SPRING

I slowly unfurl to the World
Stretching up to the sky blue
And sense an early morning chill
Of Spring waking me anew.
Each day grows a little warmer
As daylight hours extend
Making this leaf feel fresher,
Tothe bright sunlight I bend.

SUMMER

I’m at my most greenest now,
Hot sun burns upon my veins;
How glad am I to finally enjoy
Those cooling, copious rains.
At which point, I pour in drips,
A refreshing, rousing trickle
That falls on grass and buttercup
Teasing them with a tickle.

AUTUMN

Mists have now arrived, enshrouding
My form with heavy dew;
The greens has all but leached away,
Bled from veins no longer new.
Down below the tree are vivid reds
Browns and translucent golds
Which, increasingly each day now
People their captivation holds.

WINTER

The first frost of Winter
And a biting, northerly breeze
Cut into me,and scores of others
Were torn from their trees.
I’ve fallen now, to the ground
All wrinkled, and utterly fragile
Awaiting my final hour
Until, I meet my funeral pile…

Remembering the Strait of Belle Isle or
some northerly harbor of Labrador,
before he became a schoolteacher
a great-uncle painted a big picture.

Receding for miles on either side
into a flushed, still sky
are overhanging pale blue cliffs
hundreds of feet high,

their bases fretted by little arches,
the entrances to caves
running in along the level of a bay
masked by perfect waves.

On the middle of that quiet floor
sits a fleet of small black ships,
square-rigged, sails furled, motionless,
their spars like burnt match-sticks.

And high above them, over the tall cliffs'
semi-translucent ranks,
are scribbled hundreds of fine black birds
hanging in n's in banks.

One can hear their crying, crying,
the only sound there is
except for occasional sizhine
as a large aquatic animal breathes.

In the pink light
the small red sun goes rolling, rolling,
round and round and round at the same height
in perpetual sunset, comprehensive, consoling,

while the ships consider it.
Apparently they have reached their destination.
It would be hard to say what brought them there,
commerce or contemplation.

Again the moonlights company
4 am. She's somewhere.
About the skies glow
Stars flicker eyes turn
Search seek
A lone northern light
A light show
I gaze up to search for
And she's there I turn. My
Sight looks beyond now
Beyond my dim sight
Farther than I can reach
And I hope.
I remember
I close my eyes
And see.
But
For tonight
Her memory
And the moon
Light glow northerly
And a star's
Twinkle
And all my might
Are all I can see.
She is everywhere
But here...

She walked this night
in a snow covered field
as the snow blew all around
dancing diamond’s, iridescent light
with a kiss, the magic was sealed.

To the sky she points, lights appear
stunning colors, fill the dark of night
a graceful dance, only he will see
the beauty of the northern lights.

To him, she sends, her heart, her soul
through lights that dance among the stars
pushing back a looming shadow
she takes comfort in their beautiful memoirs.

Closing her eyes, she sees his face
his eyes, his heart, her beaconing light
pushing back that looming shadow
bringing comfort to her fright.

So she walks this night
in a snow covered field
as the snow blows all around
dancing diamond’s, iridescent light
with a kiss, the magic was sealed.
~

A Dead Dolphin

They came upon it
snout to sea
turned in waiting
for the wave
to take it home.

Alas, it was too far in,
landed among the spoils
of the spring tides.

In wonder at this
once-living mammal
struck by death
in the sand,

She, kneeling
with due reverence
and no little wonder,

allowed her fingers
to remove a single tooth
from its open jaw.  
She looked up at him,

questions in her eyes.
He shook his head.
‘Best not’.


Blue Bell

Being the time
of belles in the wood,
fitfully blue
amongst the still-nodding daffs,
it seemed wholly appropriate,
after walking all day
in a northerly chill,
to tea at The Bluebell
on chocolate ice cream,
rhubarb jam (with a scone)
and a *** of ‘builders.


The Washover

Once a road
now a washover
a desert stretch
empty of everything
except sand

in the deep tracks
left by a 4 X 4
he laid prone
so to disappear the horizon
from the photograph he took
of this singular stretch

where one winter storm
the sea had usurped the land
and daily since held the upper hand


The Collection

Framed in the camera’s view
his collection of shells
and assorted detritus
lies on a square metre of sand
ordered only by the hand
of a diurnal sea
silent still
yet waiting
for the incoming tide


Roe Deer

Roe deer
(my dear
hand held
fingers warm)
two ears
above the bushy bank
white **** bounding
with a floating leap
clearing the fence


An Evening Walk

passing the pub
two smokers
by the church
five men remembered
dead so young
up the lane
a distant house
hiding in park land
now the cliff top
falling storm by storm
onto a shallow beach
a cold sea

back and facing now
the setting sun
a circuit taken
passing a still pigeon
turned to stone
sitting atop
a garden fence


The Owl

Short-eared it may be
but it heard us
walking the tough grass

but just to make sure
it described for our view
a circuit displaying
the complexity of its plumage
and the ever-alert confidence
of its so silent flight


The Bathroom Chair

The bedroom viewed
the bright flowering of
oil seed ****;
its spacious en suite
had a well-placed chair.
He remembered a family tale
(he’d heard it twice)
of their architect who said,
when surveying
a bathroom to be, ‘Of course’,
you’ll be needing space for a chair’.

