The Big Man

A serious splash

Talk of beached whales

& pools being instantly emptied

Firm disruptive strokes

Followed by the intense calm

Of a good body afloat

This poem is from the collection 

Far

There is a half moon

At halfway

Through the day

Or somewhere thereabouts

This poem is from the collection 

Poolside

The first swim of the day

My first swim of this vacation

The rubber duck thermometer

Is already at 27 degrees - centigrade that is

Terracotta tiles line the blue sky

This being the only horizon

Unless I include the waving pine

Whose needles fall, effortless, to the water

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A

The short grey-silver hair

Suggests a settled state

This stasis is further amplified

By a simple story

Of a farmer, telling this particular vegetarian, who helps him marshall his runaway cattle, that truly they are all family pets

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Brush

One draught of breeze

In its own slight time

Takes me sideways

Mind-move meander

At the pace of lightning

I will catch up later

In the stillness of dusk

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Handful of Love

Submissively steal

Through the plumped up

Silken clouded sky

Laid on layer

Upon layer

Of happenstance dreams

Rose-hips

Cherubs &

Bounties of plentiful beams

Sumptuous

The unbound fruits

Found by free roving hands

The seductress of youth

Lets all doubts of desire

Or distance be damned

Say what you will

With the quill as your pen

Ten-to-eleven your odds do extend

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Still The Empty Pages

Years, covered in a few nostalgic pages

Time, that passed almost unknowing

Sufficient still

To create a further invitation

There is time enough left

To rough out a few half worn pathways

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Leave

In place of daydreams I retire instead

To my recurring

Past caring obsession

Where roof tiles

Lillie-white roses & gazebo's are absent

Plentiful are the wages that protect my urges

Years of blues sustained

By the unlimited shades of blue

This poem is from the collection 

Involuntary Pomp

These words are my aromatherapy, the rhyme strategy, if such a thing should exist would be my massage oil; the open spaces where reader, and writer alike, are encouraged to wander... part of my clear hope for an entire lack of politicised commitment, & should form be used then it's shape and patterns would be my very blueprint, or touchstone for how I, or how anyone, might then become a constructor or alchemist, able to dream up their own healing potions... with such ideals I welcome the singular words of love or beauty to stand ten feet tall on the billboard, erect and firm as the forewords of poetry’s very own, imaginary instruction manual


A personal response to reading Adrienne Rich’s address on commitment, in the bathtub at the end of an exhausting vacation

This poem is from the collection 

Constructs

Put a fix on it
Work through the motives
Wake with names on your lips
Be engaged with the day
Take a positive fix

This poem is from the collection 

Ceremony

It is a place of shape and deportment; families of ancients, and families of now
The young Gatsby impersonator tells his grandpapa of the truth of his homosexuality.

There are sharp intakes of breath at the five sided table; that all those years of creating wealth should have come to this.

The ceremony is over; sharp suits, floral dresses, silks, satins and famously feathered hats make their way through the we have seen better days gardens

This poem is from the collection 

Set it up

Time out to time out

Spot the signs of wear and tear

Pick the pockets of the mind

Rally round the dancing bear

These are the ones

And twos in close collusion

In sharp contrast

To those who are not there

These guys eschew

The terms of confusion

All but bypass the ones

And twos who are not there

Time to time out of this time out

Collect the ticket, pay the fare

Share the dockets; to be so kind

Sally did not find her anger there

This poem is from the collection 

Time Off

Eyes closed

A body of messages

Form a disorderly queue

Interrupted

By a call from the hillside

A view of settled grass

Of the wide open moorland

Before the longer view, a more distant Tor

I bought a new watch

It acts as a reminder

Same make, similar model

Stainless steel strap, with inset gold plate

Saturday mornings did it for me then

As they do it for me now

How else to find the space

Time to agglomerate the pace

A place where vapour trails of memories

Can place me between the roof and the floor

Thrust me, hang me helpless, into the chasms

Of neither knowing, nor not ever understanding

This poem is from the collection 

Tackle

I wake so early

The stakes higher than before

This pattern called to break

For the sake of all, and evermore

This poem is from the collection 

Once more YKB

If the week could be longer

Strength of mind turned

By the fruits of our own design

As we walk the surf side line

If the bonds then stronger

Length of loss spurned

By the cuteness of our own time

As we talk the blue of Yves Klein

This poem is from the collection 

Tuesday Tea

Willow, water, reed

Feed into timelines

To tread back-along

Natural sounds (sheep, birds, bees)

