Kilter (Out of)

Country café; frequented by the ladies who lunch

Furrows that are ploughed, hands that are waved

In gestures of accentuated animated conversation

Take your time to settle, I will join you presently

So soon as my time allows, that is if the discordance

Of the interior designs might ever be entertained

Similarly if the less than ambient music doesn't drive me

Beyond the point of distraction, or if the working man

Right outside my window should ever stop hammering

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Snatch

A young girl

Young and petit

Snuggles up to me

Takes me gently

Before turning over

In the last dream

Of the morning

I think of you

In the shower

Then I work out

Who the young girl

Might have been

Her soft presence

Gathers importance

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Life’s uncertainties magnified on the cusp of daybreak

Distantly, without support of rope or capstan, I write to you

I write to feel; yet what I feel

I still feel seems to be at an unsafe distance

I miss you, you and your timeless telephone conversations

Bright blue sky brings with it the morning

Warmth strokes in, along with the waking

I miss you, echoed the words from your letter

In that instant, I looked through the skeletal trees

How do we get here; where is it that we are we going

However did I find you, why ever did you choose to love me

It is the right time I feel to retreat and cry

For to cry I am told is a sure sign of acceptance

With the tears would I then have accepted:

However close or distant our love, it is never beyond me

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Duel

To sit beside you

With sunlight, or rain

At the window

Not to be

On nights away

Summer or winter

That peace waits

For loves return

Is ever welcome

In ones one room

Limited by vista

Negligence rises

To do nought 

Becomes routine

Cold or warm

That doubt waits

In single shadows

Is weight enough

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Streetlight

Light of selective blue
Give on
Up Electric Avenue

Give on, clear line to sky
Give on, my we were happy

Light of illusive hue
Give on
Up the road to you

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Interlaced

Will it always be thus

You in your turquoise top

Every time I browse a map

Just off the aeroplane

Memories are to rush in

In the deserted rowing boat

Reasons to avoid a return

On the starlit country estate

However innocent the motive

Into the taxi, out of the rain

That a part of me needs to exclude

Against the British Museum radiator

Refuses to deal with the truth

Take our birthday seats in the theatre 

Prefers the delusions of youth

Drive all night, move closer together

Evades that time before this time

Dine in the restaurant by the quay

Those other times with other stories

Spread out on the sands and dunes

If I returned alone I could wallow

Walk barefoot at the waters edge

Write down a set of words

Watch Shakespeare at midnight

Of personal indefatigable thoughts

Ice cream at the sunset beach cafe

Gifts of guilt and exuberance

Open walks to Dartmoor's Tors

On the shifts of unsettled sands

Hand-held total eclipse of the sun

If I returned, with you or another

To the late night Battle of Flowers

I would have to steal away, as for

Nude bathing in Fuerteventura

Sneak out to let in the experiences

Trains through the Somerset Levels

Sneak in to let out the experiences

Of the past regurgitate, boil away

Stood outside Cornwall's Tate gallery

Inside my intrepid deceitful head, taking

Off from all those Jersey bound airports

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

A to B

Place names 

Shine out

As if called

By times longest lived emotion

Human games

Find doubt

Dice rolled

With signs of highest devotion

Shame faced

Dull shout

Smile stalled

Lost rhymes of quiet commotion

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Dorchester

Between the airport

& the bachelor flat

“Would you care to call here

It's a while before we will be back”

Overjoyed at how you liked the space

& how this band of Old England 

So well & truly suited you

We could have stayed longer

We could have stayed over

Except that your excitement

To be at my place, lustful

Your desire grew and grew

Between the blue door and the bedsit

It wouldn't have worked if I'd stayed

“Should you care ever to call here

It'd bring a smile on, she said, looking back”

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Haze

Sunlight lightens the mood

Empowers the spirit

To reach into the positive arena

Of the reflective self

To why we are here

Where we are going

The warm sun cares not a jot

Without the cache of despair

The ball of endless fire is able

To enliven us as any goddess

That the summer will bring blossom

To the Laburnum is without doubt

Yet the tree knows nought of this

So we sentients choose to believe

Whether our own minuscule plans

Our intricate preparations take affect

Do we have the need to care

Instead let us be, as the sunlight

Free off our traps; flare

Walk tall in our uncertainty

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Side by Side

To sit beside you

With sunlight, or rain

At the window

Not to be

On nights away

Summer or winter

That peace waits

For loves return

Is ever welcome

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Droplets of Joy

Thin subliminal

Sounds of the ocean

Wave by cascading wave

Trickling harp by trickling hearts

Darkness by the absence

Of artificial light

Darkness by the closure

Of the certain parts

Super longevity

In this small four walled room

Super sized brevity

Of past times stolen darts

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Jealous Inferno (Cuckold)