So imagining the blushes
of her mother, he considered
this quietly upholstered chair
with its paisley pattern, where
in the morning he would,
and in comfort, stare
and survey the loveliness
of her daughter there.


At Lunch

At lunch - they sat
facing each other
over the picnic table -
where once a row
of cottages stood
before the northerly winds,
where only the tiles of their floors
remained to further pattern
the morning shadow
of the lighthouse near.

They spoke of childhood,
and her making of collections,
his spectrum of autism,
and how it might be one day
in a further future when he,
an elderly man, might need
her graceful arm to lean on.

He told her gently
how his passion
for her lovely self
(in all its quarters)
seemed quite undimmed,
and, as he held her fingers
in the April sunshine,
hoped that it would
always, always be so . . .

Her warm smile
(across the picnic table)
made any further words,
that might have been,
fall into the wind
and fly towards the sea.


To the Lighthouse**

Feet sure on the stone step,
the climb remembered well,
43 to the next stage,
39 to the second,
passing the curved doors,
the no-more flaking paint,
the damp (still) and the sound
(always) of the wrapping wind.
On a windowed ledge
she saw
the half-devoured prey
of a resting hawk,
and on and up to
under the lamp room,
where a fall of linen cloth,
stained by the sea,
marked with groins’ rust
once hung;
and further up,
in a small space under the lamp,
its windows now engraved
with the smallest of sailing boats.
Now one saw in the glass
a long-past sight of
tiny luggers plying their catch
of sand and gravel in the still grey
tumultuous, uncertain sea below.

The Mouse with the house on the River Louse
Now has a family of 12 to feed
A husband and ten smaller mouths all reside with the Mouse in the house on the River Louse

One day the Mouse with the house on the River Louse went outdoors to explore with the intention to find something tasty and fine to feed them all

She walked to the edge of the grounds to the bank of the River Louse, where her friend the Frog, who didn't live in a house but lived on a log in the middle of a bog with his friend Bee, was waiting for his friend to serve her tea

The Frog and The Bee showed the Mouse with a House on the River Louse a table set fit for a Queen with fine China cups, saucers and plates and a tablecloth made of lace

The Mouse with a House on the River Louse was delighted and very excited as the Frog and The Bee said at half past three they would be joined for tea by a new neighbour Miss Molly

According to the Frog and Bee Miss Molly had just moved with her dog and cat, a dog named Mouse and Ferret the Cat

At half past three Miss Molly came to tea and brought with her muffins and cream
The Frog and The Bee brought scones and jam and the Mouse with the house on the River Louse brought some crackers and cheese

The children of the Mouse with a House on the River Louse joined their mother and Miss Molly, the Frog and The Bee the Cat named Ferret and the Dog named Mouse and quickly polished off the delicious tea

The children and the cat and dog all asked if they could play in the bog, the bog where the Frog lived in the middle on a log.

The Mouse with a House on the River Louse agreed and so did Miss Molly and the Frog and Bee

The children, the Cat and Dog all played happily in the middle of the bog

The children, the Cat and Dog found some sticks in the bottom of the bog and began to weave and make a raft, all they needed was a a Sail to catch the draft

One of the children squeeked with excitement  when they found a lily pad on the ground
Quickly the lily pad was hoisted atop and the raft completed and ready to sail in a hop

The children, Ferret the Cat and the Dog named Mouse were playing lovely outside the house, pushing the raft up and down as not a drop of wind was to be found
Then suddenly the wind changed direction and the northerly winds began to blow, they started really slow but the wind got faster and very strong
The children, Cat and Dog couldn't hold on for very long and suddenly they were being taken away from their safe play, being carried down stream and they all did scream

Just like that Dad came home and took out of his pocket a telephone
He called the coastguard to come quick, a raft had drifted and was headed for the slip, soon they would be in the ocean with the bigger ships

Aboard the raft 10 young mice, Ferret the Cat and a Dog named Mouse, all huddled together, to be less afraid, hoping someone would save the day

The coast guard turned up at the house and asked to speak to the Head Mouse
Mother and Father together they spoke, eager to save their children cut afloat on the boat

Then at half past four came a big roar the coastguards had saved the day, the raft had been caught and brought on board just before they got to the edge of the bay and sailed away to the bigger bay

The Mouse who had a House on the River Louse, Dad, Molly the Dolly and Frog and Bee all shouted ecstatically "Thank you Lord for hearing our prayers and sending the men who saved the day and rescued our children from the mouth of the bay"

The Mouse who had a house on the River Louse counted the heads, toes and noses of the children to confirm they were all safe and then said their goodbyes and ushered them all safely inside

Grimsby, a murky wee northerly town
And lousy with houses of seedy renown
The ladies wear only a loose fitting gown
Transactions are furtive and quick
And every street corner is coated in brass
With a ****** for every discernable class
In a spectrum of hues and selection of mass
All awaiting a dip of the wick
Diseases are spreading and taking a hold
With pimples and blisters and, finally, mould
But just when the punters are starting to fold
A saviour arrives in the nick

Doctor McNaughty, King of the Kink
And his brothel of many surprises
A welcoming smile, a comfortable bed
And some help with whatever arises
The rooms are fantastic, the ropes are elastic
With feathery leather and spikes
It wanders the street on mechanical feet
And it scoops up the punters it likes

