In the quiet spaces of the day –
A morning’s walk, a garden’s calm, a lapping foreshore’s thirst –
I hear my body thunder.

dried crispy shreds
of stifled hues
and deadened, blunted scent

withered remnants of ephemeral beauty
hope’s loss preserved in dessicated form

watering you with my tears
won’t help much.

Gaily, blithely,
We tread the scarlet fields
Plucking at blooms that star the stone-cursed earth;
Painstaking bursts from frail stems, begot in meagre rivulets,
In barren battlefields of our making.
Important to note the distinction
Between deadheading and slaughter.

Does kindness weave amongst the greying strands
Or do you comb the goodwill in with hands?

My operatic villain, my sweet Djinn
I wish you’d put recycling in the bin

Draw the doorlatch, turn the key;
Stay in your tower, but not with me.
Shake free to pull the chains in tight;
Store tainted objects out of sight.
Wipe clean the traces I have left
As I lie prone, exiled, bereft.

My sickly scent shall still seep through
Cracked window frames, to chasten you;
The odour of humanity
Will swirl with sugar in your tea.
Ants will trail through, borne on their feet,
My broken matter from the street.

I cannot live for your fine ease;
I cannot die from your disease.
Unloved yet loving. Cast aside.
You promised me your heart. You lied.

Power of Love plays so soft, teen feet soon come to halt,
Their hair raised as if charged by some voltaic fault;
Nonchalance swift laid by, I scan quick round the room,
My eyes spark as you stand in dank hall’s schoolroom gloom.
When I see your taut form, my small heart surges forth,
And batters me upwards; my future points North;
But gaze fix’d well beyond, on your lofty prize cocked,
My head wilts once more South, the night’s budding dream rocked.
Against you, against me, I have laboured in vain,
When not here, prospers hope; when here, hope’s crushed in grain.
The slim roots still to come will vault strong through, elsewhere;
But for this cruel first time they are singed with despair.

Your words get caught in reeds within your mind,
Released at random, drifting in the flow;
Cascading, tumbling, jostling as they find
An outlet that will finally let them go.

But oh, my love, what wondrous words they are!
They speak of life’s injustices and slings,
The beauty of a ray of light, a star,
A hummingbird’s light battering of the wings.

I long to twist, dugong-like, in that world,
And snap at thoughts as they go bobbing past;
Construct a pliant reed-raft, water-pearled,
And bear them to a shore where they will last.

My mind is a forest. A tiger dwells there.
He burns as he paces to measure his lair.
His flaming flanks trail a meshed veil of cervelt;
His neck is encircled with a twisted belt.
He lopes with a measured and leisurely stride,
His tail thrashes wildly, his eyes blank-shine wide.
The flailing mesh snarls in each close-tangled twig,
Constricting his step as it locks bud-green sprig.
The woven belt tightens around tender throat;
His strength turns to weakness, a tethered scapegoat.
The forest is his, to explore as he will,
Forever impeded; his freedom will ****.

I may stand straight and proud,
Unwelcome,
A prickling threat to those who venture near;
Reserved and self-contained, the sharded sum
Of childhood spent attaining a veneer.
Yet look beyond the surface, to a heart
That I have cut out night and night afore;
To ease the choke of reminiscence’ smart
And yet, by morning, it is full once more.
Dark wields the blade of fear and of regret,
Despondency and bleakness to excise;
But come the day, my dawning sense is met
With love’s sweet surging, burgeoning sunrise.
Have patience, and my cactus heart will bear
Life-giving sap that heals the cuts we share.

One eye askew, obsidian sphere of wonder,
Watches older dog dream-chase and yelp;
Then shakes his ears, three turns, a sigh, looks yonder
To learning circled round in loving help.

Her life was no less lived for being small.
Dried seed blew free, grew higher when new-soiled;
Death’s scything arc did not erase it all.

Young woman past who heeded nuptial call,
Encased within a shrinking sphere she toiled,
Her life was no less lived for being small.

Her words’ kind cadence, scattered on the fall,
Formed searching roots that linked with minds, uncoiled;
Death’s scything arc did not erase it all.

Her hand’s work shielded tender head ‘gainst squall,
The head grew tall, a life’s work near unspoiled,
Her life was no less lived for being small.

Her hopeful gaze a silent, warning shawl,
An easing balm when agitation roiled,
Death’s scything arc did not erase it all.

Some other little lives now can recall
Her equanimity, when life’s plans are foiled.
Her life was no less lived for being small.
Death’s scything arc did not erase it all.

Could they have known, their chin’s tilt angled high,
At towers that grew to cast a twilight gloom
Unbroken by the sun’s slow chart ‘cross sky,
Fluorescent shopsigns starring streetside flume?
Flux and stasis flowing through their time,
They held against the ticking clock or bomb;
Strobing, flickering, dimming down a crime.
New buildings bloomed, with holes cut in their side,
For dragons peering for a South Sea gain,
Crouched high on boulders, astride mountainside,
Sun sparking on the dragon’s mark of Cain.
Though dragons loom and shadow out the light,
The Fragrant harbour’s lustre blazes bright.

