Campaign

A warmer wind

Nine seagulls on sentry duty

Out in the sound

Past the buoys and the markers

Beyond the Shiants and the fish-farms

A warmer water

Suited to dolphins and whales

Soaked in dreams of human pastimes

Stilled by the paintbrush

Settled by the slower words 

& the irregular verse

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Seedlings in Flight

The grasses blown
Blown on
To thoughts of home
On the water and the wind
Thoughts blown home to you


from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

We walk with love at hand and in the distance

He paints from memory

We talk from memory

He walks across the machair

We walked across the machair

Out to the still & raging seas

Out to the living, breathing sands

Back in his studio

He lets the canvas carry his load

We let his words enter our thoughts

He works from memory

The depths of his unconscious are ravaged

We listen from memory

The depths of our unconscious are sated

His present mood

Reflects our present mood

In the surface tension of the painting

In the surface tension of our conversation

These will be original works of memory

For as Jac says, we say 

He is a professional artist

We are his populations

He is a painter

We are the work that found him

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Young Man

Restless soul

Rips at his cigarette

His thin artist legs

Carried quickly by red plimsolls

As he skips

Across the decking

On to the seaweed strewn rocks

By the slow tide of the water

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Rain & sun & rain & sun & rain &...

Blue sky to the heavens

Grey mist to the sea

Black, white crested waves

Rothko through and through

Within our imaginary spirits

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Rain for the refreshment of love

There is a song at the waters edge

There are pebbles on vacant sands

There are swirls where the streams of water head towards the sea

There are people, why wouldn't there be

The beauty of this beach idyll is then all but beaten out of me, by Kate's insistence that we carry on walking in the rain, towards a small dwelling, with four windows and a door

I go along with the daftness for a while, but finally insist on returning to the hotel

Kate walks to my left side, taking shelter from the persistent rain; my right side becomes soddened

At the cross roads we turn right, now we walk directly into the wind, and the slanting rain

Kate takes shelter, she walks, just short of a rainfalls depth, behind me; my front becomes entirely soddened

A calm emerges, clear light ahead

There are songs in my head

There are stones for my feet to kick

There are puddles

Ideal for children like me and Kate to skip and splash in

There are people

Why wouldn't there be

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Rites of Passage

In the back place

A slightly quieter place

Respite from the rain

With leaves strewn 

Where bodies swoon

For the love of freedom

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

The overpowering energy of lost love

Memory so easily painted

Soft lights, warm colours

Time past fleeting

Left behind, as time present

Warmth from within

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Beyond the reclamation is love

Past the broken down tractors

Past the randomly discarded farm implements

Over the heather moor, beyond the peat bog

Past the rebuilt black houses

Past the new houses, with abandoned static caravans

Humankind losing its desire for aesthetic beauty

Perhaps this is what a hard life brings

Years of cutting peat or catching fish

Years of toil before this current time

Work in support of the leisured classes

Perhaps the years of hardship

Coupled with regular shrouds of mist and rain

Combine to build an island consciousness

Where survival & shelter comes first

Life’s uncertain base, comes a long way first

This is not then the place for we seekers

Seekers of the peak

The peak of the self realisation pyramid

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Framed

Endless shimmer

Wave after wave of nostalgia

Patterns thought never to be repeated

Still bring a sense of what came before

Here & now for a while

Onto & afterwards, ever so slowly

Photographers flip out their cameras

To look back with satisfied smiles

On the beauty of their fellow travellers

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Scarlet Draughts

On this forearm 

Merino wool is teased

Up and over the golden hair

Strands of hair that feel the breeze

There  is nowhere else where

I would wish to be

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Queen of the Clearance

She owned a million acres

I did not own a single one

She owned a million acres

Yet it is her lands beauty

That my eyes ache upon

She was a lady of the lowlands

With edicts oft emerging from

She was a lady of the lowlands

Though it is her natures beauty

That has me rising strong

The mourn of loch and lay line

Helps us to carry on

The scorn of loss and lost time

Gives the faith to live it long

Shares the faith to live it long

Live it long by stones and steeples

Live it long by folk and lore

Live it long in every moment

Live it long

Through the length of every rousing song

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Itinerant

A hive and a beanstalk

A tin hut from the bog

Heaven on a still beach

Slow down you dancing frog

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Airborne Consciousness

By contact I mean a closeness, the sort of closeness that the word intertwined leads me towards; minds, bodies, souls, breath, intertwined, in contact; a closeness