There’s something to suit almost every wish
With strawberries and freshly whipped cream in a dish
There’s a bucket of springs and a kettle of fish
And the manacles, shackles and chains
A selection of ******* and optional clamps
There’re pulleys, tackle and half-pipe ramps
A physio suite for reduction of cramps
And the treatment of ****** strains
A marshmallow room with a candyfloss bed
And hookers of platinum, purple and red
And for those who are hankering after the dead
There’s a room full of human remains

Doctor McNaughty, Lord of the *****
A magical, mystical ****
With wonders galore behind every door
And occasional chicken or gimp
His visits are brief, but of major relief
To the multitude often attending
Then he’s off in a flash with a bundle of cash
He so loves a happy ending

The hills beneath him stretched out like the curves of women.  Bent
to the clouds he fell from the earth which geared him prickly as would
a range of *******, then soaring higher, he dived, topping valleys
reshaped downy now into ridges slowly writhed before catching
under toe his own dazzled stare on a water loch of milk and coal-
haired body strewn out to her lily'd bones and still falling, he dropped
to the break of morn dribbling wet sand from his eyes and woke
in the sparring light of his least favourite day.
        In a grainish and utter room, where hanged more than two
pictures of two people, he sank down to Sunday diminished in sighs
from the four tilting walls and blew dead inward unfolding a book.
As he reached for some volume, a baby finger nicked the hair string
of his guitar and for a moment was reminded of her voice in the bedded
vibrations.  Looking on her curves she felt the soft nape of her neck
with his eyes, then those same eyes unhanded her and she, his
dejected guitar, faced him unsung in the cornered glare of his boxed
in room.  He felt frost in throes all that morning and sideways out
of doors— the sun looked back on him even colder.  It would be hours
now until the end of days, so after lunch he went for a walk and a bird
sang nearly the whole way.

  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

It was much warmer than he had fared it to be outside and having wrestled
with this idea, that the day was somehow harder than his soft, flat room,
the mere remembering was rote by him to his pangs.  He turned, thinking
toward other things, like the void of driven streets or the mimicking cruelty
of shadows, until he saw a sullen field and left the road to dust.  He knew
that if lost, walking through the lofted hills, he would end up in the ocean
so he headed higher to the crest and over then saw a stand of trees.
        And facing the water that rilled on its way, in the tall grasses he saw
patches of red, flying with the black birds and his heart, in a boat of swells,
traveled like the red patches those birds carried.  Snowed on alder trees
brushed by him, but the wind was blowing in from the west and there
were beautiful things to behold.  A red-tailed hawk striped the ceiling
of his day by the sea and built an island to his eye and then his head sank
droning into a syndrome of birds as he joined in silence with them all
singing;
        'ta— hee— tae.'      
        Showers of poppies spilled to his heel and the keel-brew of rushes and rain
tasted purple on its way perning to the sky.  At one stop in the middle of his
path, he came upon a purfled coil, a briar snake, its body shaped in question,
unmoved and long.  The dark Orphic frieze, branding his way, it would not
listen, as if she had always been there, deaf to his song.  He felt the loss
of love by echoes from his room in the out of doors.  The drumming trunks,
the stringing leaves harping and the water that gurgled by stones into poems.
A Northerly blew begrudging the trunks, the leaves and the stones and by
the woods sinking taller he felt rushes of time running as breath through
gusty trees and felt chimes of things flying buttery like feathers to a bell.

    .  .  .  .  .  .  .

        But at the deeper woods opening he lost his way and became fearful,
not wanting to enter.  The tallest ones, red giants with faces of evergreen
canceled out the closing sky and so he changed his way back as before
to the rounded hills.  And weary from his climb he rested on the back of her
body in lands overlooking down from the brae he saw the ocean swelling
and the stars being born in wild flowers as the hills at dusk were dissolving.
        After two eternal moments in peace, he rose again in the Highlands,
to the braise and harvest smell of musted hay, cottage chalk and bleating
wool.  Now holding the girl draped in tartan, this time without caring he fell
into the black woods of her mien.  And the milk of her body dripped out into
his and slid back waveishly until she was all hair from black becoming straw
in their bed and feathers when the raven appeared.  And the flooding waned
when she flew through an opening unraveled in the thatching roof, shredded
above the funny moors.
        In seconds he was swiped clear, before the shy song lamenting when
the doors, by tidal weathers, blasted open into the mackerel sky, gathering
too like vapours with the dawn, he wafted up, swept away into the airs
on Highland shoals.  Now sailing above the speckled clouds in a darting
school of other drifters, he heard himself singing in heights of sways
throughout the tangle of wandering bark that stretched by branching coral
midway to the moon.  A great oak tree made of lime pierced the end of blue,
nadir to its zenith and into the heavens all starry.  And ringing its trunk was
a line drawn of which beneath lay the drowning world.  It was as if each layer
were one part oil, the other part water.  Looking down, way, way down
and down even farther, he saw the running seeds of striped minnows
who swam by up-streaming a wide river.  To catch up he dropped, again,
all dressed in the colours of rain, with those gladly miners.  But they swam
above the river between the rounded hills.  And the waters ran runny, now
unwrinkling as does the bowl that holds the Milky Way, when someone
dappled by in whisper saying,
        "Come with us twice the road is easy!"
"Where are we?" To himself he mused, as she blew away and by, like a long
dragon flying.  He let his body to sink with the weeds and sedges he saw,
to a beam held with barely a nail hanging, the age old sign set, spiriting him
back again to his place.  Back to the point that draws itself, as does the wind
that winds through the rushing reeds, back to the sun rising note after moon
underwater and from such still sounds was he a reel, just when the post
that was always sheering spoke out and said;
"Welcome!  .  .  .  "
        "Welcome to Minerva."

