Vast Peace

There is time to be made
Slow time
For the writing, for the thinking
This room, in its quietness
Is the place, a place
With a view becoming
A gateway to joyful understanding
For out there all exists
Such that, life
Is open for interpretation

Also, before the window
An interior
A room for reflective monologue
Internal monoliths
Standing stones of thought
With occasional, or more often
Drifts on to the breeze
Just then, just there, you
To seize the auto-grandissement
Of little more than nothing at all


Available on Kindle

Theme For The Evening

Blue sky, blue sea, bold blue horizon; the plume of blue vapours as the aeroplane engines throb into blue motion.

The couple sat in front went straight into their blue bottled vodka, and those vintage crisps with salt wrapped in blue grease-paper

Oliver Reed stood up and began to tell a very blue story, his language blue in the extreme; yet just like lightning blue his mind whizzed along, as if he was Donald Campbell in his blue-streak, or was it blue-bird land-speed record breaking car

The blue suited stewardess asked Oliver to please sit down, in his blue velvet, first class, blue ribbon seat

We landed through the blue haze, over the azure blue sea; Oliver now fast asleep, occasionally twitching, as his blue-movie dreams came closer to life


Available on Kindle

Song For Joni (Mitchell)

You were my coldness
The reason for my old memories
You took me to the sea Blue
You took me to the sky Blue
Is that you swimming now
Wondering how
Skimming stones across the pond
Is it gone, are we saying so long
Cannot the coldness carry on
Are we afraid of loneliness
Might we not grow older together


Available on Kindle

Sunlight & Stream

I don't know where
I don't know why
Such big questions
Such vacant spaces

I was calm
I was quiet
Simply walking
In the wide-open places

I am here to write
I am here to reflect
But I eat cake
And I drink coffee

Yes there was somewhere
Yes there was a past
Yet I don't know where
And I don't honestly know why


Available on Kindle

Analysis

There is a difference
A succinct yet certain distance
Between that thought
Which you seek out to engage
And that other thought, which
Arrives entirely unannounced
A thought, which you have no
Choice, but to listen to

No amount of seeking
Will find this second instance
For it is not of your own making
It is formed by a hundred, or a
Thousand collisions, which all
Must collide at one and the same time

And from such preponderance
The magic dust will somehow be lifted
Lifted from the dust behind the doors
Lifted from the dust beneath the floors
The dust is lifted, before being sifted
Then gifted back to you, as
If it was the very thing you feared


Available on Kindle

Flower

Return home
To airborne scents of roses
Stand in that open space
Stand in that open warmth
Of the summer

Wonder, what is that perfume
On the English breeze
What is that peace
Of the blossom leaves waving


Available on Kindle

Psychology of Space

Am I still on retreat
I feel to have retreated
A good way already

Is it myself I have to meet
The I thus to be greeted
Greet one safe and steady

One more course of memories
One more Sunday of Sunday's

Soft thoughts of soft defeat
As I watch the Grand Prix racing
No need now for searching deep
Put simply; my life is even pacing

What is left is left to keep
Hold on without exasperation
With no hope for participation
The station now is the station when

That new platform can be constructed
That journey from here to cosmopolitan
From village and countryside to city centres
From home, to homage to mystery and myth

Occasionally with the partitioned silence
Occasionally with the extended peace
Some way to reflect the sounds of settlements
Or to find the passageways that go vice-versa


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Temptation

The pull of the pen
The pull of blank paper
A place to let the rage quieten
A place to let the love happen
How little I have travelled
How far I have travelled
Shallow is as shallow is
Let the cuts go deeper
Let the flames fly higher
Take the fear and the repulsion
Take the cure of the damned
Feel the blood, fizzle and crackle
Hear the head ring and rant
Scant reward for years of pummelling
Tunnelling for the known unknown
Scurrying from house to home
How far away is the slowing down
How far away the signs; what signs
What pictures am I to paint
What sketches am I to draw
What is this power of the pull
Such aches that fall onto the page
Sage of my life do not quieten
Love of my life pray make it happen


Available on Kindle

On Watching The Nine Muses (Part Two)

