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The cloth is cut
By a utilitarian

Breakfast cooked
By a journeyman

Out of the window
A dual-carriageway

Where are the songs
& the time to play

So contrived; the roll
Of out of focus flowers

On the bedroom wall
Hinting at a quieter hour

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Vagaries

Her physical size

In the apparition

Brings a comfort

Also her just ease

At following, ever

So slightly behind

As you, somewhat 

More pronounced

Opened your heart

And the three of us

Strode out, off into

The full day’s sun

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Gloss

There was a photograph

Of the Italian restaurant

At the cross roads of Regents Street and Piccadilly

There was a photograph

Of the red lighthouse

Where we listened to the historian & film maker

These are in a magazine

Issued free to hotel guests

Partly to celebrate the area, also so that travellers 

May feel more at home in their retereat surroundings

We had eaten in the very same San Carlo Cicchetti

It was the occasion of my sixty-first birthday

We drank a glass of forty-nine pounds a bottle Barolo wine

Passed on a taste of our dish, to the Irish American travellers

We had met the historian and film maker by that red

Lighthouse, near the wobbly statues at South Shields

We were n our way to the Hebridean Isles via Sunderland

Edinburgh, Findhorn and Ullapool; he gave me a business card

Such that memories are remembered, in half-empty

Hotel rooms; such that triggers are triggered again

Wherever and whenever the sun goes down

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Ripon 9:30

I was brought here by the silence

Although there is more to it than that

For I may bring other friends with me

That they might share the place I’m at

I am dusted by the heavy reverence

Also freed, by the gentler platitudes

I take in the flower arrangements

They beautify, they ask me to include

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Love & War

I never fought a soldier’s war

Neither did I face the insurgent’s gun

But I have been ever so deeply lost with love

I’ve wept tears, as of death, beneath endless suns

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Inside Here is The Song

Words give me the distance, the safety of abstraction

To be physically close would set off again the explosions, as when one flake of snow institutes the avalanche.

You are hundreds of miles away, far from these grey, grey skies; it is as if the beaches, the seas, the sands, the blue skies, the vast horizons are now just in dreams.

I will sit quietly to reflect, somewhere to find a small pasture. The tears are dry, just like the trees that struggle for leaf, they also are pitiful for exposure.

In this imaginary way I can place you, place you where I choose to, or where I wish to place you. In this sadness (but still at play) I can wish you the best of wishes.

I am being drawn, to the city, where we stayed and went on night-time ghoulish walks. The dull ache increases with intensity. I wonder about all the times that I escaped. 

Five trees, bare of leaf; crescents set against the silver-white, sky-blue sky, beside the military airport from where young soldiers fly.

All is introspective, all is undecided; is it that, which I search myself? I search myself for my self; without going on the motorcycle journey, without climbing to the tops of the Monroe's or the higher mountains.

I am here to say I love you, I know you are where you are, but I am here, here to say I love you

I could say that I have loved you, to say it was the past, but the truth is, my truth at any rate, is that love doesn’t go away. I am here to say I love you.

It isn’t that I don’t want to be with you, but it is safer, to be here, to be here and able to say I love you.

It isn’t that I don’t want to sleep with you; to feel your warmth, to taste your lips, to fumble with your silk perfumed negligée. It’s just safer to say those things from here, here; the place where I safely can say I love you.

Each connection has all the pain and heartache of disconnection, each new trial of reconnection is a blindness that madly finds me.

It’s not that I don’t want you to find me, but it’s safer, for everyone, if you don’t start looking. It’s not that I’m trying to remind you, its just that I’m safer, safer here, here to say I love you.

You may be with a new lover, I will try to not let that disturb me, but it’s another sound reason why it’s safer to be here, here, in this place where I safely can say I love you.

I too am with another; I love her and she loves me, it’s better that way, it’s how I’d like it to stay, another reason to stay here, so that I can say, safely, here I am, safe to sing, I’m still in love with you.