2007, revised May 2nd, 2013*

How neatly northerly she points her tail,
With fluffsome front paws pointing to the south;
Whiskers point west and eastwards, without fail,
Each side of her benignly-smiling mouth.

She navigates from rockery to pond
And slyly measures distances ahead,
With whiskers poised, behind a ferny frond,
Waiting to stalk fishes, with stealthy tread.

A water pistol thwarts her cunning scheme,
Fired from the door with some accuracy;
And like one rudely wakened from a dream,
She leaps into the air, and bolts to flee.

But soon her equanimity returns;
She's back smiling at fishes, through the ferns.

The hills beneath him stretched out like the curves of women.  Bent
to the clouds he fell from the earth which geared him prickly as would
a range of *******, then soaring higher, he dived, topping valleys
reshaped downy now into ridges slowly writhed before catching
under toe his own dazzled stare on a water loch of milk and coal-
haired body strewn out to her lily'd bones and still falling, he dropped
to the break of morn dribbling wet sand from his eyes and woke
in the sparring light of his least favourite day.
        In a grainish and utter room, where hanged more than two
pictures of two people, he sank down to Sunday diminished in sighs
from the four tilting walls and blew dead inward unfolding a book.
As he reached for some volume, a baby finger nicked the hair string
of his guitar and for a moment was reminded of her voice in the bedded
vibrations.  Looking on her curves she felt the soft nape of her neck
with his eyes, then those same eyes unhanded her and she, his
dejected guitar, faced him unsung in the cornered glare of his boxed
in room.  He felt frost in throes all that morning and sideways out
of doors— the sun looked back on him even colder.  It would be hours
now until the end of days, so after lunch he went for a walk and a bird
sang nearly the whole way.

  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

It was much warmer than he had fared it to be outside and having wrestled
with this idea, that the day was somehow harder than his soft, flat room,
the mere remembering was rote by him to his pangs.  He turned, thinking
toward other things, like the void of driven streets or the mimicking cruelty
of shadows, until he saw a sullen field and left the road to dust.  He knew
that if lost, walking through the lofted hills, he would end up in the ocean
so he headed higher to the crest and over then saw a stand of trees.
        And facing the water that rilled on its way, in the tall grasses he saw
patches of red, flying with the black birds and his heart, in a boat of swells,
traveled like the red patches those birds carried.  Snowed on alder trees
brushed by him, but the wind was blowing in from the west and there
were beautiful things to behold.  A red-tailed hawk striped the ceiling
of his day by the sea and built an island to his eye and then his head sank
droning into a syndrome of birds as he joined in silence with them all
singing;
        'ta— hee— tae.'      
        Showers of poppies spilled to his heel and the keel-brew of rushes and rain
tasted purple on its way perning to the sky.  At one stop in the middle of his
path, he came upon a purfled coil, a briar snake, its body shaped in question,
unmoved and long.  The dark Orphic frieze, branding his way, it would not
listen, as if she had always been there, deaf to his song.  He felt the loss
of love by echoes from his room in the out of doors.  The drumming trunks,
the stringing leaves harping and the water that gurgled by stones into poems.
A Northerly blew begrudging the trunks, the leaves and the stones and by
the woods sinking taller he felt rushes of time running as breath through
trees and felt chimes of things flying buttery like feathers to a bell.

The hills beneath him stretched out like the curves of women.  Bent
to the clouds he fell from the earth which geared him prickly as would
a range of *******, then soaring higher, he dived, topping valleys
reshaped downy now into ridges slowly writhed before catching
under toe his own dazzled stare on a water loch of milk and coal-
haired body strewn out to her lily'd bones and still falling, he dropped
to the break of morn dribbling wet sand from his eyes and woke
in the sparring light of his least favourite day.
        In a grainish and utter room, where hanged more than two
pictures of two people, he sank down to Sunday diminished in sighs
from the four tilting walls and blew dead inward unfolding a book.
As he reached for some volume, a baby finger nicked the hair string
of his guitar and for a moment was reminded of her voice in the bedded
vibrations.  Looking on her curves he felt the soft nape of her neck
with his eyes, then those same eyes unhanded her and she, his
dejected guitar, faced him unsung in the cornered glare of his boxed
in room.  He felt frost in throes all that morning and sideways out
of doors— the sun looked back on him even colder.  It would be hours
now until the end of days, so after lunch he went for a walk and a bird
sang nearly the whole way.