Your journey follows their journey, you too did not know where you were going
You did wet the bed (and in later years you urinated in the wardrobe); affected by those most afflicted, loved by those with most to lose
Yet the sunshine shone; laughter from the very soul of humans; smile at that first Ford Cortina
Say thanks to all who offered teachings; thank each one as each one equal:
The labourer, the tradesman, the foreman, the manager, the family, the muse, the lover, the you
Late nights, upstairs on the late night bus; fields and parks and dance-halls and bars and stars
Seas of the wildest water, mill ponds of the calmest calm; no harm to reminisce, nothing being lost through nostalgia
Kiss the Blarney Stone, kiss her just once around the corner; that bliss should find you scintillatingly present
Not misrepresenting hurt, nor hurt and hunger, not misrepresenting truth, nor truth and torture
Your journey, my journey, our journey, this journey; we do not know where we are going, yet
We do find our love in our lover's head, we do have the finest clothes, in the wardrobes of our minds


Available on Kindle

On Watching The Nine Muses (Part One)

Reach out for the shores
Reach out for the beating heart
Clear your eyes, have them sparkle
Wash away the tired halfway
Wash away the line walk
Let the tears well up
Let the tears break down
Touch what is untouchable
Settle for the hidden inner silence
For the first time be alone, be, alone
Alone that you are free to breathe
Alone that you are free to rejoice
Alone that you love the love around you
You are not tied, you never have been tied
Your tiredness is of too much making
Your tiredness is of too little looking
Work for the right to go on walking
Work for the slight self-assurance
Be reassured by the rambling
Lured by the everlasting lust of longing
Cured by the love that cares
Wayfarer dismount from this the final saddle


Available on Kindle

Look Around

You hang a leaf on the candlestick holder
You post post-it notes on our front door
The lights are on all year round
Including Christmas

Your friend rings
From France
I say yes, yes
We would love to go to Plum Village

You have been gone quite some time
The weather it is scorchio
I have come across limestone
In the trench that I am digging

You told me the painting was yours
Then you tell someone else it isn't
You said you liked the trench
But filled with Cotswold Stone

Not water
Your friend
The one who rang
Before the last one

Said we
Could go stay with her in Jersey
I ought to say I once constructed
A different kind of garden there


Available on Kindle

Distance

Vast landscape
Small room
(Not too small)
Lost detail
In the longer view
Lost pathways
In the smaller space
Eyes flicker
Eyes smile
Eyes light up
With the joy of life
Mountains and lakes
And dancing
Music and love
And chancing your arm
Mirrors of water
Lightness of sky
Hope in the water
Hope as we try


Available on Kindle

Ways of Lives

Sitting in the old croft house
With the Japanese girl
And her North-American friend

The peat fire is smoking
Maureen, or is it Morag
And Archie, or is it Angus
Sit in the chairs by the irons
By the kettles; by the teapots
The fiddle, the squeeze box
Are all ready for the playing

The peat fire is smoking
Wolfgang, or is it Hermann
And Desiderata, or is it Paris
Prayers pass through my mind
As the modern couple argue
Pontificating on the relative
Improvements to Black House housing

It isn't warm now, it wasn't warm then
It is raining in the month of June, and
We talk about a winter residency, indeed


Available on Kindle

Travellers

Innis & Gunn, Edinburgh, Scotland 

Patent leather shoes

Black is the seasons colour

Could I have another beer please

It was always going to be this way

Always that turn to self indulgence

Landscapes, seascapes, rock

Formations, rivers in full flow

Sparkling sunshine in the afternoon

Ok their dog chased the sheep

And they looked a rough sort

But hey, we are the visitors

His bald head, and long beard

Could be what attracted the spiky

Haired girl with tongue piercings; she

Wanted the hound, he had no control

It was always going to be this way

Always her need for complete devotion

Either that or not to care at all

For bright lights and fireworks

Jazz bands and ragamuffins

Candelabra and silver set earrings

Here and now he studies the hotel menu

Before speaking, speaking in a foreign accent

Available on Kindle

Still Life

That cow
The black one
With the white face
And the black eyes

I took its photograph
Fifteen minutes ago
Fifteen minutes before
I thought it a good pose

Now I begin to wonder
Has rigor-mortis set in
Or is this the present field
Of mindfulness meditations

