When God wrote me, she didn't write a cog —
as I was knit together in the womb —
a brass serrated wheel, escarpment tooth,
or part of the machine that moves the wealth,
of poor exploited people to the rich.

She did not see a lever in the church
a fulcrum in doctrinal power play:
preside at Masses - tick; play nicely- tock;
and lead the parish council meetings- clunk;
then grow the paying congregation – thunk.

She painted me a seed, organic, whole,
to grow in a lush forest, green and tall,
a tree to crack the strong foundation stone:
I'll smash the rock and sow a Kingdom’s germ.

Sitting at a stained desk
superfluous space for ink wells,
groove to place my pencil
I dream of rockets, submarines and spells
as the sixties swing by
                                  out of sight.

In the lowest English sets,
there’s no dyslexia
only dumb slackness, scribbling misspelt words;
scrapped, I scarcely scrape a pass.

What bare faced side I display
attempting to write a poem
when the system says
You ****.

The Bunsen burner’s gas flames blue –
    a searing blaze, the hottest hue –
          that heating an alembic ***
              distils the oil from bergamot.
A fruity smell imbues the room
    with floral scents of citrus bloom
          from blazing orange acid fruits
              with aromatic attributes.
The cooled condensing droplets form
        an ointment that can stop a storm.

Steaming chocolate scents the room
    coaxing me to sink into
          a soft warm woollen russet blanket
    with the promise of
            spicy sienna cinnamon biscuits.
Outside the trees prepare to hibernate
  discarding yellow ochre leaves
        onto the brown damp forest floor.
Crackles from a fire-pit
    penetrate the window
        and remind me of the autumn cold.
The finest part of a wet, chilly fall day
        is watching through double glazing.

Virile salty drops fall on the hard gym floor,
    but the stud’s not crying
          among the 20 kilo plates and olympic bars:
    Andrew's sweating out one handed press-ups.
He might pull the wool over
    his bright clear blue red-blooded eyes,
          but this hunk’s core knows – he's lying.

In musky bamboo jungle, damp and tall,
a wet and humid monsoon scents the air.
The forest hears a hornbill’s gocking call
its woodland eyes are watching and aware.

There, soldiers shoot Kalashnikovs and spread
a cordite quick collateral sharp death.
She wears a Naga shawl warm, black and red,
and watchful says a prayer under her breath.

My centre’s there where tribal logdrums beat
among the soft cicadas nighttime trill
as fireflies dance their tango down the street
and brightly coloured birds sing loud and shrill.

My most important person waits for me
under a shady verdant alder tree.

A carpenter touches me,
  feels length and texture,
    adjusts to perfect fit,
      varnishes till I glow
        with polished pride.

Aristocratic fists
  use my glossy guide rail
    to find their champagne boxes.
      They listen in patchouli perfumed privacy
        while I hear only distant chords
          of an unseen opera.

When the lifts fail
  bent arthritic fingers grasp
    and haul old bodies
      grumbling and groaning,
        step by step,
          to the circle.

But my favourites are the sticky paws
  of children ******* sweets
    hurrying to the pantomime;
      in their haste
        they leave a tacky sucrose veneer
          on my glassy lacquer.
        
          My sugar coating lasts
      until the complaining cleaners
    reset the theatre
for tomorrow.

In Aberteiffi, autumn’s freezing wind
blows russet leaves along the icy street:
the weather, unforgiving, hard, unkind,
unlike the Indian October heat.

So different from the bamboo groves of home
where hornbills gok, we walk along the quay
or stroll on Poppit Sands watching the foam
that crests the cold waves of the Irish sea.

Our warm hands gasp each other as we comb
the seashore– driftwood, seaweed, scattered free
across the beach: we make ourselves a home
along the ozone shore she lives with me.

The Aberteiffi autumn freezing days
are heated by the fusion of our ways.

A damp Kohima wakes: a wet sunrise
the drizzle falls: the monsoon’s end is grey:
our wedding day is blessed with gloomy skies
but marriage hopes have blown my clouds away.

Nearby a gift, a mithum grazes grass
and chews with ruminating bovine bliss.
The pots are bubbling to prepare a mass
of food for fifteen hundred; more or less.
 
My Naga best man sits with me in church:
while she in mekhela, her orchid bloom
walks down the aisle – we stand up from the bench –
as warriors precede her to her groom.

The moment comes to say that I love you
to breath the word “amedo” for “I do”

I sit and rest beneath the ripening figs,
their pregnant bulges swelling on the tree;
a heavy yoke deforming laden twigs.

In nearby streets a man is walking, he
observes me without line of sight. I’m known
below those purple fruit, in Galilee.

He speaks my life, and secrets I alone
should know; the silent whispers of my heart.
He understands my very blood and bone.