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Uncertainties

I was angry

Before I was angry at myself

Then I was more than annoyed

At my own mistake

I went for a drive

Partly to calm down

Partly to reconnoitre 

For the following morning

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Essex and Suffolk

Nothing more than the sunrise

& the sundown & the words

Of the earth and heaven between

Except that life is a bit more complicated

Already two hundred miles from home &

A further stretch to drive this evening

There is a strong sun, in a clear blue sky

The roads are already heavy with traffic

I will do a days work,  & then go to join them

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Meal Out

It is a room of archways

Circular details, rectangular

Mirrors & windows

It is a space with chandeliers

In line with the sea, lights

Perpendicular to the horizon

It is a floor, whose boards

Run diagonal to the walls

With wood-pattern frames

It is a roof, also forestation

Hexagonal and triangular

Patterns, of polished veneer

It is one person

Sat at a table for two

Hesitating for the next word

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Gourmet & Light

I like the crispy duck

Because I like the crispy duck

I am here alone

Why else would I like the duck

I am looking forward to the chow-mien

Because I can try to use chopsticks

I am here alone

Why wouldn’t I try something new

I thought I might watch the day disappear

Because of being on the cusp

I am here alone

Why not enjoy the mysteries of dusk

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Workday

The five bar gate leans out and over

Pulling at the barbed wire fence; these

Are the big fields, of Norfolk & Suffolk

A lament plays on the car stereo

Good times appear to be on the water

Where was I five minutes ago

I didn’t then know

Of the garden centre cafe

And the rows and rows of weedkiller

This restaurant I have been to before

But not alone, not alone in the early evening

Before the jovial ‘out for a good time’ diners arrive

I wonder at the decor, it’s neat, professional

The whole place sparkles and appears well run

Unlike the downbeat town where I fear to walk

Yet what connects me to the orient; I have never 

Been there, I never really desired to; yet I’m eating

A chow-mien duck special, and reading Murakami

Becoming immersed in his hyper realisations

Joining him in streets, on trains, in temples

Thats as close as I’ve been; yet I’m almost ahead

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Channel

Maybe, maybe, maybe

Anyway 

The Island

Light

And sky and sea 

And my not being a writer

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Edmund

Maybe if she hadn’t given me that book

Or if I hadn’t read my first gay novel

Either way it was too late, we were on

The island; we would continue our search

I have spoken before of red telephone boxes

With stolen conversations - remember Calvino

& of course, when she won the competition

I was doubtless going to be going there with her

The boy will be given the gift, he almost already has

Though she may not, be given to know of the present

Or of the tracks that he finds, on the cities outskirts

Which may be transplanted, without tying him down

My clothes feel soft again, though I’m not in stripes

My hair is flattered, by the perm, turning to silver

I have left, moved away from the less of conversation

To become a spy; an intermittent traveller, a writer

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

The Gift, to Oneself, of An Island

I was surprised, to find a moorland heath

In sight of the sea, but I was, in that current

Mood, much open to the joy of your surprises

I was wearing a soft shirt; broad stripes

Of silvery grey and silvery green, the sun

Flattered my hair, it shone in the photograph

I had read Mr Pye and was set ready for discovery

I had recovered, settled myself to find a peace here

By the sound and the movement of the horse & cart

One can become very light indeed, in meditations

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Spinning

It is the quiet

The dry tears of absence

The heartfelt, scoured for words

That move nothing closer to nothing

The magnolia wall

Is within touching distance

I remember the bowl of pebbles

The tools of tried & failed reconciliations

Today; wind down the chimney

Work on the printer

The desire, o what desire

To be alone, on ones own

The bookshelves sorted

One hundred and fifty

Volumes of poet’s poetry

Most with a tear for my eye

It is this half-silence

The washing-machine of presence

The close-felt, scoured for clothes