Wait a moment, watch out
Observe the detail Christopher
Did it not just bend its head
In search of a mouthful of grass


Available on Kindle

Slipway

You came upon a skull
You washed it in the river
I took the photograph

I left the black stone
Which I had put down
So that I could capture
The waves breaking

This broke
My train of thought
I stumbled down the bank
For a while
The camera stopped working
It too was broken

The spillages
The displacements
The mispronounced words
The ill judged physical movements
They all happen now more often

Is it life speeding up
Or is it life slowing down
Is it the coincidence
Of speeding up
While trying to slow down
Is it, is it



Available on Kindle

Revellers

We shall leave this place tomorrow
Yet only today have I read the phrase
There are no signposts in the sea

For it is the vast sea that we look over
Save for a small uninhabited island
A minor distance from the shoreline

We may not be back, for it is rare
That we make second visits
Although...

The Americans sample whisky
With a confident smile, although this hides
The fact that they have not before heard of Advocat

A drink taken by both of our mothers
Some combination, mixed with lemonade
Snowball for celebrations around Christmas time

It is a blue sea tonight
With a blue sky overhead
Save for a few clouds so far away


Available on Kindle

Reference Points

The style is almost entirely interior
Or in the fabric and placement of the building
This is not the house of a gardener
Too much reliance on gravel and flagstones

But, as Kate points out, that clever
Extension of the side wall creates privacy
Hides us from the neighbours
(Although I think they are away in the tropics)

The wind whistles with a sustained gusto
I go outside to take a look
House-martins have messed on the door handle
Perhaps the owners could make a landing-tray

I take a couple of photographs
Grass and buttercups in the foreground
With a vast hillside (out of focus)
In the far far distance for background noise

One more bead of sweat, one more Saturday night
All the more reason then to cast back;
To remember similar times in Looe & Polperro

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Marketing Men

I saw the mountain, close up
You saw the sheep, ridiculed
I photographed the fine grass
Let's not forage too deep

No thread for crossing out
So soon to be trailing back
All joy at the beachside pass
Dutchmen shoring up the creek

One Alexandria on the wall
Two shadows out for a stroll
All in all it is a four-star class
That is, before President De Gaulle

There is some secrecy, or maybe
It is reserve, anyway to be
To fall into ones own thoughts, without
Need of lookouts or faint-heart vigilantes

Then of course to take that drink
The one that loosens, allowing
Flotations and serendipitous
Occurrences to mask the doubts

I did see the mountain, clear
You did see the sheep, advertising
We travelled this one way together
And together tonight we'll sleep


Available on Kindle

Love Letter In A Bottle

Bottle
Half filled with sand and seashells

Bottle
Half filled with air and
The scrolled up love letter
From the unknown soldier's lover

Black pudding
Black pudding and bacon
As the razor-light rays
Frisk the mornings horizon

Today we should have been sailing
Sailing in search of stories
And in February it rains, and rains
It rains, it rains, it is black, and it rains

I am sat
On a rather swish velvet corduroy settee
Beside a scale-model, and storyboard
Of the steam cruiser Atlantis

I recognise this buildings timber structure
It is a facsimile of my health club
Which burnt to the ground last winter
Let's hope we are safer tonight with Jack Harris

We talked about the idea of bottles
Bottles where people placed notes
Notes with song titles
Also with their own story, or love letter

The bottles would grow in a line
At each gathering we would open one bottle
Play the song on the stereo
And read out the long lost love-letter


Available on Kindle

Gathering Isolation

I cry these tears
Because we didn't sit together
Through too many absent years

We cast our hearts on leather
Forging those separate minimal paths
How often we didn't hear each other's words

You close the door behind you
A calm descends
In that instant instant

I want the one leaf
I want the one tree
I want the one pebble on the beach

In that sense I suppose
You could call me
An isolationist

While for you
I would have to say
A gatherer

A gatherer of driftwood
A gatherer of lost souls
Such as I once was


Available on Kindle

Exposure

Just then
I was living in the past
Writing words to remember
That early summer afternoon

On vacation;
Still working you see
Yes;
Still time to make memories

I read so that I might write
Lucky a writer's policy of
Self delusion are limitless'
I write so that I might read