Camouflage the road noise

Still the rumbles of the aircraft

Destined for those other places

I went there myself

It was a while ago

I am often reminded

She met me at the airport

She was happy

For she knew I wasn't straying

Destined for those other places

In those days I often took a cigarette

I would care for one now

If only for the memory, of deep inhalation

This poem is from the collection 

Gentleness

The kiss, love and care entwined

Thank you for being a poet

Or at any rate someone indefatigable enough

To read your own words for our neighbour & friend

The kiss, care with love enshrined

Thank you for being a person

Or at any rate someone, exceptionally

Understanding enough, to put up with the poet

This poem is from the collection 

La Corbière

Pulled by the spray plumes

Subsumed by the outcrop of rocks

A sound foundation for the lighthouse

I escaped here when the noise rose

Not as a perpetrator you understand 

Silent, non-committal, more my usual stance

Infinite skies atop the endless sea

Vast expanses, mystery aimed at, within and without

Room beyond reason for all of my doubts

I stood there

On the rough moorland grass

At the start of the track to the shoreline

From this safe distance 

I watched boys play in the pools

I had no need of engagement

An irregular rumble of the waves from France

Occasionally a flurry; with the rise and crash

As though over excitement was in the air

A sort of ‘new shoes and fancy hairdo for the party’

Type of mood, it often lifted me

Brought me, back home, to the new noise of life

This poem is from the collection 

Ownership

I was so very deeply hurt

Laid on the bed

At a loss

I stared out of the bay window

Into the infinite leafless tree

In the neighbours garden

Of course I left

Flight or flight; no contest

I convinced myself of the end

 

I returned later

But only to collect

My permanent possessions 

Yet I could not countenance

Taking away the poster

It was, after all, given as a gift

Prestigious; a limited edition

An individually signed copy

Bang on the money, as ever

This poem is from the collection 

Hold It Right There

Hard in the early evening

Stiff as the light lifted before dusk

Virulent as youth

He might have shifted had she not been

Rain lashes the Tarmac

Crows swoop low across the carriageway

The Severn is browner

Than the ploughed brown fields of autumn

Wagner turns triumphant

Relapses into one of his mellower moods

Worn out roads welcome me back to Yorkshire

Sodium lights sold short on their sense of purpose

What would Mr Hughes make of this

In his Barbour coat & deerstalker hat

A trudge to the drudgery

Or a walk by Wilberforce’s statue

This poem is from the collection 

Smooth Over

Floss ball of summer

Strands of evergreen

Swathes of pickpocket daisies

I would write a letter

Something about the roundness of love

About how profound it feels somehow

To look back from now

Free of pain and anguish

Full of the loss of longing

The longing that settled

Into a mind filled

Those days by treasure

Paths and trails of smitten tales

Leveraged by the faint lines

Of our past times together

This poem is from the collection 

Adonis

Sparkle of adornment

Mischievous smile

Free afternoons

Mile, after mile, after mile

This poem is from the collection 

Seed Change

To start again a life rotation
Cycles of learning and doing
The point of it all
To find a truer vocation

How important the location
Easy to say
Overlooking the sea
Taking leave, on vacation

This poem is from the collection 

Framed

Drawn in by a picture of you

Vermillion skies rage for two

Elemental minds seep on through

Drawn in by that picture of you

Dawn of night, it's twilight's clue

Evening primrose turned on two

Sedimental sighs weep askew

Dawn of night with silent dues

This poem is from the collection 

Bearing Gifts

Only me, the view and the squirrel

To think of you on your free day

How far from freedom will you be?

Caught up, in others negligence

This poem is from the collection 

Leaf by Name

In those branches I see my name

Those very same initials

As on the schoolboys satchel

That only-one nomenclature 

With which I sought out fame

Famous as a bright spark

Famous as a talented kid

Famous as a footballer

Who could hit the dustbin lid

Years have moved one

The breeze still waves the trees

As it did down by the stream

Trout tickled quiet under water

Grass marks on my knees

This poem is from the collection 

Diss

This stretch of anathema

Is as long, and as wide

As the boulevards of grace

It is an indirect virtue

Short on waste

I imagine it takes its queue

From my minds

Occasional sorrowful state

This poem is from the collection 

Tilt at True

If all I've seen

Was seen by you

What would that mean

On days I'm blue

If all those trips

Were then with you

It begins to seem

A shade undue

On a February night

3 years after 2002

I feigned to dream

Of separate clues

If all I've heard

Of stories told

The presence is there

Though passions cold

& the word is out

It's the word he loved

To be seen and heard

By the softer gloved

Under starlit skies

By mountains blue

To caress her soul

His sight askew

To praise her body

& intricate mind

To develop a crush

Such a thing of a kind

If all he'd seen

In that morning light

Was the flash of line

Infilled with slight

He could not let go

Driven by his own deceit

His urge arose, he ached

At large for the least receipt

In too deep

To see his rose

He grasped the petals

Tore at her clothes

The end had been

Exceptionally clear to view

What did it mean

As he wept, for love of blue

This poem is from the collection 

DOFP

You said you were unsure

About my motives

But took the doubts

To be all of your own making

Yet here, back in this locale

It is your name that enters my mind

As though the depth

Of deeper association could be denied

The trees are greener

Than ever I remember

And yes I do see you

And Pauline climbing high

In that beech

Or was it a sycamore

Downalong Broadwalk Boulevard

The sun is bright

Here before eight in the morning

As bright as that afternoon after class

As bright as many times

In that spring

And early summer

The doubts are always with me

They are a valuable source

For a writers inspiration

I am somewhat more settled now

But often write

On the future of past associations

This poem is from the collection