No matter what deeds are done

No matter what words are said

Blood that flows in a gutter

Is always the same colour red!

I was born with a Woolworth’s spoon in my mouth
not for me a silver stem and bowl
because my mother was a practical kind of soul
she fed us and she clothed us,
and she never forgot to love us,
then she taught us we were just as good
as the cutlery above us

Hear the dripping branches sing
when the icy breath of winter
melts to kiss the waiting lips of spring

We sipped our fill from this years beer
until at last we came to winters snowy dregs
with whetted lips and foam still fresh upon the tongue
knowing that in time spring’s ale will surely come,
for now we mourn the empty ailing year
what once was fine and foaming full is done

Spring tide
deep and wide
sweeping clean
the beach where winter once was seen

The year has turned,
time to plough and plant and sow,
on what seemed dead and lifeless
just a week or two ago
all manner of things have begun to grow,
a spectacle, a carnival, a riotous sight
a free-fall jump to returning light,
the showiest of mummers,
a costumed cavalcade
flowering minstrels
a harlequinade,
life as we should live it,
a wild abandoned dance
nature will lead us if we give her half a chance

star above the trench
hanging in a cleaner place
that this endless war

Savage birth

A flaming child

Of fire

And light

Fills the dark

Drowns the night

The Universe is set alight

Fate, I do not know your name

Remove the stars

Shake them from the heavens

Like brightest rain


Cover me in a glittered cloth

Of fire and light

Set the night

Ablaze


Remove the dark

And let me be that spark

Which sets the heavens all aflame

I cannot say is miss you
well not every day
life moved on, and took me with it
carried with the tide
and weathered by waves
you stayed as you were
as you will always be
safe and dry on the shore
but you cannot dip your toes
or dance in the sand as I have done
feel the sun on your back
or the wind against your face
for you the race was too quickly run
all over and done
before it had really begun

Sea-Flower
you were never one of us
not really
I think you drifted
perhaps we cut you loose
I cannot remember
anyway we meant no harm
we had the shallow callow charm of youth
a cruel chant
which slays the slayer in the end
how could we comprehend your need
or the way that it would end
one cold October day among the ****
pale as apple blossom
Sea-Flower indeed

When you go
you take a piece of me,
and yet I am complete
more replete than I have ever been,
a fuller person than the one you would have known or seen,
I am myself, at last,
no longer victim to our complicated past,
and as we part of course there will be sorrow
for you it ends
for me I will step forward to tomorrow

I'm not your stepping stone

a safe and easy ride

to pastures fresh and green

on the other side

why should you stay dry

while I sink with the tide

you want to go that's fine

build a bridge

and then we'll see

but don't you ever tread on me

He has drawn me incomplete
one leg and sausage fingers
then he got bored and wandered off to play
I am a stick man
hopping
with only one stick

A pause for thought in sunlight
observe the flight of bees and busy nesting birds
hear the whispered words of a sighing breeze
smell the green of fragrant singing trees
today I cannot write, no drop of ink will flow
not a single solitary minim scratched across a waiting line
it is a feeling difficult to define, and not as I would have it go
no matter how much I would want it so
spring has stilled my pen

Most prison walls
are not made of stone
the thickest ones
are flesh and bone

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

Each nation

Each successive generation

Has punched that button

It isn’t red

It is quite round

And it’s there

Just look around

It fires doomsday

That elephant in all our rooms-day

We need to stop pushing

We  need to start thinking

The oceans are filthy

The ice caps are shrinking

We all own the button

It's big and it's blue

It's everyones planet

and that includes you!

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

Adrift on a rising wave
not made of sea
or silver hum of distant bees
nor wind
or leaves on waving trees
not earth not sky
nor singing birds
but movement made of living words
that float and curl
and dart and hide
strange fish to catch on a poets tide

If I could
Then I would kiss your green and living lips with words
take the notes of garden birds and wrap myself in song
bend the trees and bid them do my written will,
caress your honeyed stones to better hear thy whispered tune,
held within my grateful arms from thatch to cobbled floor
safe inside your ancient door and mullioned charms
I need no more

Close the curtain
stem the night
feel uncertain
light the light

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

Sitting on her suitcase

Waiting

In a near empty street

The other kids

The teachers

And the coach

Went  home

Long ago

Seven years old

Small and pale

A dreamy little oddball

With long red hair

It needs a wash

Like she does

Everybody else

Is at home having tea

She is still waiting

None will come

They often forget her

With a sigh

She gets up

Dragging the case

Down the hill

They are all surprised

When she arrives

She cries

They call her a little drama queen

She takes the case upstairs

And keeps the baggage in her head for fifty years

She is my ghost

And I am hers

We haunt each other

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

Winter’s lonely queen
grieving for her summer king
a lover long gone
he left his clothes
an Autumn coat of crimson velvet
lined with orange and a dozen other hues
without his light it faded to a duller forest brown
and she was left with shreds and tatters in her hands
that seamstress spring will come in time
and weave a cloak of gentle forest green
to see him though the coming year

