Ellipsis

I lie in a foetal fold,

Still born, still as a pillar,

A cold heavy stone,

Unmoved by my existence

 

Slow eyes roam to find a connection,

My stamp of identity in the empty objects about me,

Seeking understanding

In the pages of books, in the picture of the nude woman

Pinned to the wall,

Until I am

 

A fist of poppies exclaim on my desk,

Their angry red shouts in this muted space

And force me into feeling;

An ache of somewhere else.

Full of dying life

Their green stems bend in defeat.

 

Outside, sick leaves thick with old rain

 Stick to a numb ground,

Bruised and useless.

The light is difficult, a brash intrusion,

I close the blind on the day,

Too grey, already read,

A tired repeat.

 

The poppies call your name,

And I remember you like a wound,

A gaping absence,

Ellipsis cracks

An ugly smile,

Its toothless grin mouths me in,

The black gap roars

 

 

 

Burning Autumn

The leaves are heavy with falling,

Burning autumn, soaked

In a sweet density,

The thick meat of memory

Juices underfoot,

A final scent, pressing

The weight of the year to ground.

 

These days bruise, 

Swollen echoes

Ache and sharpen,

Recollection seasons my veins;

Your lonely age whispers

From an earthy grave

Ahead of me,

Crushed colours 

Cry spirals in a purple dusk,        

Distance waves from the wings of deserting birds

Beating their retreat on fireworked skies.

Electric in my dark

You creep in like an unanswered question,

Spilling into my quiet.

Rocking my calm

Your sea hands trawl my sands

To recover a heart

Sunk in redundancy.

Shocking like a Jellyfish,

Electric in my dark

Shark - like you invade,

Until I am yours devoured,

Undiluted, raw,

Washed up

Gasping on a gentle shore.

To catch your fall

Underneath an Armada of stars

That sing light

And lift my eyes to find yours,

In a tide of time,

I wait for you.

I'll bring you down 

On a gentle breeze

And soften the ground

To catch your fall.

Thwock, Thwock, Thwock

Time ticks in tennis balls

Hot stepping to your game,

Falling into rhythm

We dance.

Yesterdays’ hit the net, caught

Between you and I.

One all.

 

On an off beat, you strike

With an energy that kick starts my heart.

I miss, you smile

Some semblance of friendship,

I am electric.

Thirty – forty.

 

A tip on how to hold my racket right

The sound of sunshine,

A fat banana smile in the sky.

Tastes like an echo of? Bread and butter pudding

I am full up with you.

 

Bird without feet

Stilling her with a sight so fair,

In weaving threads of grace,

Your blue cream twists lace the air.

 

Flitting spins, danced fast pace,

Low swooping over peat brown waters,

Swallow to catch the river hatch.

 

The Singing of your labour sought a

 Quiet in her whole, unmatched

By any other living beat,

 

You are her landing, bird without feet.

Under Haggerston Sky

The moon has been up for two days now, a chalk smudge,

I could rub it out of the sky, its thinness haunts, 

And I, a ghost in this time, this half felt summer

With its seasoned tongue, it licks the edges of me,

But will not penetrate, the winter settled in

My heart breathes yesterdays' into every new dawn

And falls, as does the sun, out of the yielding blue,

Drops back into your time, and fades again with you.