That keep nothing further from nothing

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Break in Service

A camper, or a canal boat, or a caravan

To go places in confined spaces

Finding out, just who on earth I am

An iPod, or a laptop, or a roaming internet plan

To write letters to my so-called betters

Pointing out, the beauty wherever I can

Usherettes & launderettes & Kingdoms of Bhutan

To refresh our vests, and impress the rest

I hoped you’d halfway understand

That there is a decorum, a standard for this man

Who missed the introduction to love, but

Who tries to make up, to head off the lifetime ban

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Trickling Brook

Is it, that I’ve missed you, or

That I’ve nothing else to write

Is it, that I kissed you, yes, on

That moonlit midsummer night

Is it, as I’ve often insisted, or, that

The darkness should follow the light

Is it, that you resisted, yes, on

That chance meeting of second sight

Is it, that I tricked you, or, that already 

I was outbound, mind & body in flight

Is it, you the calm, cool, critic, yes, on

The explanation of what is & isn’t right

Is it that on looking back, or, that

In search of your once elusive slight

Is it, you of the distant missive, yes, on

That cloud of effervescent, silver-white

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Eight Lines & Spent

Four, four line verses; five tablets, morning 

& night; wilful, reckless with explorations

Sensations that I neither describe nor capture

Fractured segments from a life regimented

To exposure; the disclosure both fast and free

With loose associations: walks by seas & oceans

Motions in search of beauty’s seeds of procreation

Thighs in that heavenly place, between her knees

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Costa

I have found a place by the entrance
A good draught blows over my shoulder
The cake is Granola, yet
I am still embraced by Yorkshire air

Your jeans may also be tattered at the
Bottoms; we are all getting older
I will buy the crayfish & rocket
For high tea in my hotel room

This part of my lifetime, spent
In cafes, hotels and service-stations
Contributed to my downfall, in matters
Of health, and in affairs of the heart

In recompense it now offers me my writing
The opportunity to observe, the chance
To sip my coffee more slowly; I am
In no hurry, do not rush to reply

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Balcony

I have moved
Into the outdoor sunlight
There is a pleasantly cool breeze
School children gather on the grass

I have a view
A tree covered in catkins
Taut wires
That act as a barrier

I can hear the wagons, or
Maybe they are tractors
Moving up the hill
Out of my line of sight

The young teachers eat cake
Already they look dismayed
At the prospect of a lifetime
Of saying don’t do that

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Prophetic

There is light

From the blue sky

There is evidence of love

In your text message

I have noise & disturbance

It is being human

With a history

Piled up behind me

We could be on the sands

With wind in our hair

Sharing the love

That nature gives us

I have words

That won’t stop pouring

It is being human

With a future ahead

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Party Time

She had a good figure, precociously attractive 

Her clinging dress cut to show off her her thigh, to declare her bare and beautiful skin open for business

The man, a roughish sort, was bewitched, he clawed at her shoulders, writhed and wrapped his arms around her waist

Another woman, most certainly a woman, gyrated provocatively in front of her silver-haired, dapper, partner; she had the madness of passion in her dancing eyes, her movements had all the makings of a fertility ritual

The smartly dressed man had worked for forty-two years in the same factory, followed by another ten at the service of a global manufacturing industrialist; he was in the company of those who knew him, he stood by those who loved him

The women, and the words, could be from those back copies of Men Only, that he kept, hidden from his mother, inside his record player

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Freesias in the Grasses

It’s not that I want you for myself, or that I don’t want you to be held by another

Though when I saw the photograph entitled Magic Garden I sort of hoped it could have been yours

That you would be there, barefoot in the early morning sun

That one afternoon, some time ago, you would have danced free, and scattered the wild flower seeds

Of course a certain part of me still hopes that you reflect well on our time together