  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

It was much warmer than he had fared it to be outside and having wrestled
with this idea, that the day was somehow harder than his soft, flat room,
the mere remembering was rote by him to his pangs.  He turned, thinking
toward other things, like the void of driven streets or the mimicking cruelty
of shadows, until he saw a sullen field and left the road to dust.  He knew
that if lost, walking through the lofted hills, he would end up in the ocean
so he headed higher to the crest and over then saw a stand of trees.
        And facing the water that rilled on its way, in the tall grasses he saw
patches of red, flying with the black birds and his heart, in a boat of swells,
traveled like the red patches those birds carried.  Snowed on alder trees
brushed by him, but the wind was blowing in from the west and there
were beautiful things to behold.  A red-tailed hawk striped the ceiling
of his day by the sea and built an island to his eye and then his head sank
droning into a syndrome of birds as he joined in silence with them all
singing;
        'ta— hee— tae.'      
        Showers of poppies spilled to his heel and the keel-brew of rushes and
rain tasted purple on its way perning to the sky.  At one stop in the middle of his
path, he came upon a purfled coil, a briar snake, its body shaped in question,
unmoved and long.  The dark Orphic frieze, branding his way, it would not
listen, as if she had always been there, deaf to his song.  He felt the loss
of love by echoes from his room in the out of doors.  The drumming trunks,
the stringing leaves harping and the water that gurgled by stones into poems.
A Northerly blew begrudging the trunks, the leaves and the stones and by
the woods sinking taller he felt rushes of time running as breath through
gusty trees and felt chimes of things flying buttery like feathers to a bell.

    .  .  .  .  .  .  .

        But at the deeper woods opening he lost his way and became fearful,
not wanting to enter.  The tallest ones, red giants with faces of evergreen
canceled out the closing sky and so he changed his way back as before
to the rounded hills.  And weary from his climb he rested on the back of her
body in lands overlooking down from the brae he saw the ocean swelling
and the stars being born in wild flowers as the hills at dusk were dissolving.
        After two eternal moments in peace, he rose again in the Highlands,
to the braise and harvest smell of musted hay, cottage chalk and bleating
wool.  Now holding the girl draped in tartan, this time without caring he fell
into the black woods of her mien.  And the milk of her body dripped out into
his and slid back waveishly until she was all hair from black becoming straw
in their bed and feathers when the raven appeared.  And the flooding waned
when she flew through an opening unraveled in the thatching roof, shredded
above the funny moors.
        In seconds he was swiped clear, before the shy song lamenting when
the doors, by tidal weathers, blasted open into the mackerel sky, gathering
too like vapours with the dawn, he wafted up, swept away into the airs
on Highland shoals.  Now sailing above the speckled clouds in a darting
school of other drifters, he heard himself singing in heights of sways
throughout the tangle of wandering bark that stretched by branching coral
midway to the moon.  A great oak tree made of lime pierced the end of blue,
nadir to its zenith and into the heavens all starry.  And ringing its trunk was
a line drawn of which beneath lay the drowning world.  It was as if each layer
were one part oil, the other part water.  Looking down, way, way down
and down even farther, he saw the running seeds of striped minnows
who swam by up-streaming a wide river.  To catch up he dropped, again,
all dressed in the colours of rain, with those gladly miners.  But they swam
above the river between the rounded hills.  And the waters ran runny, now
unwrinkling as does the bowl that holds the Milky Way, when someone
dappled by in whisper saying,
        "Come with us twice the road is easy!"
"Where are we?" To himself he mused, as she blew away and by, like a long
dragon flying.  He let his body to sink with the weeds and sedges he saw,
to a beam held with barely a nail hanging, the age old sign set, spiriting him
back again to his place.  Back to the point that draws itself, as does the wind
that winds through the rushing reeds, back to the sun rising note after moon
underwater and from such still sounds was he a reel, just when the post
that was always sheering spoke out and said;
"Welcome!  .  .  .  "
        "Welcome to Minerva."

For the second time in March we have snow
Could someone please wake spring from her slumber
She should be here by now fighting the good fight, wiping clean the wintersmiths frosty drawings

Last year she had tucked him away
She had read him his bedtime story
Last year we had seventeen, this year we have merely two

How he must be laughing, running amok through the hills and the valleys
Turning everything white with a wave of his hand
But where is she? Even he must miss her so, even he must be longing to dance

Still it is not his place to question
He can only do what is in him to do
With a sigh he exhales a bitter northerly wind and coats the confused daffodil with a jacket of ice

Then off he goes dancing alone
Spinning wildy through the towns like a leaf in a web
Stopping only to place his hands on those foolish enough to leave flesh exposed

Maybe she has forsaken us
Maybe she has resigned her post
Like when the last ice age hit and she took a sabbatical

I hope she has just slept in
Or maybe she is just getting ready for the grandest of entries
Yes let us hope she is just sorting through her vast collection of colourful dresses

Because if she does not appear and dance the dance of seasons change
If she doesn't take the wintersmith by the hand and sing him softly to sleep
Then that giant golden skinned adonis of a man summer will not come!