Summer's lady  
green she taps  
soft on the window
sweet meadow grass  
not yet turned to hay
draw me out then
lead me astray
scatter my good intentions
I will work another day

Sumptuous morning
still unbroken
not a single word is spoken
untouched by feet or passing paws
yawning breeze gives soft applause
and combs the bed head tangles
from grasses newly woken

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

Oh Vincent
whatever did you do
ripening fields of summer corn
and sunflowers of a brilliant hue
a shade no other eyes could see
except for God and you

Sunrise on a fat contented morning

Yawning

Melted colours brushed across a waking sky

The place where rainbows come to die

Recycled as a new day dawning

Sunrise
is always a surprise
we bask in the glow
and we know
that millennia ago
people were doing the same
like us they gasped as the sky turn to flame
the way if affects us
connects us

Sunset lends its many shades
as a dying day begins to fade
the whites of clouds
and parrotfish blues
replaced by glorious fiery hues
colours dance in the sky's cotillion
of melting golds and sweet vermillion

you took the swan road
your kimono hangs quiet
both of us empty

Through grass grown brown
in sweet air's chill
Summer heart
please love me still
when swallows leave
all wild geese flown
say you'll stay to be my own

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

Summer's queen no longer fair
wears yellowed leaves in tangled hair
silver spider webs adorn, her faded harvest crown
the living green, now sadly tinged with spots of bramble brown
she wears a faded perfume the fragrance of last year
it smells of sweet foreboding
that Autumn may be here

Sweet undercover moon
silence has wrapped you in a velvet bag
so soft and heavy it drinks the light
shakes the glass which holds the night
and makes a cocktail of the stars

Come visit us sweet rain
fall gentle on my head
do not pound me, dance instead
step you light around my ears
be not heavy with your tears
spread great joy among the flowers
be a good guest,
do not stay for hours

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 see you
Laird of Tanera Mòr
shaded scotsman
misty on the dock
I hear your skirling pipes
threading salted air
silent sound which cuts
and tops each bouncing wave
music on the bridge
between the living and the grave

My cathartic heart
threw away the finished leaves of bitter autumn's burning
I brewed myself a loving cup, made sweeter by my learning
tansy, bay with chamomile, bright meadow flowers to sip
tastes better  than the poison to be found upon your lip

Time is a thief of youth and love,
undoer of locks and breaker of promises,
she is the rushing wind
sweeping all before
a restless boiling sea
crashing on an unknown shore

If the sky should fall

And leave the brittle bones of our living

Shattered

Like teeth in the blackened angry mouth

Of a hag

What then?

Do we weep salt tears

For that which is lost and cannot be found

Raise a fist in anger to a savage God

Who will not hear our cries

As we wander through our ruined lives

Looking for salvation.

Do we bend our backs?

Put stone on stone on stone and build a wall

Make it strong

To foil the ravening wolves

Of fear and cruel self doubt

A solid moat to keep them out

And us within

While we begin

Again!

Winters frozen earth my tomb below a shadowed frosty mothers face, a working boot with rusted nails that pushed me deep beyond the freeze to where I came upon another place, a womb of warmth within the soil

The fallen leaves which flew me to my doom, became a broth to speed me into verdant life.  I cannot say how long I lay within my room, growing fat among the worms which chewed my infant food and burrowing things all shiny on their backs like glass which passed and took me to the sun and light and air.

My growing place I knew not where, was ploughed and ready land where I so small could barely see above the plants which grew around me as a coat and shield from spring and summer heat.

For so it came to pass upon my second year and more when I did chance to see the floor the grass and daisies at my feet for I had grown so tall that they were hardly there at all.

A mighty oak I stand through changes to the times which seem to work though some mysterious and unknown hand. I heard the ***** of soldiers in their passing off to war and heard returning feet of some I heard before.

And when my limbs became so heavy and then thickened to  a width beyond what eyes could see, they changed the name upon my trunk and I became the famous hanging tree, it was not right, it was a man who pulled the rope and took a fearful struggling life, not me.

The seasons came and went and all around me in my view, began to build and change from what I always saw and knew to be my place, tall buildings sprang from what had been a lonely space, of solitude and wind that whipped my leaves and brought my children to the ground, as that surround which I had long held dear began to fade and slowly disappear replaced by traffic ever near.

I cast my green and shaded eyes upon grass and daisys once again, an old and fallen victim of the rain, now I with scurrying creatures lie upon my back to see the sky, so once I grew and now I die, to sink beneath the soil from whence my acorn came, I lived the life which all of us man beast or tree have only temporary claim.