The black owl

Thought inks,
The dull drops
Ache a slow fall,

Entering a thick night,
The mind giants collide
And turn to stone

My red bloom;
A ghost in the glow
Of an unforgiving moon.

The clouds,
The fat clouds
Will not let me see,

In this ruthless absence
Sleep blinks like a haunted light
On the edge of a dream

The black owl eyes me;
A sharpness in the shapeless dark,
I’m awake as a knife

After Russian Caravans

Mapped into a mouthful of day,
Recorded in crunches given to ground,
We mark our way in treads and sounds, here
Ivy greens the memory stones,
Weaving over peaceful sleeping,
That footsteps cannot stir.

I find smile eyed surprise
At unexpected birds, the silent grace
Of foreign wing tips
Grazing on the winter
Of this south east sky; an occasional aeroplane,
A dog wobbles by.

Standing in the still,
The light in your laughter gentles the cold, here
The trees drawn back,
Open curtains on a view;
You trace for me a river on the distance,
Quiet me with your truth.

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.

In Time

Before the smoke of this city sets a fog

That settles and smudges upon return,

Remember sitting in a pocket of time

Soaking up the sunshine of a country dwelling,

 When awoken by a gentle morning,

 You ran, dream into dream.

 

Quiet hours built your days,

 And Looking out over fields of years,

On crop covered hill top you stopped

 To watch swallows scribble their stories,

Dipping blue ink upon sheets of sky.

 Sat in stillness, dusk kissed

Your heart listened to the questions

The land demanded of you,

 And Whispered a song of home.

Tripping down to Devon

Tripping into Little lanes, hedges

 High with heather, lens cap our view.

Missing teeth of old stone barns

 Fill me with an ancient time, a wind sigh

 Aged with memory dances over me.

 

Through two lenses,

Yours and yours removed

You map our way with city feet,

Watch a swallow’s wing

 Blink at the sky.

 

We find her in the lambing barn,

A sweep of grey tied away

 From an outdoor face.

Treading down thirsty straw

We stand on the edge

Of mud as if a precipice,

Her thick tongue coats us in tellings,

Of unknown names and whispered coming homes.

 

By your quiet side my feet move

 On the bones of the earth and tie me

To my heritage, safe in the shapes of my childhood land,

My jigsaw bit fits.

 

  A May breeze carries a full berry accent,

 A deep-eyed girl puts a hat on the sun,

To award her self some shade.

Now wrapped in the chrysalis of a story,

Stick insects leap

From a childhood hedge.

Newspaper in hand, pink socks stand,

To see a plane kiss green ground.

 

 The sun cools itself in a bath of deep sea

 A north wind adds jumpers to

Woollen backed benches,

Caked in warmth, six shapes bend

In laughter, wheeled red ironsides rides in.

 

Lighting up the darkness,

A pit of fire sizzles sausages and fish,

Whiskey speaks a glow onto our cheeks

A Swedish candle burns a flame

My heart knew long ago

Its flickering waves sail on

Into the sea of night and left adrift,

In morning lights find its true anchorage.

 

May Day

 Though standing tall

Slight hands betray you,

The Signature of your mother,

Carried through death

Whispers fragility.

Swaying birch thin,

Waving out lost

 Amongst a forest

 Of silver and black,

 May poling around, you

 Dance outside yourself,

Wrapping up in ribbons

Your heart, to stand

Just apart from love.

Maria's Tea.

In you I find the edge of me

And hang with a finger tip

From its uncertain cliff.

I miss you every time, and

Every time I miss,

 You, all over again.

Deep heart beats break

Against your stone. 

 

They do not talk of death,

Their black hearts turned sunwards.

Red dressed Spanish ladies,

 Flamenco dancers, Passion painted  

Amongst the carnival of hues,

Browns and greens and blues.

Softly swaying, rhythms slow

 In the whispering cool that blows

 The hot heat out of summer,

 Bearing red petalled breasts up to suns touch.

They do not talk of death

But pulse life

Sucked from earth through stem,

To sunlight again.

 

 

Yellow Brick box

Early lights, eyes full,

Dawn tucks night time into bed.

Naked in this infant light

You dance to the drum of my heart,

Unsteady on your feet,

 My gentle giant and I,

 In the yellow brick box.

You taste of last night,

Eat me up in smiles.

 

Icelandic Takk sings,

Fall asleep in my dreams.

HRW Terminal 3

Wearing your tales,

The jewellery of your stories hang

From my ears, wrap around my wrist

Names like fizzy sweets

Get their first taste

Rolling over their shapes,

Foreign spices on my tongue.

Jeans feel unfamiliar

Hold too much in,

Forgotten fibres against skin.

You bind a blanket sewn with scents

To keep out the air of a home

 Fresh returned painted,  

New colours clash

Painfully against the lush

Of England’s drunken climbs and falls

Into a time before mangoes           

And sea wolves.