One

I am encouraged to try to recollect her misdemeanours 

Though for what purpose; we were after all but too quite separate people

In my search I am also encouraged by various suggestive reconciliations

Though for what purpose; we were after all but two distinctly separate people, in spite of our apparent need of each other 

Two

We had only just met when she had to get off to the City of London, her regret on return was well set, yet what she had done was culpable. I had a leather jacket, I placed it around her shoulders, I walked her to her quarters; it was a few days before we had danced. There were letters to the Welshman, though I don't know that they met, I forget his name and number but I had him checked out all the same. When we first made love she took the condom from the drawer, I was oblivious of her preparation then, but now it's significance is all the more. She did have a regular caller, he came by bike and car, he was a hung up and lonesome subject, caught in the brightness of her star. It was my new friends wedding, he came on strong to her, right there and then, was it more than just coincidence that she had smiled and talked of the absence of Zen. The landlord of the local took a shine to her, she met him in the daylight daytime while I worked away, to pay for the space where they reclined. She went off for a study week, my ex boss drove her, he was full of style and charm, she was surprised by his half indecent proposal, as he asked her for her arm. Caught up in the theatre crowd she loved the play and chase, I faded into the corner, I lacked the womanisers fancy style or pace. Far worst of all; the son in law, the reason for the break, he swore and cursed in front of her; she offered such a response, it was more than I could take. These are the ones I know of, there may have been others too, she says we are both hard to live with and that surely we are through. No wonder that I am wary, although there is no doubt, I was once stone cold sober strong in love with, the dreamiest girl in blue.

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Longer Poem

Into this life as a gift

Although the giver is unaware

Take some time to wander

Go to the edge of the cliff

With each step, dwell, look out

Beware

As the ink flows

& the mind slows

Think of it

As the oncoming of thrift

Where to pare down

Is way beyond compare

So well to have escaped

The life so stiff

Just for that moment

I thought of myself in Versailles

Parading, posing

Strutting down the palace garden boulevards

A reasonable sign

That I can delude myself without much thought

I imagine a place I have never been

On the back of the sound of crushed sandstone

Under my brogue leather shoes

On reflection, a fairly swift reflection

I compared my ability to fall for the thought

The earlier fleeting thought

To be on a par with my desire to fall

For the love of a beautiful woman

However estranged the relationship may become

Vexed at the thought of time running out

I have contrived to take time

To let the doubts wash in and out of my mind

To vibrate the whole of life through my body

To have love

Gently and sensuously enter & soothe my soul

Also to read the sort of philosophy

That heads uncertainly

Towards the most certain of certainties

I ache to talk of love

To talk and write so amorously

As I did those few short years ago

The love is no less

In truth more love falls upon us each time we meet

Sometimes words

Are the unlikeliest, or most difficult of friends to find

In those early days it was spine tingling to catch the love words gushing

I pluck out the broken

Distorted feathers of arrogance and bravado

From the desensitised plumage of my youth

In their place I search for the contentment and the confidence

To become my self; a self of some intrinsic value

As I listen to the birdsong

& the slowly flowing water

The ease to be at ease comes more easily

As the tractor & the seed-spreader

Rumble and rattle over the arched stone bridge 

I sense not all is at peace

If any bit of me was an artist

I would have set up my easel by now

To paint this history of trees

In their many stages of decay

& ushered-in new beginnings of life

Better still I would include the miniature train track; it's tunnel

That I imagine comes to life with steam whistles

& children joyfully cheering during the summer holidays

It is as though this place, once an industrial heartland

A forge with an illustrious past

Had nowhere to turn to for its future

Until leisure offered some sort of survival

The ravages of time & the recalcitrant northern weather

Have attacked the fabric

Of the once grand and flamboyant country houses

Their structure is in disrepair

As I tell you this 

I am called upon, on the phone, to remind a younger colleague

That I have over forty years industrial experience

Which for his project may be useful

Although for my life, as a writer

Boils down to not much to do with love at all

The trees are still

Yet a time-lapse photographer

Could capture the changes in hue

From browns to purples to greens

He should be able to bring to life

The slow beyond compare

Birth, or breakthrough

Of shoots and leaves

He might also have the skill and patience

To show the diurnal patterns

Of rooks coming to roost

The vast skies opening and closing

In tune with the seasons weather

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Ringside

He crossed out
The very doubt of your forgiveness
He began to shout
All were annoyed at his remissness