Even though our cottage plot did not have time to bloom, before we had to leave

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Driven

I write
To say
That I am attracted

Yet
In truth
Your infinite magnetism

Wrenches
At my
Molten core

I write
To say
That I am swayed

Yet
In truth
Your uninhabited distraction

Calls me
To the Mount
Of Evermore

I am drunk
Although
Not by alcohol

I am drugged
Although
Not by illicit narcotics

I am crazy
Although
Not by illness fever

I move towards that place
Where no-one
Will love me

Bounded
By doubt, that
Someone else is rocking

Lost
In head
& heart & soul

I fear
Irresponsibility
Locking itself down within me

All that I have been
I am
Again becoming

All that I have seen
Hey, listen to the
Spanish guitars strumming

The warmth
The light
The incidence of fright

In the sweated nights
Of imaginary
Loving

It is as if
With a thousand lashes
I desire to go self beating

It is as if
All my previous shallowness
Is seeking a way out

My shallowness
My years of self deceiving
Are pleading for a way out

I won’t keep you at bay
As, I thought, you
Kept me at bay

Over all those mountains
Of forgiveness
I will forgive you

Yet it’s true
That I could not
Share you

& it’s true
That the truth
Will still be true

I dare not think
Of a time together
Never in my mind

Have I had
So many things
To try undo

Wherever then
You seek total commitment
I will be on the sidelines

Some intermittent thankful recipient
Of the incremental rites
Inside the human zoo

Such small crumbs
Are all I need
To continue my journey

Small crumbs
To encourage me
To be on my way

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

400? Moi?

Rooms with left open doors

Moonlight, on stretches of night

Soft mists that wash the sky

She remembers: curved arches

A rougher alabaster, the print of 

A Girl with Pearl Earring

It was in Amsterdam

That she bought the notebook

Their parting then, ever more painful

Pages; torn out, torn to hold

To hold, with thoughtful hands

Tears withheld from her unsafe eyes

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Onzekerheden

Nearer to the hurt

Further from the ache

Leave the time to suit

Of patience still to wait

Beyond the mirrored view

Into the smoke and mist

To sit beneath the window

Ease into the drift

In the instant's instant

Sounds, near and far away

Love of all that’s distant

She feel’s though to say

Nearer to the hurt

Further from the ache

Leave the time to suit

Of patience still to wait

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Sexton’s Beast

You gave me something to chase

You bore our child, from a cottage

With a lane down to the sea

If sex is the physical, thank fuck

That we fucked

Yet it’s still the residual that holds me

Unfolds my weaknesses by the shore

Ever to the open door, deploring

My absent moods, how I did brood

The interlude wasn’t seen, a mean

Head for the silver screen, lay back

& be led; be led, let it be said

You gave me something to chase

Your roar along the promenade

A race with indiscriminate pleas

If lust is the miracle, good luck

That we looked

Yet it’s still the indivisible that holds me

Withholds my meekness evermore

Never to restore, scoring

My reticent grooves; how I moved

The certitude isn’t clean, a dream

Stead for the sepia sheen, stay back

That I may be led; be led, let it be said

A poem written after reading Anne Sexton’s poem The Beast

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Pictures

Entente Cordiale

A sort of dialogue is begun

Backslapping, thin & light

Yet a beginning for all of that

The programme is installing

With what hopes

That the photographs

May be recovered

The database is upgrading

A peace of love

Such fleeting, moving stillness

That brings a facial likeness

To the new morning

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Strike Back

In this early hour

Woken by the dawn’s chorus

I feel a lightness

Love comes from many places

I am fond of written words

Yet respect the view

That they are a departure

With the dishonesty

Of being quietly considered

Not spoken, in the rush

Of conversation; their

Stillness hides the passions

That might erupt, which

Have erupted in the past

Slower words are a safer haven

Yet still so full of absoluteness

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Unjust

His body was bruised, and distorted

His friend took back the large, green

Two-hundred and fifty pound note

That he was about to lend him

I was in questioning mode

Already though I had condemned him

He didn’t look good

I didn’t feel good

This is how a father dreams

Of his son

After reading the first chapter

Of A Road Less Travelled

For I did abandon him

I was short on love in his direction

& now I don’t know where to start

To make things any better

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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