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Clear of doubt our love is washed and offered fresh perspectives

Today we have the rain

Yet hardly a hint of breeze

And a silver grey

Seemingly cloudless sky

But it is true

We do have the rain

Free falling to splash on tin & tile

Calling us to stay indoors

Snuggle with a book

Listen to our favourite music

Watch the seals play

Make best of having a telescope

Feel the cool air on bare bodies

In preparation for a warm shower

He seeks out light

The light that we only see

On the painters canvas

In the photographers print

I seek out the sound

That we all might hear

Of raindrops on tin cans

From aeroplanes taking to the sky

In this way sight and sound are given back to us

The trickle of stream

The break in cloud

Our earthly atmospherics reflected

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Birthright

On the day after warmth came to spring
& daffodils flowered, beside new mown grass
The young boy came into our lives

On an evening when sunlight streams
Through leafless trees, I look more closely
To see the sticky buds beginning to open

That he too might enjoy the birdsong
Among the peacefulness, both now
& also in his later years

That his parents may soon walk out with him
In the countryside; also play endlessly together
On the soft sands, by sparkling seas

That love should come our way
Is itself the miracle of life


for Tim, Emma and Thomas William

Continentals

You sit at your desk
We stand beside the stone
The gale tears away all doubt
No need for sages

We are among true believers
Barefoot warriors
Freed from their desks
Free to bless the stone



from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Dark and White

The word I chose is neat

Petite yet swell

It tells me I've told you

The rest can go to hell

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

We take our chances with love

Back into the warmth

Or did the warmth come from the book

Early on, an easy understanding

Of the many levels of consciousness

Given to me through Jung's interpretation

Of his early 1930's dream

My arm is warm

The thin pullover clings ever so lightly

These are the paths my mind now wanders along

The slightest of touches, the merest of movements

Invoking memories of a gentle love

A love even more gently imagined

A memory so easily painted

With soft lights and warm colours

A time past that lives fleetingly as a time present

An energy that reminds me

That the warmth did not come from the book

The warmth came from within me

A within that has loved and lost, and loves again

A warmth that reminds me that the loss of love

Is not love lost, but a love that floats

A love that waits to be rediscovered

Whenever your warmth calls by

from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Valuables

Ribbed sleeve ends
Bring a structure to proceedings
Provide a firmer bond
To the softer pullover
Here now pull yourself together
What sort of friend
Would a lover make anyway


from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Home Service

Ever so, my mother
With her love of letters
Contentment that creeps
As lead on typeface setters
Footsteps in pleasant places
Ragged trousers, wind in sail


from The Hebrides - Water and Stone
Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