Without her he will not appear
Without her beauty we will not feel the warmth of his love
Oh someone please wake spring from her slumber

The hills beneath him stretched out like the curves of women.  Bent
to the clouds he fell from the earth which geared him prickly as would
a range of *******, then soaring higher, he dived, topping valleys
reshaped downy now into ridges slowly writhed before catching
under toe his own dazzled stare on a water loch of milk and coal-
haired body strewn out to her lily'd bones and still falling, he dropped
to the break of morn dribbling wet sand from his eyes and woke
in the sparring light of his least favourite day.
        In a grainish and utter room, where hanged more than two
pictures of two people, he sank down to Sunday diminished in sighs
from the four tilting walls and blew dead inward unfolding a book.
As he reached for some volume, a baby finger nicked the hair string
of his guitar and for a moment was reminded of her voice in the bedded
vibrations.  Looking on her curves she felt the soft nape of her neck
with his eyes, then those same eyes unhanded her and she, his
dejected guitar, faced him unsung in the cornered glare of his boxed
in room.  He felt frost in throes all that morning and sideways out
of doors— the sun looked back on him even colder.  It would be hours
now until the end of days, so after lunch he went for a walk and a bird
sang nearly the whole way.

  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

It was much warmer than he had fared it to be outside and having wrestled
with this idea, that the day was somehow harder than his soft, flat room,
the mere remembering was rote by him to his pangs.  He turned, thinking
toward other things, like the void of driven streets or the mimicking cruelty
of shadows, until he saw a sullen field and left the road to dust.  He knew
that if lost, walking through the lofted hills, he would end up in the ocean
so he headed higher to the crest and over then saw a stand of trees.
        And facing the water that rilled on its way, in the tall grasses he saw
patches of red, flying with the black birds and his heart, in a boat of swells,
traveled like the red patches those birds carried.  Snowed on alder trees
brushed by him, but the wind was blowing in from the west and there
were beautiful things to behold.  A red-tailed hawk striped the ceiling
of his day by the sea and built an island to his eye and then his head sank
droning into a syndrome of birds as he joined in silence with them all
singing;
        'ta— hee— tae.'      
        Showers of poppies spilled to his heel and the keel-brew of rushes and rain
tasted purple on its way perning to the sky.  At one stop in the middle of his
path, he came upon a purfled coil, a briar snake, its body shaped in question,
unmoved and long.  The dark Orphic frieze, branding his way, it would not
listen, as if she had always been there, deaf to his song.  He felt the loss
of love by echoes from his room in the out of doors.  The drumming trunks,
the stringing leaves harping and the water that gurgled by stones into poems.
A Northerly blew begrudging the trunks, the leaves and the stones and by
the woods sinking taller he felt rushes of time running as breath through
gusty trees and felt chimes of things flying buttery like feathers to a bell.

  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Through a garden bedecked in the finest façade
In a natural beauty of eons compiled
An assault to the senses which quickens the pulse
Yet soothing the detail, organically styled

Its borders haphazard yet clearly defined
By a frenzied assortment of pollen clad blooms
Enhancing creation with lust and a craving
With nectar, ambrosia scented perfume

The thickets and bushes, with industry cloaked
A sprawling utopia thriving therein
With bees and with butterflies drinking their fill
And drizzled in webs which the spiderfolk spin

A meandering trail through flourishing life
An encouraging push from the sun to my rear
Entrancing, the chill of the dew underfoot
Yet thrusting itself like an ice laden spear

My sight is attracted by hidden desire
To a door at the crest of a flurry of stairs
And the stone of the flight is as fire to my soles
After languishing still as the midsummer glares

The door is ajar and within comes the sound
Of a single piano, adeptly caressed
Each note sends a shiver rebounding around me
In purity soaked and perfection possessed

I make my way forward and darkness inside
Removes me of sight as my pupils adjust
And the air is intense as a northerly breeze
And shimmers in motes cut of sunlight and dust

My eyes become clear and before me they see
Cascading and dancing a musical frieze
A picture in motion, a fairytale path
In a spectrum of tones and a myriad keys

Inspiration her name and the course she describes
Is a poem in light to beguile the mind
She speaks with her body, a wordless refrain
Of a mystery poets have clamoured to find

A pipe cuts a harmony no one could play
Distilling forever the passage of time
And though such a symphony draws at the tongue
Causality never once utters a rhyme

A pattern of shimmering images form
Behind inspiration and quickening pace
To fade with the music and ever be lost
Lest the pen of a poet can hold them in place

Most fickle of muses and teaser of tongues
To flirt with despair and to promise elation
We chase but remaining just out of out reach
Is the ghost of a girl which we call ‘Inspiration’

Til twinkle pinkie rosebuds turn shrubbery so wild
wilder than the fume upon which the moonglade
climbs gloomy tide to make welcome of the night
until the little birds sing your name
then times be as happy as flame
One goldfinch and 3 white pigeons
a colourful macaw parrot and falconet
or the black crowncrane of large pinions
soul's fleeting harbinger of the lorikeet
type, as i await the little birds sing
The whole of my being approves
by the star shining in northerly clime
as in clinging on tight to a feeling so true
of grim death in moment so prime
until the birds vocalize your name
only then shall I not feel the disdain
Patience robs the clamouring chest
heels are still weary and cold in rest
and soon little birds send me tweets
by the dawn chorus of early birds' beats
shall one become happy and gay

Watching the April northerly
Blow the Spring away to sea from Galloway
Towards Ireland
The lee of the **** for shelter
Low sun warming your face

Massive frequent clouds, megalithic
Dull below to towering snow-white heaven
Their wind-driven gunmetal shadows rush out to sea
The bay, at distance, a breastplate of pewter
Beaten across with countless, tiny hammerings

With animal purpose a shape moves slowly,
Breaking the horizon heading for Man
The breeze, coltish, struggling to be gone
Headstrong with promise and challenge
A fine day for such a crossing!