The orchard's dripping fragrance, sweet and ****,
might draw me from the living words he gives.
I measure what’s the cost if I depart
for lighter yokes: reform my bending sprigs
and set out from beneath the ripening figs.

The ginger cat, McDonald, shat
upon the oval office mat:
this bloated greedy ***** brat
is partner to a lying rat.

He spreads his faeces with this mate
to every swinging voting state,
aroma of their filthy musk
pervades our democratic dusk.

The whiff is an X rated smell
it holds the nation in their spell
it poisons all the internet
and makes free speech a paid asset.

Deposits of this feline clan
(their soft brown turds) have hit the fan
the stench is smelt across the globe
by Putin the Ukrainophobe.

The world gets hotter, vengeance trends
and no one knows where it all ends.

My family walks
  up the steep hill of Brechfa forest
    sandwiches and thermos flask
      in my rucksack.
Rainbow on Akole's back
  Reece runs ahead exploring
      the green cathedral of
        Llanfihangel Rhos Y Corn.
My right eye watches the children
  as my left eye counts
    the habitats
      through a scientific lens.

    Long lived oaks
          slowly grow sturdy hardwood
          invest in the future.
    Hurried hazel
          sprouts and fruits
          feed fleeting squirrels.
    Sad willows bow
          weeping branches
          weave and heal.
    Feathered ash
          grows bark
          houses soft damp moss.
    Deep birch roots
          draw goodness
          recycles minerals.
    Elderly elms
          die from the Dutch pandemic
          dinner for insects and mushrooms.
    Early bluebells’
          royal blue carpet
          welcomes the spring,
    while musky fungi
          extend their network of decay
          repurpose brown leaves.
    Tall pine trees’
          resinous smell
          poisons competition.
    Among woodland's
          gothic arches
          there are many niches
    and even
          in a coniferous forest
          ants build hills.

We sit on a brown earth bank
  take out our picnic.
I stop counting habitats
  to share out
    chocolate biscuits.

Dredging the detritus of my life, I
Organise 60 years of artefacts and
Whittle away my possessions, while holding
Nostalgia at bay and
Skipping what won’t fit
In our next house, I
Zealously
Ignore the emptying rooms and try
Not to mind, but concentrate on
Going forward.

crisp brown leaves
on white ground–
pristine

I was sat at the front of the cast iron horse
and with Tom and his sister and Nicky behind
we had rocked till the plaything went hight as we could
when it smacked on my jaw with its hard metal head.

An incisors had cut through my lip, and so blood
freely flowed from my mouth to my chin, where it paused,
and then dropped on the crown of the dangerous nag,
dripping sticky and red on the skull of our steed.

Soon my daddy had  lifted me up from that mount
and we drove to the doctor’s to suture my lip
where a needle was painfully pulled through my skin
and it felt as though cables were stitching my gob.

                                  –––

Did our play in my youth, though unsafe, have more thrill
than does zipping on wires over bark covered ground
or the climbing of ropes that are hung from a pole
and of swaying with swings that don’t go all around?

Every age has its dangers, unique to itself,
and so children will always find dangerous fun,
though as parents we worry as much as ours did,
now the  playgrounds are safer whatever we fear.

10
golden sunrise
after the morning mist
a gilded path

reverse

a gilded path
after the morning mist
golden sunrise

#11
a squirrel’s hope
on a warm winter day
the hazelnut store

reverse

the hazelnut store
on a warm winter day
a squirrel’s hope

crisp brown leaves
on white ground–
pristine

cinnamon fox
chasing red squirrels–
hazel bolthole

holy icons
on my study wall–
prayers at work

patient crow
watching intently–
sharp eyes

[The original of haiku 4 was:

patient crow
watching intensely–
sharp eyes
thanks to JimH for the suggested change]

When my dad came home from driving ambulances, we always had dinner, but when we visited auntie Beaty, it was tea. I think Beaty was my dad’s aunt though the title is often honorific so I'm not sure how they were really related. Conversation over tea was on many topics; one sticks in my mind.

"My cousin Albert’s teacher asked the class to write an essay for homework. Albert came home with pencil and paper ready to do his assignment. He positioned himself by the back window, and whenever anyone went down the garden path, he moved so he could get a better view. After a pause he would scribble a few words on his notepad. A couple of hours later, Albert’s parents became intrigued and asked Albert what his homework was. He replied he was writing "a nessy”. In his Yorkshire dialect, a nessy was the name for the outdoor privy. Albert had been watching people go down the garden path to the outdoor toilet and writing."  My Auntie Beaty ended her story, “Heaven alone knows what he wrote”.

word path
to the cold outhouse–
nessy