You didn’t flout
Yes, maybe a flouncy permissiveness
Though to clout
Showed off his mean dismissiveness

Have no doubt
Assured by your pert prettiness
Life is about
Rising above the strictly stickiness

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Visitation

In the smile that says my mind remembers

Your infinite space of stored fond memories within

Warm sun, stretches into the quiet room

Little or no disturbance to inhibit your arrival

On the outer breeze your gaiety and laughter

Increases my expectation

Only for those few bright moments could you join me

Before the chimes of peace called you to another

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Half Unknown

Some things I am happy to share with you

Indeed I imagine you might take pleasure in the sharing

Other things I desire to keep to myself

Indeed I imagine they might improve my personal enrichment

On the cusp of these two positions 

I find my relationships waver

Just as previous relationships have wavered

Her name was; no I do not wish to give you her name

She was slim, bony & attractive, with wonderfully long hair

Carried through with an innocent sixteen smile

I could say that a mutual friend suggested we got together

That way a little more useless information would be divulged

We danced, we walked, we talked for hours; I often stroked her hair

Yet only once in earnest did I stroke her bare thighs:

There was a party, my parents were away

Perhaps they too were trying for a reconciliation

Her Levi's came undone; five studs pulled down, towards an

Unimaginable future; my wranglers swiftly followed suit

Half leaning against the dining room wall, with only our youthful

Exuberance between us, events destined to evolve in that direction

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Misplaced Sentimentalities

I learnt of the word rill

From a woman poet in Vermont

Was it wrong to build such a slice of water

Into my lovers garden

Not that the construction lasted

The symbolic landscaping vanquished

Shortly after our final inseparable separation

I remember New England in the fall

I brought home a fallen leaf

If I had been stronger

I might have framed the veins for my lover

Not that the token was lambasted

She, I dare to believe, escaped on occasion

Out by the rill, into my search for tranquility

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Driving Seat

I set off for my work

Under a full on, sky blue sky

This after yesterday's onslaught

Of snow and sleet and rain

I think of my two sons

Andrew and the younger Joseph

Each offered here to me, with affection

My daughter Emma, also with the bond of love

Riverside power stations

Play host to a degradation of expulsions

Moist droplets that paint blacks, greys

& faintly transparent mustards

Onto the skies pristine blue canvas

The young woman

A passenger in the car behind me

Becomes far more attractive when she speaks

Her vibrant animation brings a smile

To the days otherwise still sternness

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Backtrack

Truth of it is we don't ever return

Only once can you sing along to your mothers fur coat

Only once can you innocently stroke the inner thigh of expectation

That the once can be dreamed of

For a thousand days and nights or more

Is testament to our fearful powers of delusion

Truth of it is we don't want our doubts confirmed

If for only once all that we wished for would just happen

If for only once we could rise or fall way beyond the fornication

That at once we can drop those thoughts

As if a pebble on the beach, without ripples

Is ample justification for our no-nonsense processions

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Anniversaries

Ache; twenty-five years in the making

I also have to say

That each day your storm

Grows somewhat stormier

Fragrant flowers sneak upon me

As I wander through the canal-side markets

Dusty words throng around me

As I ponder among the older bookshops

To research their serious and frivolous titles

Oils and pastels paint intricate pictures

In the rivers and the galleries

As those erstwhile exploratory travellers

Wake no more to the love;

So long to make, so swift to break

This timely declaration may normalise:

Hold back the storm so to speak

Unless the storm of your broken love

Becomes ever more steamy

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Tricks of Time

In the days extravaganza of seconds

Might I share a few

In this anything but miasma 

I am able to steadily bring 

Mneme's sensitive voice

To wash peacefully over me

Still, almost silent moments within

Except for the flicker of the fires flames

Except for the lest forgetful petrified heart

Outside the wet afternoon brings breezy

Blustery wilder times to the treetops

Life is scythed through the weather vanes

I sway, I hope you sway too

As we swayed with the waves

That tumbled down

Onto the dune protected shoreline

I have no demons to slay, what's that you say

A few words to remind me of the good times

In this days extravaganza of recollections

Where I can always rely upon your insistence

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Sunday

The earthliness of the day attracts me

Slight drizzle, tight breeze

Blighted head after last nights

Light filled, late fight celebration

The stillness of the damp, limp leaves

On the sorrowful Laburnum tree

Mirrors the pace of my hoped for thoughts

If only a gardener, with a wheelbarrow

Could trip across the lawns, or if the

Delivery-men would nip around

With our artisan's shepherds hut

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Anchor Court

Wooden floor, bed settee, bare walls

Except for a picture by Monet 

Lyle Lovett on the hi-fi

His big band lingering

Oil pastels smudge my fingertips

Echoes of my son hurling pebbles

Into the half sight, dark light seas

Nights of ones own company

To play, to cry

To have the strength to sigh

Then go on to rediscover

Coir mat tiled flooring

Two bedrooms

A bathroom and a kitchen

Music that floats, to whichever

Of the four single beds 

I choose to lay my head upon

Sufficient accommodation

For my visiting offspring, and for

My more recent, hopefully

Indecent acquaintances

Flights of ones own fancies

To play, to slay

To have the doubt to weigh

Up only the day of positives

Champagne or chilled white wine

On the sunny-side flags out front

Thoughts of the sophisticated town

That basks over the bakeries rooftops

It is the midwinters brightest season

Weathered by a micro climate

Sights that sensed

The inevitable impermanence

To live, to hopelessly give

To ply, to be so sly as

To shy away from reality

Floors stripped

Furniture and effects loaded

Onto a white removal van

Key fobs pushed, squeezed

With a don’t return note

Into the estate agents letterbox

My brother and my daughter

Present at this intermittent

Significant, half-final reckoning

My lover negligently absent

Rites of passage not observed

We swerve out of town

To deny, to give back the gown

Frown, as we call time

On the dreams end

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Warmer than Rain

Am I freed of her

Is that why I smile to myself

In my morning shower

Now she is with another

Am I free

To love her more than ever

No more my lovers keeper

Can such freedom

Let me weep of our memories

Cry tears of joy

For those sunshine summers

Where we held hands

Is this free, I sure feel free

To go and sing

Of the whole worlds beauty

Did I hear a whisper

Of the word delirium

It is true, I once was her mister

Closer ever than brother and sister

We kissed; she will be missed

As I smile, on loves lost flower

from the collection
The Curved Ball of an Artists Model
Love Encouraged By the Breakout
Available from itunes by clicking here

Gift

I have the taste for saddened verse

News of love lain once immersed

Words came to say, of this day

All the rain with tears may play

He told of she, but she not he

She though was pleased

At where he be, he

Did not see it quite so well

Truth to tell he went though hell

He'd caught the swell

Of foolish pride; she decided

No more, and that was that

Back to the fedora hat

Perm blown hair

Back to the flair 

That suited his youth

Struth

He was nearer death than life

She never was his wife

All appearances turned to strife

The knife then turned one last time

Chime of noon, flash of light

Cheering crowd, in beauties sight

She took the ring 

& hugged her new man 

Close and tight

from the collection
The Curved Ball of an Artists Model
Love Encouraged By the Breakout
Available from itunes by clicking here

Thin on whispers

In the time of those few words

Listen hard to what you hear

In the time to stop your heart

Listen hard to those you fear

Hearts that stop

With words that beat

A life that's lost

Of prospects heat

Time that waits

For songs to seek

Such turns that cost

Our souls of speech

from the collection
The Curved Ball of an Artists Model
Love Encouraged By the Breakout
Available from itunes by clicking here

Indemnify; you are past

How much love still lingers

That I smile and the singer

Plays photoshop with my fingers

As on your eyes to bring...

I lie to myself, spy on

The laughter, the joy that wins

My heart and mind

Care to be kind, heavenly resigned

At an untouchable distance

Where I define this love; as that love

Before attempts at rekindling

Singled out faults and restraints

Pains that have turned to play

Feigned on occasion not to stay

Yet way too strong, to go along

With my superficial malignity

from the collection
The Curved Ball of an Artists Model
Love Encouraged By the Breakout
Available from itunes by clicking here