Gushes of tears run down my featureless face
I failed to find you, now I walk in disgrace,

the destruction was swift and everything but honest
now I stare at the black ugly wound of a broken promise

newspapers cartwheel alongside litter and soiled bank notes
as the northerly wind whispers, between each building it chokes

cathedrals and churches alike collapse
the sun burns blue, sky bloated and raging with thunderclaps

icy waves dancing to a dance-less tune
shadows arising from the corners to defile and exhume

I'm suffocating in my mind, I'm gagging on this dead world
my sanity like my nails - twisted and curled,

I've got cuts and bruises that can't be seen
I try thinking of you but the pain just plagues my dreams

over and over I see the tears in your eyes - stuck like a record, time does freeze,
catching your wail upon the wind I fall to my knees

[her body lies under the rubble of a society dead and gone
I've lost everything, alas I'm not the only one]

gazing at the black sky above, praying to a sun merciless and blue

yes, this world may be falling around me,

but I will still find you.

Oh God, how lucky I am!
This morning, I went out as the **** crowed
I've seen what I saw every day,
but I had never noticed.

The birds sang, the sky stretched with all shades
of blue, yellow and white;
Northerly winds coming and whispering in my ear,
that somewhere a beautiful soul is awaking from sleep                          
and maybe, she's looking at the very same,
divine pictures carved in clouds as I am.

How lucky I am! I own nothing, but I have everything,
I am only a little man, and still I am part of the world
and of the marvelous godly spark that burns bright
in the endless void of the Universe, cradled and protected
by the invisible cosmic forces that, from far away,
today, have brought me the wind .

I went to the sea to heal my heart.
I found a balm
in the sighing waves,
the soothing salty air.

She's a fickle lover; It's often said
by sailors and ******,
and other lost souls
whose songs become the wailing wind.

The mad man has the saddest laugh;
maniacal and strange,
with tears in his eyes,
pleading for lost love's return.

I'll climb the rigging and heave the line
perhaps in time
I'll forget why I came,
and only curse the northerly wind.

Three points off the starboard bow
I see her walking
on the waves.
My heart still has far to go.

I've come to laugh that burnt tragic laugh
of men who stay
too long at sea
and now I've forgotten why I came.

~

Stupid **** cat


Attempting sleep on the balcony, a railing at my back,
twisted iron creating stripes on my skin
Crisscrossing as I slide across a Craigslist mattress
or not, still my body moves

slightly used

The cool night air shifts direction
west becomes east (ah east) on a northerly flow
Dry leaves gather at my feet, dead but still with some color left
extending beyond the shadows now painting me with patterns

security lighting

Small slits where my eye lids blink find the neighbor’s cat
now chooses my chest to sharpen its claws
A quick swat sends him flying,
taking small pieces of my skin as a trophy

starting from scratch

New scars eventually seek old scars,
I can feel them reaching, (blood trickles on wrinkled sheets)
digging through my skin, exploring the muscle,
the tissue, finding the damage done to my heart

sliced open

Tunnels carved into my body, wormholes to a different dimension
Time passes beyond the depths of my being, flooding streets
and low water crossings with the pain (excruciating), echoes holler,
holding the volume to a dull roar  

strange sounds

A siren in the distance startles me, breath leaves me as I sit up
reaching for my chest, nothing is there
Alongside me you sleep, peacefully
I touch your skin , a smile finds your face

so very beautiful

And I thank my lucky stars for sleep (finally), this dream,
the comfort, the softness in visions pure of love,
as reality is left outside, two stories up
on a balcony with a twisted iron railing...

stupid **** cat

It is as it is,
and was ere,
again I’m paired to
restroom pantile,
resilient sickness
can redefine docile
to nothing northerly,
o'er the day is
only forgery
to an nightly
mainstay,
this white flag
has been waving
to porcelain for
oft fortnights
shining footlights
on an innocent reflection,
allay this suffocation,
let me breathe again,
foremost is always
surviving tomorrow,
though I'm a swain to
the ***** of today.

It was a night unlike the nights before and longer if that can be true of any night where Angels flew with witches.
Do you think, that night was flat?
I ironed out the early evening late day sun unaware of events to come and sallied as I usually did,with hooded eyes to see surprising things occur.
In Hoxton Square and City Road where the dying light unloads its feeble rays,where days of top hat and tails once sailed into the West.
End is always best much better than the starting out.

A shout cuffs in on the Northerly breezing sleeve of winds that never leave this soul..

Buy me gas for a lighter head..words said,spoken from those tortured lips where sadness slips upon the oily streets.
Young girl sleeping in the rain..soaking up more pain on which no passing eyes will glance.
No measure there,no chancing of a lady fate to close that wound..without a sound or with no sound to hear..her eyes quite clear in the evening air,laying there for all the world to see and yet unseen.

