Without substance, yet heavy with meaning

As if the untethered float of air

Less weight than a real thought

Free, with every cup of coffee

Free, with every singles walk

Beside the endless canal

Half seen, half heard

Half sensed, half smelt

Half hearted attempt

To wash over, wipe out

Visits to the supermarket

As if in a daydream of silence

Less light than a real hip-hooray

To pay for, with your every pause

To pay for, with each sitting

In that comfortable chair

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Impetuous

Still, still night
Soft spoken voices of love
Permeate, drift beneath
The hotel bedroom window

He is deeply interested
In her lead-on words
She is encouraged
By his warm laughter

Stay, stay the night
I listen to their voices
We cannot resist
This life of temptations



from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Channelled

Coldness creeps in

Through the open door

As light fades from the once blue sky

Her conversation

Had been easy and eloquent

A tale of a life passed staggeringly by

Window on to snow

Girl who simply had to go

I could scream just to be there again

Out on the cold moor

A derelict & still landing strip

My lonely ideas hanging out to dry

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Row

Steps to steal away my resentment

Rails to reel off whiled away hours

Time to watch the faded grass & flower

Shower over that love

As once the coastal towers

Powered another kind of war

Loss touched along the shoreline 

Unable to handle that which turns sour

The smitten intellect weaves with power

Seeds planted above 

In ground roughly scoured

Reminders of a ravaged mind in store

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Atlantic

She had a delicacy of touch

Retained in her cerebral cortex

So grounded it resounded as love

She showed me grains of sand

Beside wind-blown sail’s shadows

So deep as to impound my lust

Under a dangerous clear blue sky

Waves lapped their own response

So close to ease her conscience

There are, for some, a few moments

Peak experiences as she emerged from

Precocious, in this time of faith

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Mon Plaisir

I cannot drill down any deeper

I am unable to magnify the view

Yet I do remember a window

The lane I thought a little steeper

Wasn't there a garden & a small kitchen

With two colourful cockatoo

& to each side, fields of potatoes

Before the long curved beaches

Although, out beyond the reaches 

I was, as now, so often absent

Just as the image shows

I regularly strayed out of focus

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Looking Up The Hill

As if the leafless tree

Whose sky is grey

Burnt on red

Whose manner is friendly

Full of face to face 

& cyberspace

Opportunities

For caring

Considerate conversations

As if the tree

When the light rises

Begs the clouds to drift apart

That we may gather our thoughts

& together

In the hedgerows silence

We should slowly 

& steadily

Whisper our words of love

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Meta

If, as her dream suggests

She managed to travel at speeds

Way faster than her living life

If, in her final explanation

It is only that what is witnessed

That cannot be imagined

If, as she is speeded up, slowed down

Through her cinematic experience

Of wilful conflicts & constructions

If she should live more than once

Gather all of her lifes sensual richness

Then purposefully: reload, rewind

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Antique Centre

Things aren't what they used to be

The depth of life's decay is clear to see

Among the veterans uniforms

& the signs to beware of fake CD's

Two couples fill the room with laughter

Reminiscing of their lives as kids

Before the photographs on mobile phones

Before the autograph, in bed with Sharon Stone

The music begins C'mon Everybody

The awnings flap in the winter wind

The CD changes: There ain't no cure

For the summertime blues

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Status Quo

I sat behind you in the Royal Concert Hall

Your hair, cut in a bob

Silky and shiny, precisely neat

Your square cut glasses well chosen

In sympathy with your angular bone structure

As the night went on I realised

Your face had grown longer

Your tendency to scowl

Had become much more frequent

I wondered if the older man 

Sat beside you was a new partner

I didn't see any gestures of tenderness

No hands held or arms round the shoulder

Earlier we had eaten oysters in lime

Washed down with a dry white wine

We were a party of four; two couples

Each comfortable, in their own skins

When the concert was over you left first

Not surprisingly we went our separate ways

We did not speak

I doubt that you saw me, or even felt my presence

I did though notice

That you quickly took back the silk scarf

That your man-friend

Had playfully wrapped around his torso

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Goodness

Through the mists of Sterndale 

I see the outlines of trees and isolated farmhouses

In the lifting darkness I welcome my own return

Think well, of a strangers homecoming

The music of meditation plays for me

In this place of mindful contemplations

Wherever and how life takes you

Feel well represented, feel calm