A writer let loose under the sheets
So to speak, no endgame in mind
Exclusive, intimate, brevity of joy
Sat together in the sauna

I was entirely naked
Your breasts
Your bare breasts
Enticing, alluring, joyful

Just then
I was living in the present
Thinking of words to remember
On that late afternoon in summer

Available on Kindle

Beautiful and Daft

A world of beautiful stuff
Beautiful stuff and daft stuff
Beautiful stuff; daft stuff

With Kate in our own
Private sauna at Bothy No.7
Naked and perspiring

Beautiful stuff

An email, from our friend John
Who says he has lost his wife Kathy
Could Kate do the funeral

Daft stuff

Watching the Libertines
Thanks to BBC IPlayer
Last night at Glastonbury

Beautiful stuff

News headlines
Which pronounce that
'Most of the dead in Tunisia
Are British'

Daft stuff

John; we send our love
Beautiful stuff and daft stuff
Beautiful stuff; daft stuff
Sometimes the words have to stop


Available on Kindle

Already Day

It was light already
Although the light
Would brighten up

I felt good already
Although the goodness
Would it continue

I heard the rain
Pouring down the drainpipe
Away into the sedge-lands

I heard the mind tinker
Calling to my soul
Are you beside me

I flicked the switches
First for the kettle
Then for the sauna bath

I flicked the sweat
Swiftly from my forehead
Am I more, am I less

It was morning already
Although the rest of the day
Was still so far ahead



Available on Kindle

Temples And Greenhouses

Of course there are passions
Some days the blood courses, shooting
Rapidly through my ageing veins
On its erstwhile amorous mission
Soon I will move into the temple
Try to learn or understand
The significance of the decoration
Study the gold leaf deeper
As if I might be more indulged
By the incidental passions
You travel with me most places
Today is no way different
As I sit beside the flaming roses
To write, then maybe post
Another self-exploratory note
Another self-explanation postcard
The gathered crowd disperses
I will make my own quiet entrance
Although first an aide-memoir
Remember to look up the name
Of that bridge in Venice
The breeze turns over the page
The weather turned out ok actually
Soon we will have completed
One half of our prescribed teachings
One part-set, of our insight-meditations

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Shoeing

As if on the last
As if on the line
No thought to surpass
Except of one of a kind

As if by the field
As if by the plough
Never a difficult yield
Except of one in the mind

As if on the road
As if to follow the sign
No experience to broach
Except of one rather benign

As if at the turn
As if all reason to mine
Shadows which lean to learn
As desire, of struggles to define

As if out of the tunnel
As if on to the final design
We darken the funnel
Fearful; of the mindless and blind

Available on Kindle

Otherness

Insufficient sounds
Voices as a racket
Hatches of tired imaginations
Fascinated by the newness
Bagging all of the beauty

How easily the mood changes
One more moment of walking
This time for the real one
This time without improvisation
A total absence of creation

Insufficient bounds
Sailing upon steam-packets
Catches of breath's paginations
Animated by the shrewd
Nagging to undo

How much harder; doubt
Dulls the thoughts now aged
This time for the real one
This time without a guide
To the left-field of light

Available on Kindle

Once One by One

I wrote of the moment
I could think of nothing better
To set out the good times
And mail you the letter

I wrote of the fountains
And the rampant sea breezes
I wrote of the ramble
And your ever loving squeezes

I looked through the doorway
Onto a mirror of light
I looked to the floor-way
And remembered what might

I heard the birds chatter
As if by the shielings
Love is that fact of matter
Beside the potato peelings

Today I hope
You care for the letter
My heart hoped yesterday
Je ne regrettez

Available on Kindle

Down The Garden (Sunday Morning)

Enough distance to give distance
Enough wind to ruffle the sea
Enough willow to still the mind

Looking out on bending grass
Looking out on those breaking free
Looking out on sunlight & shadow

The mind is heavy
The body is heavy
The soul can't quite steady itself

There is bird noise
In and among the birdsong
There is physical discomfort
Astride the comfort of the pen

Heaven knows so few clouds
Across the blue sky
Heaven knows so proud
Just to settle down

Available on Kindle