Speak

Blue cardigan
Self knit blue cardigan
Wants now of friendship
Wants no more of love

Stopped
On the studios stone stairway steps

I pull you towards me
Yet your faraway smile
Carries the unhappy light
Of certain disengagement

Speak
Of the surprises that silence supposes

I push you away
My immature mind
Finds the complicated
Too odd for contemplation

Slipped
Sidelined it seems, steered from sojourn

This is a poem from Filmic: Love of Our World of Purples & Blues

Available as ebook from Kindle or as a homemade print book, and audio cd from  poetryshop 

Goddam Those Good Time Friday Afternoons

Far and away from the hubble bubble

Distanced from the rubble of deserted rooms

Stir up the sunshine, unsettle the haze

Days that hover towards a lovers moon

Search out the twin propellors

Warm up the Plymouth gin

The sinful approach that  leads to a thin line

Of lost hope and mothers ruined

Flow under the skin

Injustices that feign to begin

Relentless within to stain times past

With times present acidic rain

Let the heron take the fish from the pond

Sing your song as he feasts

On your well stocked stock, he is not mocking you

Shocking that you should think such a libellous thing

This is a poem from Filmic: Love of Our World of Purples & Blues

Available as ebook from Kindle or as a homemade print book from  poetryshop 

Stuff & How to Get Shut of it

First you have to have been married and divorced twice, or at least to have fallen out (big time) from a serious long term relationship

Next you have to have retained (or found) your sense of humour, your love of life and your desire to have another crack at it

Then you must collect together all your self help books, especially those on personal psychology and any that use the word 'journey' - but keep the ones on sacrificial bonfires, they will come in very useful later

Now take a trip to IKEA, look carefully, and closely, at the machine made imitation wooden bookshelves; look again at the recycled cardboard organisation boxes, and then say to yourself (and to the whole store if you feel so inclined) "No I don't want any more of this stuff, no, no thank you!"

