator

Giver of life

We cannot do without her

Often she is ignored

Abused

Constantly repairing the damage

Caused by her wayward children

Patiently she endures

Although she is tired

Now and again she will snap

And show us  that we have gone too far

She has been sitting on the nest

For a million years or more

Watching her playful chicks

Become wilful destructive toddlers

Unable to comprehend the damage they cause

She hopes that they will grow

To appreciate her worth

She waits and she waits and she waits...

A whisper you heard

A spoken word

It has the power

To change your life

It may be untrue

But think of the damage

A word can do

My hometown coat don’t fit no more,
the pockets stuffed with memories
of who I was before,
I found new clothes of peacock blue
when I was seventeen
but underneath the seams still pinched
although it wasn’t seen,
plastic buttons tarnished
by things that might have been,
I find no need to keep it,
I'll shed my former skin,
and dump it in a bin-bag
so that healing can begin,
I know some threads will linger
no matter how I try
most will go at the traffic lights
when I wave the past goodbye

Tread lightly
as you walk through the summer of my dreams,
do not crush the grass
with the weight and banality of your reality
or bring cold facts which fall as rain
to shatter every fragrant bloom,
let me sit in peace,
safe within my flowered room,
I know beyond the wall
the world is calling harsh,
soon enough the gate will open,
but for now the bolt is holding
do not break it down,
or try to climb the fence
let me have my garden
in this place I am content