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

The Troubled Senses of Separation

Sunlight lifts the dew from the grass

Infuses the moisture

Into a morning haze

Shadows turn

The tree bark black, diffusing

The joy that followed last nights daze

Once we touched

Once we clasped

Once our lips met, luscious together

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Fashion

I hold on to her fascination

For she has, and still does

Fascinate me

I will commemorate the day

When we, as we could

Had fruitful fornication

A space of silence, for

A tantric, solo repetition

Of that joyful conjugation

All in a hidden place

Mindful of my minds

Ability to play tricks

I will commemorate in a way

When I, as I should

Would reopen communication

I am sold on her fascination

For I have, and still do

Welcome her to fascinate me

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Seven +

We’re in this thing deeper

Deeper than we might ever know

Who’d have thought it, at that first show 

That you’d become my lover, and my keeper

We glide along, from song to song

The hillsides less steep with doors ajar

With work and play we journey, near and far

Whenever in doubt we work out whatever’s wrong

We’re in this thing deeper

Deeper than we might ever show

Who’d have thought it, fate would know

That you’d become my lover, and my keeper

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Apparel

I didn’t care for the pullover when you first gave it to me, but since our separation it has become quite a favourite, what with its contrast of black body and grey sleeves and the silky feel of well ironed wool

The black jacket, that I bought for the trip to Ireland (not too business like, neither too casual) has also weathered well, I feel youthful and slim when wearing the two of them together

On our last dance, a sweaty affair, I wore the blue and black shirt Both the sewing detail and the dark colours carried memories of my youth, a long time before we became an item

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Crystal

Turn down the night

Settle for the inner light

Trip over, leave the sand dunes

To be at one with spacious moons

Take a balance, feel the sights

The fiddler fettles; exposure of his rights

Again to strive on, as he dare

Ever present, now with two to care

Stroke his glass ball, here his plight

Life unfolds, accept his need for flight

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Windless

It is

An encouraging light

Through all of

The eleven tall windows

The scene is quiet

Even for the season

Gardens are calmed

Traffic is stilled

It is easier

Without our projections

Listen to the absence

Of the tick-tock clock

All of this love

All of this care

We are hereby given

Timely renewal of our energies

Share this moment

With the poet & the artists

Who strive

To rediscover beauty

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Day & Light

The forecasted storms did not materialise
Instead a morning of wild & phenomenal skies 
Turner himself could not have painted such colours
Diaghilev himself could not have elucidated such movements
Reds as true as the blood drawn by Spanish bullfighters
Blues as sure as Yves Klein himself would have ground
Silvers and whites as clear and bright as the most majestic of imagined miraculous visitations
Pinks and greys both flamboyant and calm; an immense sense of tranquility, stillness amongst the highest of transformative energies
A sky formed from infinite layers, as if a thousand deep stage curtains, each one rolled slightly back to bring the one in front into view, then repeated ad infinitum until there, at the point of disappearance, is a light, a light with all the joys of life in its luminosity, a weightless shining, an emissive source of brilliance, at the very source of brilliance
In the afternoon, on the journey home, heading south east, looking due west: a length of cloud beyond the grasp of straight on vision, as if a carpet of crumpled white felt was hanging from the stars, an impression of damp felt, with a shower of iridescent droplets falling towards the mist covered ground
For those on the terra-firma, immediately beneath these shimmer fine lines of water, they may say it is no more than a shower; but to me, these few miles away, it is as it was the beginning of a spectacular stage show, perhaps a curtain raiser to Jean Michel Jarre, with all his wondrous visual projections

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Albion Reunion

All those perambulations

Dark nights caught up

In your fraught solitudes of time

Sparkling shoes that you wear

Full gloss to fall under spotlights

An unlaced attempt at forgiveness

Afterwards to go a wander

Full of deep lust and longing

Across your fields of mauve

One more hug of the shoulder

A snatched kiss of your lips, then

Pushed away, pushed towards oblivion

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Response to A

No fear

Close in on ecstasy

Her life imagined

Lived out

Entirely in the abstract

Yet unable

To be completed

Within the amicable society

Of her intricate 

Indiscrete relationships

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Parting Shots

No complaints, with the sex, she said

She didn’t say fantastic, but

No complaints

That’s better than okay, isn’t it?