Another queen of broken promises of beaten faces,broken heart the endings are maybe not as good as when we start.
Another night unlike and yet the same for some who sway with dreams upon the warming sun that they once knew.
Another do or die another sadness yet to lie..yet and die.
I cry myself to sleep.

early autumn hint
faintest cool northerly breeze
whispered he's coming

It was a night unlike the nights before and longer if that can be true of any night where Angels flew with witches.
Do you think, that night was flat?
I ironed out the early evening late day sun unaware of events to come and sallied as I usually did,with hooded eyes to see surprising things occur.
In Hoxton Square and City Road where the dying light unloads its feeble rays,where days of top hat and tails once sailed into the West.
End is always best much better than the starting out.

A shout cuffs in on the Northerly breezing sleeve of winds that never leave this soul..

Buy me gas for a lighter head..words said,spoken from those tortured lips where sadness slips upon the oily streets.
Young girl sleeping in the rain..soaking up more pain on which no passing eyes will glance.
No measure there,no chancing of a lady fate to close that wound..without a sound or with no sound to hear..her eyes quite clear in the evening air,laying there for all the world to see and yet unseen.

Another queen of broken promises of beaten faces,broken heart the endings are maybe not as good as when we start.
Another night unlike and yet the same for some who sway with dreams upon the warming sun that they once knew.
Another do or die another sadness yet to lie..yet and die.
I cry myself to sleep.

Blow on me, northerly breeze
Dry my watery eyelids
From the tears that drop
Like the Arabian trees
Cry their medicinal gum.

Oh, summer aroma
That does justice to break my defiance against this heat.
Heated affair, may you incinerate in the Sahara,
And chill to death as the night approaches in that
barren landscape.

But here I lie
Bored, invisible in the haughty summer
And behind those darkened forests
Begins a steady haunted drummer.

Cover me with the haze of
Fragmented years,
Let me sleep through this autumn
Where rains greedily devour
Dying leaves,
And streams flow into the rotten silence.

Clothe me with the moss
Which grew in the wrinkles of the forehead,
Make me senseless for the cruel fingers of the northerly wind,
And the silver which dwells
On Venus Hill,

Just leave my eyes naked
To count in them rings of the birch tree,
Which cut down
Our immeasurable distance.

A reflection

Today is the last day of June and thanks
to a northerly wind and some rain, it has been a good month.
It is a Siberian airstream wonder if it knew
I was a communist until I saw it was just a dictatorship
where men in ill-fitting suit decided our future usually so old
they lived in another century their idea of freedom had
little to do with reality.
Today Russia is a modern state semi – democratic and there
is a freedom of speech if played by soft violin music.
But Russia is worried the mighty USA is spoiling for a war.
I will not think of the afternoon, enjoy the cooling wind
and let the world pass by.

Out of the mouth of a terrible dogfish she came,
A modern-day Cinderella, but avid shoe geek,
Stabbed to death by stiletto on the Castle Turret,
Done in by her own spiked heels.

There was even a sign posted
Warning of the danger,
"Wear the wedge instead,"
Jiminy Cricket had said.

"I'm no fool,"
Her final utterance
Before tripping out in Thule.

All this just to dance with a wretched boy,
The scapegrace,
Who laughed derisively
In his maker's face,
Then stole his wig.

And as he fled with Candlewick
To the Land of Toys,
He dreamt of Lederhosen & feather hat,
To be seen in Tyrolean as the real McCoy.

Alas, here came the Northerly Wind,
Angry at the boy's lack of moral fiber,
To cast him out & lay bare his sin.

And as the rope passed
Unnoticeably 'round his wooden neck,
On this noose he did swing,
One long shudder, he was done and hung,
Stiff & insensible yo-yo on a string.

The moral of the story, boys & girls:
Fairy-tale Romance is like having
A venomous snake for a pet,
It's cool & fun & magical,
Until you get bit.

So long its been
The cloud has covered the sky.
So long its
The Sun has no shine !
Long been the northerly been flown
With the rising dawn...
The chameleon wore(s) a black gown !
In search of a shrine
As the black-magic covers me.
Swift grip of the eternal dark
I could see by my closed eyes.-28.11.2016

From November 2012..it will soon be the cold again.

dedicated to the memory of Grant Burford, the Giant in the beanie hat.

It was a night unlike the nights before and longer if that can be true of any night where Angels flew with witches.

Do you think, that night was flat?

I ironed out the early evening late day sun unaware of events to come and sallied as I usually did with hooded eyes to see surprising things occur.

In Hoxton Square and City Road where the dying light unloads its feeble rays, where days of top hat and tails once sailed into the West.
End is always best much better than the starting out.

A shout cuffs in on the Northerly breezing sleeve of winds that never leave this soul,

buy me gas for a lighter head, words said, spoken from those tortured lips where sadness slips upon the oily streets.

Young girl sleeping in the rain soaking up more pain on which no passing eyes will glance.

No measure there,
no chancing of a lady fate to close that wound,
without a sound or with no sound to hear
her eyes quite clear in the evening air,
laying there for all the world to see and yet unseen.

Another queen of broken promises of beaten faces, broken heart the endings are maybe not as good as when we start.

Another night unlike and yet the same for some who sway with dreams upon the warming sun that they once knew.

Another do or die another sadness yet to lie, yet and die.
I cry myself to sleep.


True story, the Giant in the Beanie hat knew the girl, one of so many people he helped, I didn't cope well with the situation and it was later that the irony struck me, well **** me, should I judge a ******? he never did.