Come spring
extend your hand
caress  the waiting warming land
give us singing birds on green and leafy trees
swap gale for breeze
soft light and scented air
disperse our shivering winter cares
and bless each fertile blooming day
through April and then on to May
please stay

A rare and rather precious bloom

The shining light in a darkened room

Someone special

Now and then

Gets closest to a perfect ten

The rest of us live in their shade

They never last

All flowers fade

Phenomenons are born not made

Connemara morning early
iron grey sky
scarping waves
of sharp and tempered steel
and a sun barely creeping
on peaty bog
and marshy sheep-shod field
here dwelt the silent ones
fertile gods of Erin's clan
who fed the earth
and coaxed the land
solemn faces watch us still
through smoky mist
on emerald hill

Our connection,
is a pale moon above
and stars that shine
they are yours as they are also mine,
we feel the grey of falling rain
the warmth of joy
and the chill of pain,
we live we love, we laugh and we die
with the same yellow sun
and the same blue sky

Hospital coffee
hopeful light
mixed strong with wanting dark
a bitter longing blend
which burns the mind
but does not seek to fill an empty cup
stirred with memory
amid the bleeps and whines
of a machinery heart
truly a mocha morning

If my sky should fall
as one day I know it will
let mosses stitch my winding sheet
wrap me in a willow shroud
shot through with camomile
bury me in starlight,
six hands deep beneath the trees
for I always was romantic
then let me rest and take my ease

In time I will become a beach
an hourglass of falling sand
when eighty tides have washed my face
my youth will be a foreign land
and the laughing girl that once I knew
will be waving from the distance
across that sea that joins us two

Olives are round

They don't make much sound

When slipped in a drink

Plink!

Green or black

Think how far back

Man decided to eat

This little treat

Romans on couches

Those toga wearing slouches

Enjoyed them

Employed them

To liven their food

It would be rude

Not to give them some praise

So please stand up and raise

A glass

To pure class

[I give you the olive]

Rest in peace you gentle soul
your eyes which saw only truth
gave us the spirit of those who worked the land
a portrait penned with honest colour
painted as it was
and not how we would have it be

Come sleep
kiss me gentle
lay yourself upon me as a lover
thou art more lovely than a summers day
or indeed those darling buds of may
and thee would be more welcome

You are lovely
full of birdsong
and not much dew
was there ever a morning
such as you

A brainwash seems a good idea
give it a scrub and hang to dry in the breeze
summer fresh and cleaned of ******
let the wind refresh your mind
while you find a comfy chair
to sit and wait for it to air

Silken spider thread

Cobweb soft

A whispered sigh

Hanging on the breeze

Silent song of hard worked creation

Strung like pearls to catch the morning

Intricate patterns

Each tiny artist works alone

Beauty on the wire

A gallery of infinite variety

People call me a pixie
they say I'm mischievous,
I'm actually evil
but also quite devious

Talk to me in Spring
of bright and coming things
a butterfly wing of words

Talk to me
in drowsy tones of endless Summer haze
fill the lengthening days

Talk to me
in woodsmoke Autumn,
when the nights close in, begin

Talk to me
wrapped in a cloak of Winter
melt the cold within

Talk to me
walk with me thoughout the year
speak and I will hear

I slipped through a crack in the world

To a place where dreams lay dying

And a hundred empty bottles broke my fall

Invisible to all the stomping feet

Who would not see

Among the cans and the sidewalk garbage

You came and lifted me

***** blind and raging

Gave me wings

And mended the tear in my soul

Made me whole

So I would not fall again.

Adrift,
she fishes,
searching a foggy sea,
for a souvenir of long gone years,
and who she used to be

The sticks and stones
of ancient bones
are seen beneath the skin
a mushroom scented dying
as the year is growing thin
sing requiem for Autumn
so that Winter may begin

In a garden

Long ago

The power of words

Began to grow
  
Words can twist

And they can charm

A serpent sting

Creating harm

Words have power

A Surgeons knife

To wound

And scar

And blight a life
  
Words will travel

Lightening fast

They jump the world

And they will last
  
A  word of hate

Let free to roam

Will wander very far

From home

Words can bring us beauty too

To gives us back a summers hue

Or paint the world an icy blue

In that garden long ago

The power of words

Began to grow

That serpent's coils unwound

It's true

But there must have been

A poet too

That mournful longing feeling
so sweet and yet so sad
wistful for a something
you probably never had

Propagate some imagination seeds,
grow them on the sunny windowsill in your head,
water them with words,
and watch the stories bloom

Magpie sitting in your sorrowful tree
go find a friend, or let me be

Sparse
bronze brown heather
wet and tangled from the rain
beaten smooth
as is the rough ill tempered land
no gentle hand has brushed these clouds
of wind-whipped winter sky
reflected fish skin waves skim white
shallows in blue,
mourning deep among the painted grey
a solemn yet a not unpeaceful day
of drinking moorland streams
which river run
to feed the misty sheep strewn hills
all dappled winter appled green
and on and down through ancient peat
so black and rich and free
to the breeze bent grass at waters edge
which sings of you Lough Fee

Paintbox colours make our world
grey and clinging fog of disbelief
echoed by the indigo of grief
bitter orange wheat of rage
before we finally turn the page
accept the solid yellow ochre of finality
and begin to paint ourselves a new reality

Today I held the ocean
measured the span with my own two hands
captured its sum with my fingers and thumb
it's very deep and blue and calm
but I held it all in my outstretched palm