No longer want to be a couple, she said

We can still be friends, but

Being friends

Thats tougher than being together, isn’t it?

from 
Parting Shots - Love Of The Status Quo

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on Kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Base

Scent

The one last probable imponderability

That brings loved ones into my life

Scent

That I can pick off the pages, or infuse

From another young woman’s photograph

Years have passed

Way beyond absolution

Arches of roses collapsed

Bicycles of joyful fusion

Certain as the stones

Laid by the constitution

We, as all others, gasped

Recycled by the resolution

Scent

Homogeneous in a few lines of text

That neither you nor I wrote, to refuse

Scent

Worthy of being named the great imponderable 

That brings loved ones back into my life

from 

Looking Up The Hill :: Love To Make You Stand Back

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Touchstone

Playful petal

As if you were my own

Beautiful flower of autumn

Yes, I know that sometimes 

You do have to let lovers go

Yet always, you might dream

Of what may have happened 

If they had stayed

from 

Looking Up The Hill :: Love To Make You Stand Back

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Master & Boy

The young boy mimics his masters rowing

The old man walks slowly and closes the gate

The young boy goes alone in the boat, to the shore

He chases butterflies & snakes, on the terra-firma

from 

Looking Up The Hill :: Love To Make You Stand Back

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Spring

A creaking door opens
Birds chirp
A solitary eastern cabin
Placed on an island platform
In the middle of a lake

Strings of bells chime quietly
The teacher yells at the young boy
It is time to get up, time
To sweep clean the boardwalk
Before they jump into the rowing boat

from 

Looking Up The Hill :: Love To Make You Stand Back

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Space Light

Art in such a space

A place of strong image

One head

No face

His pathway followed

from 

Looking Up The Hill :: Love To Make You Stand Back

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

One

Long lonely corridor

Trolley pushed 

On cast iron wheels

Daily ritual

To feed

The seekers of peace

from 

Looking Up The Hill :: Love To Make You Stand Back

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

To be One

A sink of vegetables
A long, still, longing view
To the distant hills of freedom

A tin passed silently, through
The cell door window

from 

Looking Up The Hill :: Love To Make You Stand Back

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

One to Be

Art in such space

A place of such strong image

Passion; each head, each face

A book read, a path followed

A dash of pilgrimage

from 

Looking Up The Hill :: Love To Make You Stand Back

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Listen & Observe (Into Great Silence)

From the mist to the prayer

Rising and falling

Knock on wood

Patience comes calling

Bells and bats

The shrieks of morning

Grey on blue

Snow flakes falling

Angled roof slates

Square stone wall

Heaven’s proof awaits

Again the bells do toll

A longer view

Light stripes on the mountain top

Seen through darkness

The mood maker’s opening shot

In hooded cloaks

Through massive doors

To pray with hope

Pray to level the scores

One last straggler

Limps so slow

The vespers men bet

He won’t dare show

A quiet room

With desk and chair

Words to learn

A solitary slayer

The wooden stove

Not yet lit

Warmth from without

Does not easily sit

Heavy & dull cloth

On a cutting room table

Grapes of Wrath

Bells ring, as of babel

The pace is slow, one has to say

Three quarter dark views

Leave the imagination to play

A cough, a clog, a candle zoomed

Nocturno sung; monks vent exalted

A flickering flame

Time lapse stars roam unclaimed

Throats cleared, chants not faltered

The blind one stumbles

Then finds a chair

With stick and gown, humble

His body of cloth layered in layers

They choose their smocks

As most men do

With a pull in of the waist

Arms stretched through

Half open doors, steps to the preacher

Light and shadow

Novices to the teacher

Probation with the venerable father

“Before you take the eternalisation

You have the freedom to leave”

In blackened robes, far from civilisation

They choose to stay, no time to grieve

Your life is their life

Their life is your life, beware

Blame all you want

As they shave their hair

Young man, craving

Younger than my son

Shakes off the shavings

A bolder time begun

A gentle song, softer notes

Fall though a communal prayer

Sunlight floats on falling dust motes

Youths expectant, not scared to share

Ventures; stars fall

Over light crested peaks

“Lord you have seduced me

& I was seduced”

Quiet, stillness, silence jinxed

An identity parade of faces

A single eye that winks

“I am seduced”

from 

Looking Up The Hill :: Love To Make You Stand Back

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links

Row

Lavender fields steal away my resentment

Instead to reel off those whiled away hours

Wander among the rows of fragrant flowers

Shower the love as once the coastal towers

Powered another kind of intransigent war

Loss of love, touched along the shoreline 

Unable to handle that which turns sour

The smitten intellect weaves with power

Seeds planted in rough ground scoured

Refined; a clumsy, cluttered kind of core

from 

Looking Up The Hill :: Love To Make You Stand Back

Christopher's Poetry collections can be found on iTunes and on kindle by clicking the highlighted links