Where once a beacon shone, now light refracts,
Shivers, darts, splits, skims across a skein,
Cowers in the darkness, and breaks pacts,
A pale, weak, wan scattering that has been
Abused, neglected, rent apart; and yet…
Born of a cold star’s clays, too warm, but still
Apt to frame life’s own life, lest we forget.
Heat hammers in the South, and Northern chill
Slides grindingly, disturbing clammy seas;
The unseen worm infests our nests, brings ill
To tender recess of a cavern’s breeze.
And yet ... unbidden, bright heart beats a thrill;
For while there’s life, hope holds despair in reins
And pulses light into this mad world’s veins.

Flick through the album of our Summers past,
And choose the dried flowers tucked within the tome;
A family car trip, dappled glades to roam,
The smell of petrichor, lichen-embossed stone,
Gentle green moss inviting gossamer gaze.
Another page, a meadow bathed in sun’s haze,
Long feathered grass in hand, a switch to trail
Whispering ‘gainst rough trunks of bordering trees.
Turn soft to tumble down a churchyard’s angled flanks,
Laugh-breathing, crushing long and fragrant lawn;
Then hop across a mountain stream, wettened sheen
Varnishing soft-edged black stones, sharp drawn.
Eternal Summer of our childhood days,
Sustain us through the parting of the ways.

Soft stem
yields
         beneath
the nail,
         releases scent
in a sweet trail;
           our innocence
is thus
           reclaimed,
                        our future
            fears
remain
unnamed.

The mountain face looks blankly on, as we
Toil hard to rise at slow and thick-pulsed pace;
Pick in, then heave, short step, we can foresee
Our sluggish course, the rear of life’s quick race.
Sharp plunging tug. Hearts stop. We look, aghast,
To see dark, dangling, thrashing shape that flails
Like rags caught up aloft in swift, sharp gust,
Then sagging, doldrums sapping out the sails.
Wind whips thin keening sobs to sickened hearts
That strain hard to believe we can prevail;
Our coaxing, wheedling prayers bounce off ramparts
Indifferent to where we win or fail.
Then comes the choice. To look chance in the face,
Or cut the rope; another fate embrace?

And now we walk amongst the hardshored men,
Yet still are drawn to beaches, coasts and sand;
But now a short bond tethers us, and when
We hear the sea, it whispers overland
And fails to draw us in. This time; rockpools
Soothe our need to feel our souls float free.
When we forget, our pitched gait breaking rules,
We fasten rope to our four-legged quay
And walk alongside fleck-foamed, frothing fear,
Sidestepping slurping, *******, greedy rips,
Observing from afar, not drawing near,
Confining peril to our pleasure trips.
Vigilant, watching, ever bound to see
Eroding eddies of our lives at sea.

When we reached land, by chance, I met a sweet
Lighthouse keeper once of my ken. He looked
At my depleted crew, brought low, defeat
Etched in us, seagull-thin. Wordless, he cooked
Enticing morsels, steeped in rich cumin,
Savoury stews; until at last we seemed
Less dire flotsam landward-bound, more human.
Salt still burned deep in throats, we could still
Hear the ocean’s rock-fated, siren call;
So bench he built, with mast, to bear the chill
Of days cast low by dread horizon’s pall.
When cool waters beckon, lashed to that mast
We bide our landtime, ‘til drowntime has passed.

When life’s unfairness buffets you, and nigh
Each tilt is felt, each pitch, each plunge, each veer
At your very centre, and the sweet blue of sky
Becomes a blank, bleak tapestry of fear
For those who cling with wringing hands and spring
Before your eyes, faces bare, yearning sphere
Of balled trust writ large in orbs uncomprehending;
Hold fast. Wrap one arm tight around them,
Tied to the mast, feet planted wide and grounded,
Steer true; your clear stare’s tug will not condemn
But wind you in, where once you were confounded.
One steady point, however small, reels in;
And we shall somehow end where we begin.

We lived in a lifeboat for many years.
A thin rope, frayed, flecked green, connected bow
To a land of heat that observed our pride
As we heaved to draw in when waters ebbed low
To be set out once more, come the high tide.
We grew accustomed to ceaseless bobbing, and
Hunkered down low when scorching tempests raged.
Eyes flicked hard past when we touched morning sand.
Necessities parsed. Consciences purged.
We clambered aboard and held tight our curse
Lest it filled our vessel and saw us merged
As one with the seas. Our ill-starred vessel in it bore
Our crucial, excess selves, flung far from shore.

Do not run to him. He won’t set you free.
His arms don’t promise release, his lips aren’t
Telling you truths. He beguiles, can’t you see
His wreath of lies on a closed door, you can’t
Go through, you won’t come back my love
Would follow, but you would go beyond
My words, my eyes, my soothing touch and you
Could not be free, nor could I, binding bond
Will batter my heart, twist, squeeze, choke through
The hinge, frame, keyhole, send tender shoots of
Mute desperation, then coaxing sap, sop
That speak of trips laughing on the beach, of
The tale of life unlived, brutal full stopp’d.
Do not run to him. He won’t set you free.
Stay ‘til I grow old. You belong with me.