The rain is a ****,
she regularly pounds the streets
and plants wet kisses on all she meets
so different from her sister sun
bestowing favours on everyone

what work is this
who spoke with warm and loving breath
to charm the birds and wake the trees
who stirred the breeze
on bleak and barren land
who turned a skilled and knowing hand
to thaw the frosty frozen ground
who cast the springtime all around
and caused the sleeping plants to grow
who's work is this
I do not know

Frosty morning air
Winter's white haired terrier
Nips at your fingers

When the mind lies fallow
do not weep
or think all birds have flown
from bitter dying earth
where nothing grows or ever shall
calm yourself
your barren land is merely sleeping
thoughts like seeds must wait
and feel the warmth of spring before they flower
they will come again
to drink the light and taste the air
green shoots
from roots you never knew were there

Branscombe blossom
fair and light
coats the grass with pink and white,
mossy branch and apple breeze
stirs the limbs of dancing trees
orange tips and foraging bees,
no sweeter does the blackbird sing
than in an orchard filled with spring

Find your place,
a thinking space
you can call your own,
inside your mind
it’s important to find
a private zone,
where you can be you
and first in the queue,
for good mental health
take some time for yourself

Head first down the rabbit hole
and into the labyrinth,
we could only follow behind you
winding the string and hoping to find you,
through all your various twists and turns
that lamp was bright and still it burns
the monsters fed till you were gone
but the light within you carries on

Draw down the waning moon
hold back the gentle light of fading stars
take not their beauty
nor their shine to be extinguished one by one
I love you, let this night be never done

You irritating ****!
Somehow you got yourself under my teenage skin
and you stayed there for thirty odd years
with the stubborness of a tick
we have grown up together
and old together
dynamite wouldn’t shift you now
you are a part of me
as I am a part of you

Fate, I do not know your name
remove a star
shake it from the sky
like brightest rain
cover me in a glittered cloth
of night and fire and light
remove the dark
and let me be that spark
which sets the heavens all aflame

Summer winds will sweetly sing
of fresh ideas that grew in Spring
Autumn winds will heave a sigh
to bid ideas of youth goodbye
Winter winds will cry and moan
they face the coldest months alone
with old ideas set hard as stone

We all need beauty in our lives
words or music or mountains and trees
not like a fish, they need the water to breathe
like a bird needs the air
they can live in a cage
the bars will not suffocate their lungs
only their tiny souls
they are miserable if they cannot fly
always longing for the sky they can see from a window

Bay of Funday
shines in the fog
smoky landscape
wide grey ocean
flower *** rocks and rolling tides
I long to breathe your salty air
and throw my cares into your breeze
feeling the freeze around my toes
who knows, perhaps one day
Bay of Funday

Bring me the dusty flour of long hot days
mixed in a saucepan with too little rain
I will bake it in my oven of scorched dry earth
and bring you lightning biscuits
to have with your thunder tea

Passion
a taste of peaches
grown upon a wall
through glowing embers
love remembers
how sweet it was to fall

Time is a blink, a tiny ***** of passing sky
reflected in the cast unseeing eye of Neptune's dolphin
lost to a storm millennia ago
a fountain chained to the deck of a wreck
bound for the palace of a forgotten king
proud ruler of some distant land
yet here it lays in watery sand
and waving weaving fishy grass
only the truly ancient know
that all things pass

Winter sun
kissed by the breeze
shakes the limbs
of starveling trees
wakes the bones
of each bare bough
and tells the spring
it’s not long now

Do not think of me as gone
I am still here
in every leaf
every blade of grass
yes I am changed
rearranged
beyond understanding
freed from earthly bond
yet I go on
for now I know not where
but in every waking moment
be sure I will be there

Some cold black coffee
A biscuit on the carpet
Death lets himself out

You strip me naked from the neck up

Run with my thoughts and bounce them

Take everything

Leave nothing but your opinion,

A termite

Eating at the hollowed log that once was me

Woodpulp on the forest floor

Far below where you cannot see

Infinite and beautiful

In variety and colour

Fungi flower in the light of your shadow

My hidden garden of words

Dance me to the music playing soft inside our heads
rock me to the sound of words much better left unsaid

Catch me as our feet tread light on old familiar ground
starry eyed and moonstruck as you spin me round and round

Remember me in better days that now have come and gone
waltz me to forever so our tune can carry on

Kiss me when the lights have dimmed and the tempo starts to slow
dance with me one final time, hold me don't let go

Barn door
swings gentle in the wind
and as it swings it sings a creaking hymn
each rusting metal part contributes something to the tune
no caustic gale has swept this sodden farmyard free of life
time has cleared this plot, severing today from times long past
those who lie in the churchyard up the valley know full well
what years have brought this building down
with windows mostly out,
battered eyelets all shot through with jagged holes
as if the house itself had lost its stocky stone built soul
crouched low, set firm against a nagging breeze
sagging ivy wags a finger in its gaping maw
that bent and twisted raw bone knuckled door
and finds its way through rotten skirting board and floor
to lift the planks and venture to the cellar dug below
toppled from beneath, by damp and rot
where pale and sickly mushroom flowers grow
fat and pink among the creeping green
a place that better days have definitely seen

Morning beach
flat calm but bright
sips with ice the winter light
glass reflected rockpool puddles
fill with tangled seaweed muddles

Spring grass to pierce my bones
Moss will stitch my winding sheet
Sweet death of winter