One Crow to a Tree

One crow to a tree

It's not easy living with you

It's not easy living with me

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

It's heaven just seeing you

It's heaven you just seeing me

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

The ache of not being with you

The ache of not being with me

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

The impossibility of freeing you

The impossibility of freeing me

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

The end, the end of me and you

The end, the end of you and me

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

The thought of hearing from you

The thought of hearing from me

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

The idea of him near to you

The idea of him near to me

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

The tearful fear of fearing you

The tearful fear of fearing me

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

The closure of the dream of me and you

The closure of the dream of you and me

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

One crow to a tree

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

Separate Houses

I went to look around a show home

A new development on the edge of the city

It was a Sunday afternoon

Full of rain and wind and cold

The floors had carpets

The windows had curtains

The central heating worked a treat

There was no television

I wrote to you that evening

Said I was sad that we were apart

Happy that I could give you a home

Lost across a sea of my own findings

The brochure said no deposit

Low interest for first time buyers

Solicitors and search fees paid

Assistance with relocation

I had lost all creative imagination

Beaten by my own past beliefs

This wasn't what you wanted

Of that I was uncertainly certain

Another time, I stood at the bus stop

Getting wet in the nights drizzle

I was happy, without sufficient reason

Though well clear of the developers estate

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

Beaumont Salon

One sunshine Friday afternoon

Twenty and a few years before today

You should scrunch your hair

She said, when you blow dry it

A new place, a new town

A new island, a new rapturous love

Scrunch your hair, at the back

She said, as you blow dry it

Your hair sure looks good

My lover said; who's done it

Twenty and a few years before today

One sunshine Friday afternoon

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

Noisier

I was loud, and boisterous

This did not fit well

With your gentleness, or calm

Age brought a quiet, a peacefulness

Though too late, for a measure

Among your angst of retribution

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

Chimes of the Early Riser

Between the desire and the response a longevity, however brief, results. That the chequered window cover takes me there is either of some consequence or of no consequence. Such chance that the indigestion slows the mind, the potassium, however slowly, is on its travels. That I shake my head, to will away the dullness, says no more to me than I am still among the waking. With the clock stopped at some indiscriminate hour; time left there for the attention of the clock-winder. The day breathes its fresh life into the dank mist, soon the light, light that brings hope, so soon the light. To not have taken the best of sleep, to have had sleep taken away by inconsiderate conversations. These words could be approaching neurotic; that shadow will be fought, but first the thoughts have to be recounted.

The original plan was to cycle to open country, there to lay down on some verge or meadow. To write words that float with effervescent beauty; the grand evocations of love in all its embodiments. More like I will not make the movement, become otherwise distracted, or worse, otherwise employed. As if the opening of the evening primrose was not itself of such significant captivating magic. Here then the desire turns to longing, to amplify wanting seven fold, before eliciting a response. Just as wine matures through oak, and ages, let desire evolve also as a worldly potent fluid. To well up in all parts of the body and soul, confound the logical mind with its infinite possibilities. That this longing and wanting should occasionally settle should not instill doubt; it is an ever present. That it should rise and subside in unknown measure gives a certainty of its stealth for some response. If all you give out are doubt or subterfuge, if all you dare to cleanse are past half-owned untruths.

You might ask how to prevent this, or better you may open yourself to some clear, true & free space. Is this the stop to be afraid of, is this the fear that causes your indefatigable unconditional restraint. The muddled mind cannot reason why; to sidestep is its well practiced and chosen verse. That way to enter the fair light of morning, that way to edge away from the shrouds of uncertainty. Instead to walk away, close the questioners door, instead to turn to the chatter of the birdsong. Rehearse, and again rehearse, the words for the songbook; take a pen, to a few lines of rhyme.

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

Departures

Before the journey settles into a rhythm

Almost at the beginning, if plainly told

My mind disrupts, triggered by the rain

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

Truth

There is only one truth
It is your truth
The moment you think it
The instant you speak it

It cannot be my truth
However I might try
To steal it or utter it

Love is such a truth
A truth for you to reconcile
Each moment
By each reconciled moment


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

Fissures

She takes me as close as I have ever been to being there

In sight of her voice I have the same sense of anxiety as seeing her

Female and fleeting discourse she sidelines the midnight air

Setting the course, turning the sextant, I feel her stare

She takes me as close as ever I've been to being there

I resume, consumed, subsume the particulate of her bearings

Of her lunar landscapes, of her inner tune

The flumes of her fjords gorge me

With their plutonium tinged, seraphim crests

I am beset, heterosexuality is rampant

It rises in me to turn the frets and the regrets aside, to put asunder

I take her, as close as she has ever been to being there

Helpless, without choice, I have the nocturnal habits of pleasing her

Masculine and handsome the source is wilful in fulfilling its share

Such resource that rallies and rails as one turns to the guiding flare

I take her, as close as ever she's been to being there

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