this small lake where only the breeze is present on
the water’s surface where only the ducks and moorhens
chatter about us silent hills and the shadows of clouds
passing  passing dark shapes passing over the snow streaks

horses suddenly four dark cobs sturdy travellers’ beasts
grazing a golf course gentle souls quietly padding
moving close by inspecting us for food I touch a coat
black as black as short as the sheep-clipped grass

distance everywhere spreading out into a haze of a lowering
sun fold upon fold of field and pasture walled tree-lined
disturbed by dwellings grey stone white-walled even
red-roofed disappearing into trees nestled next to barns

flow of the hill the hills flow long stretches of stunted grass
upwards to nearly snowlines where fissures of white fingers
reach down towards the sheeped grass a few tops nearly
mountains brilliant white

suddenly finding troubled thoughts are nowhere gone away
left somewhere perhaps on the train journey north passing
out of the windowed view and now just the present present
resting in the cool to breathe cool air

strange that so many images now mind-snapshots conjure
past-thoughts sharp memories your blue figure almost
motionless sketching with charcoal and finger ends
kneeding texture into the paper so still still

the track beyond this farm is an unrolled pattern towards
the higher hills across the meadows winter has almost
drained of colour to disappear the once green becoming
nearly neutral but going further before a surprise in store

a valley revealed after reaching the hill’s brow there a
river’s part-song flows across a tree-accompanied edgeland
before a sleight village there’s a road one vehicle
passing in the half hour you sit and draw

there is colour here autumnal shades though nearly spring
the earth sandstone-red bracken fit to be burnt and there
very distant a line of smoke following a crease in  the
southern hills rising and spreading horizon-ward

every time birds crows starlings gulls lift from a field
a wood a hillside my heart lifts with them to glide with
unexpected joy that this should be so that such movement
should make this landscape sing

walking westward sunward into the sun’s setting haze
distant Lakeland distant Ullswater somewhere in the
gathering purple corrugated sheets of rising hills in the
almost empty sky promising a cold night

and later in the warmth of resting as the sky reddens
and dusk falls the snowdrop rich woodland from our
window captures the westward light and birds roost
as we roost on our bed we might not sleep in tonight

but we are to stay and later walking the night-dark road
leaving the small town behind the stars bend down to the
very edge of nearer horizons the cusp of close fields so
sharply bright bold alarums of once-worlds everywhere

to see you sew is to witness peace I often imagine dream
of close my eyes to see those quiet fingers press and touch
and move so later I bring my own fingers into a play of  
unclothing to stroke and press and bring close

and morning there is frost fielded to a curve of a pasture
edged with what seem to be trees but are distance-belied
falsely distant felt too close extraordinary I pull the curtain
just a little to gaze that I see it so

my darling there is more and it is more than I know how
to place on the page my notes now run to not-quite sense
but I discern to be full of walking’s pleasure to grasp a
freedom paced together to tread to be under the soft sky still

A man in a hotel
witnesses some smoke
on his television
shot from a news copter
flying quite high
above the town below,
above a school, where
the schoolchildren of
Ms. Appleby’s class
turn in their papers,
but clamor to see a
woman on the side
of the road, who kept
her eyes on the road,
but crashed anyway.
The woman was calling
her husband- you
couldn’t see this from
the helicopter- but John,
her husband, was on
vacation in Hawaii
and will have to return
to his children, who
last told him of their
combined A+ in a project
written about the dangers
of cell phone use on
the road, done for their
teacher, Ms. Appleby.
John of the hotel
hangs up his phone,
and sighs.

We start in Greek Street.
Not any night,
But the end,
A grand finale;
Last orders,
At the Coach & Horses,
Before the corporate boyz move in to whitewash,
Where inky Boho Jeffrey Bernard drank,
And Gary Dunnington, the actor, and his mates are on the ****.

Meanwhile, a mom runs her hands,
Though my strands.
'Tell me everything,' she enthuses,'about your hair.'
But there’s nothing to say:
I barely wash it,
Never brush it,
And only finger combe it.
But she carries on in my locks,
Then off to dinner with her bloke.

We head off to Trisha's at 57,
A lively basement heaven:
In energy, in noise, in smoke.
I chat with Mark.
Got his heart broke:
It’s hard
To sever those traumatic bonds,
Thick as pillar posts,
When love ***** up,
Goodbye, the cocktail of toxicity,
That had you on a high,
The ***, the texts, the tenderness,
And, oh, the bliss.

Kass, a boxer musician, comes
And shakes our hands.
He’s in Armani,
And says,
His eyes dark little raisins,
'I prefers a poet over a bruiser.'
And, 'I don’t fight no more,
If I did - so I don't bother -
I’d **** ‘em.

In the corner,
Two girls with dreamy eyes:
So I read ‘em love poems.

Then Jessica Appleby's head pops round the door.
We hug and then swap tales:
'I’m all messed up,' I tell her.
'What not her, the one you wrote that poem for.'
'My man,' she confides changing the subject,
'All crazy passion and wild *** for two months -
Then nothing.
Just fizzled out like it was never meant to be.'

She exits.

'You alright Gary?'
'Yeah, you?'
'Fine.'
But I don’t buy him a beer,
A bottle of Peroni is £5.
'No, it’s £3,' he says, 'if you pay cash.'
I head for the bar.
Three times I explain to the barman, it’s £3 cash.
'Who told you that?' he says slamming the bottle down.
'Gary,' I say defensively.
'Well, tell Gary, if he doesn’t shut the **** up,
He’ll be paying a fiver, too.'

A young American artist, Kirsty, starts talking to me.
She’s trying to get ahead in art,
And says, that when she was a kid,
On a blazing Tuscany night filled with stars,
She walked out onto a stone balustrade balcony,
And knew in that moment,
She was no longer her mom and dad,
But herself, Kirsty.

The boxer musician shoves a tall fellow hard against the wall,
The altercation,
Is over before it starts.

Kass gives me a wolfish smile.
Mark buys me a drink.
Kirsty goes to the toilet.
The corner girls have left.
Mark slips his stool.

Everyone is cleared from the yard,
Just Gary and I linger
With a feisty young bar lady,
Serving the Bohos of Soho.

Drinking in their pathos,
Exhaling in the shadows,
Mingling in their juices.
My ****** up heart beats
With the Bohos of Soho.
Ahhh, the Bohos of Soho keep many an hour.
The Bohos of Soho,
The Bohos of Soho,
The Bohos of Soho,
Have many lives,
The Bohos of Soho are a good seed.
You and I,
In Soho,
For last orders.