This is a poem from Filmic: Love of Our World of Purples & Blues

Available as ebook from Kindle or as a homemade print book from  poetryshop 

Worn Tracks

Dark outside

Friends, loved ones

Over land, under night sky

Pages turned, numbers dialled

Ease the throttle on imagination

Traces; worn tracks erased to dust

By bluebell skies the day after tomorrow

Sing on Joan Baez, sing of Diamonds & Rust

Faraway the closed caresses of sweet sorrow

Into the ether of spokesmen we no longer trust

Wait awhile

For the pain to subside

Blessed to be in this quiet

With a Cuban song in my ear

This is a poem from Filmic: Love of Our World of Purples & Blues

Available as ebook from Kindle
Or as a homemade book from  poetryshop 

Out of Sorts

Signs of civilisation

Open prawn sandwich

With a ginger dressing

Sunglasses on top of her head

Glasses perched on the end of his nose

He browses a quality broadsheet 

There are younger couples

And retired family groups

There are ladies who lunch

And me

Being someone 

That I'm not

This is a poem from Filmic: Love of Our World of Purples & Blues

Available as ebook from Kindle
Or as a homemade book from  poetryshop 

Denial

All but evaded

Out into the mist

Talk almost entirely absent

Lost is too strong a word

The need is for a weaker term

Denial, conscious or not

May be the root of it

This is a poem from Filmic: Love of Our World of Purples & Blues

Available as ebook from Kindle
Or as a homemade book from  poetryshop 

Seven + 1

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 dreamer

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 redeemer

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Thin On Whispers

In that time, of those raw views

Look hard to what you see

In this time, to stop your heart

Look long to those cold vistas

Hopes that stop

In lands that sleep

A life that's lost

Of prospects heat

Time that waits

For eyes to seek

Such turns that frost

Steals souls of speech

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Inching Towards The Meaning

The prospect

For we are all prospectors

Of the heart

Such a calamity 

For we all calamitous 

At the start

That I evade

For we are all evasive

As we begin to part

Anyway I am thinking

I am fearing of never seeing you again

Although I am knowing

That longing is only a thought of pain

The person

For we are all personalities

Prose or verse

The conversation

For we are all conversationalists

Better or worse

The emotion

For we are all emotional

Cure or curse

Afterwards, when the words had left me

Bound again for your thinking

In that time, knowing it became clear

That those words, are words for the seeing

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Search

That I could become

Contemplative and reclusive

From that you prevent me, or save me

However, the moods of the moment do take me

That I should go

Where my own thoughts doubt me

From there you shake me, not forsake me

However the moods of light, or dark, invade me

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Iron Scholes

With tacks on his lips

& a clog on the last

Lifetimes filled with memories

As you chose gloves

From your relatives past

The curve of the bend

At the top of the hill

Shoes to mend, bent over

I will him, ever to edge

Towards my cast

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Vales

In that rumbustious hour

Sat in a place founded

On vibrant mounds of desire

An engaging mind to scour

Thoughts gallop unbounded

Through vales of warm undulations

At one with the eternal flower of woman

All flights of fancy sensually resounded

Grounded, to find the definitive proclamations

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Questioning the Process

An ocean of rampant burning flames

Surging towards mountains & erupting volcanoes

This is the vibrant meditation, driven

An oscillation of madness before calm

Witnessed by the ringing, the constant racket

The head filled with nothing but echoes

Where in an instant peace may settle

Brought on, by the flowers watered fragrance

The day set out, with the hopes of her eternity

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

First Cigarette

It is that morning

One photograph

Makes me say

It’s Saturday

Time to start writing

To pour out the thoughts

Such as, with all the positive spin

You still find inherent negativity

If someone says: “you can be better”

Does it mean you aren’t already

I thought of how my friend

Spoke of his euphoric vacation

With his family from the past

I could use it, in such a story of the idyll

A spot to aim for if you are feeling down

Yet it is lost; it is gone, left purely as nostalgia

Though even to think of that nothingness

Knowing you never quite reached there

As you take a cup of tea to the bedroom

An offering, that might also disturb her

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Aloft

Light of lava lamp
Plucked strings of romantic lute
Know that sleep is some time away

Hold the sense of tranquility
Reach out to pasts and futures
Calm rivers to moonlit skies

Find that niche life of stabilisation
Offered with confidence to others
Cathartically through zillions of words

Take a mindful reconciliation
Bedevelled by that dash of colour
A reflection, of her once inferred beauty

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

All Sorts Besides Money

She has no need of work

No desire to earn or chase a score

She lives on Day-Glo placebo’s

& uptown chunky bores

She drinks the most expensive vino

& smokes silky, filter tip cigarettes

It’s not that she’s not with us

Rather that she’s loosened off her debts

She’s off to the Dominican republic

With her favourite of the season, he’s

Charted a yacht, setting sail at midnight

She, he says, is the only reason

She says that she will miss you

He says he will miss you too

She waves her swish goodbyes

He turns away, as her lovers often do

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Founded

Sure white

Poplin cotton shirt

Purposefully faded

Light blue denim jeans

Saturday morning

Strolling to the library

& looking back;

There was a certainty

How good it all felt

How right it all was

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Thurlestone Beach

For a moment I was on the seas edge

With no regrets on not venturing out

For with that brief image you carried me

I was taken, in sunshine and darkness

Besides calm waters, and wild oceans

With friends & family & lovers & children

I could tell you of one particular evening

Late at night, with my not yet teenage son

Throwing pebbles absently to a winters surf

That you might detect a sadness

Is neither fortunate nor unfortunate

Truth is what happens; that time happened

Now it is in two peoples

Direct memories

No more to it than that

That it can make those two people cry

Twenty-five years later

That is the thing of love

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Resolve

I am not so good at conversation

Thousands of hours, alone in my car

Have taught me only to listen

No clues about how to respond

You said my responses ended conversations

That though is a different skill

Learnt through business negotiations

Thousands of put downs; ideas crushed

Before they had a life to fly

With such darkness

Inherent in my veins

I have to relearn conversation

Become closer to being human

Would that you be would be there

Hitch me up when the rolling stops

Nudge me when the jukebox sticks

Persuade me with a smile and a hug

I will leave the car at home

Put on my walking shoes

& listen to you, while we’re strolling

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Communiqué

There was a speedy response

Be thankful for that

Don’t try to tear apart

Her every word

Don’t deconstruct the message

To find your own meaning

& next time

Besides saying thank you

Give something

Of yourself

Open a window

That her life might blow on in

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Before The Newness Wears Off

The light was way brighter earlier

I was encouraged to take my camera to the country

Yet the cold grey wind deterred me

How much easier to think of the past

Feelings from the warm sensations of previous lives

Comforted, inspired by thoughts that flutter

The dark beech hedge, television noise

Knocking on the door, shower water whistling

Nature & humans choices of disturbance

I am inclined towards a quieter picture

Without thoughts of turbulent advancing passions

Yet within I am quite out of control

Set upon by a Romanian philosopher

Lucian Blaga, who had penned a poem called Silence

Using those deeply wounding words of love

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Her 729th Re-evaluation

Sadness, yes she remembers sadness

Yet he was certainly becoming

She could have taken him

There & then & many times over

She wonders if he wonders

With matters such as this

Whether their time together

Ought to have been measured 

Recorded for posterity

Whether the whispers of that night

Should otherwise be saved

As her intimate recollection

Of their full on indisputable truth

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Duration

I was going to go away to write this letter

It is a letter I did not intend to send

My mistake, I thought things were getting better

A not unusual delusion; that life was on the mend

Dreaded thoughts of ultimate untimely conversation

I browse my way to some others Summit Ridge

Where the purest of snow, in waves is drifting

As I walk & hold the palisades of Valley’s Bridge

I see their smiles, toned by stone-cold, brazen bodies

Read too deep into their tales of fevered hearts

Remember, as beside you, I too once stood standing

Resolutely playing out those fearful downbeat parts

Within, the faint signs of settle-soft wishful feathers

No mind how the stories are swished to blend

Take it on my dearest; measure for measure

It is just a letter, a letter to a loving friend

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Some Determination

We walked up the hill together

It was a new hill for me

We talked of why not to get together

I spoke of why we should be together

I talked boldly of my past being in the past

I told of how my life was wasting away

Getting me down

Perhaps not the smartest choice of argument

To put a spotlight on ones ability to waste a life away

Now it appears to have been quite incredulous

Maybe desperation was at hand

There was a flower that I did not want to die

Yet this was the self-chosen victory 

I was absolutely in need of

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Complex Situation

Yesterday you said you were unloveable

The day when the hair shampoo squeezed easily out of its tube

& I heard the Japanese soprano sing Madame Butterfly

Today, the day after you said you were unloveable

The day when the hair conditioner squeezes uneasily out of its tube 

& I read Brendan Kennelly’s poems Tonight You Cry and Portrait

Yesterday, before you said you were unloveable

The day when the permed hair serum squeezed easily out of its tube

& I felt the joy in your voice, as we spoke on the telephone

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Reflection

There is light on the paper

Shostakovich on the stereo

I should be sad

It has been a sad day

There is sadness today

To many corners

Yet I have a warmth, a calm

Whose residence I honour

Without the doubt of question

If crying gives you peace

I see no shame in you crying

If hope means bended knees

I say fair game to you sighing

That I might share light on paper

Play music on a portable stereo

We could be sad

Make it a sadder day

Where we visit

All those sad corners

There to seek out warmth, find calm

Whose residence we both might honour

Without doubt to celebrate reconciliation

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Bouts

A meditative tune is worked by the piano; the backdrop is a damp northern street, lit by sodium lights at dusk

Caught again by the snow, as on that evening in the vicarage b&b, on the moors above Bradford

When the cold iron railings, and the barred gate, were our only forms of security

Slower times, sadder times, darker times, times more hopeless than we can care to imagine

As we broke bread, on that night, who could foretell that today we would tear at the last vestiges of our love

& when it comes to breakages, on this night of the broken coffee jar, there are further trails to follow

I am advised, thankfully, by both of those in this story; make it suit the two of you, go to neutral ground, be there for a few hours only

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Stability

I craved to be unable, without joy

Not to make the telephone call

Not to post the galleries post card

To think twice about the secret flight

To even believe that I could end it

Yet once sworn in, to the life of sin

I was ravished, I gravitated

To lies and deceit, all receipts

Carefully collected & then destroyed

I took the joy, yet craved to be unable

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Ebb

In a craft

A neglected rowing boat

On a tributary

A good way from the sea

He gives his arm

Steadies her uneasy step

From the shallow water

To climb aboard

Laying back

Taking time

Choosing to go nowhere

With this he is by her side

Twenty-five years later

A photograph

Reeds, and grasses

Grow out of salted water

He is in contemplation

She is placed elsewhere

Neglected, and then

Brought into recovery

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Procreate

Lovers in the summer

Parents in the spring

Father & Mother

Of the beautiful child

That summers bring

Sweetest of fruits

Wearing winters ring

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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

Harmonious (strikethrough)

Vacuous, then stunned, awoken

No care for the drumbeat or the piano roll

Broken thoughts, tokens of highland shelters

Where beauty & hardship pass their time together

As if the crime of this music is that it is as discordant

As the notes I make; taking the easy way out

Close down, go under the covers, retreat

Lost & beaten, no need to sweeten

Cut It - Love of Perfumed Grains of Dust

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