Summer Shade Summer Sun

The sun is up the breeze is breathlessly calm
The sky is blue the birdsong it does no harm
Where the trees will grow there are single sticks
Pegs in the ground to line up the view of 2026

Next doors wisteria is hanging rather grand
Half in shade and half well I'll be damned
It looks just like the one we planted back-along
Crawling through the bower we threaded it on

The pampas grass suffered in a winter so rough
Yet its fresh shoots show how it is quite tough
You said to thin out or cut back the apple tree
I said only with you there for it's dangerous you see

The roses and the peonies they're both in bloom that one
From the garden centre on my way from my students room
The washing line contraption like your friends it's so bloody
Difficult to open how on earth might I ever make amends

There's fences there's hedges there's a clay tiled roof
There's a poet in the garden he often sits somewhat aloof
Watching the butterflies and their moving shadows of truth
A northern boy he's happy to rhyme shadder with gladder

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Ironing

We are going on vacation soon
I have to pack my bags on Sunday
I've been busy washing
Now there's stuff to iron
There's ironing all around the room

Blue denim jeans to go with white cotton shirts
Stiff single collars
With Charles Tyrwhitt's stamped metal inserts
The Levi's hems are fraying
Also on the pocket and up by the crotch

Wear is clearly on display
A dark blue top to go with the indigo corduroys
Soft merino wool for a would-be compassionate boy
The cords are from M&S their very best line
I should look good hopefully I will feel refined

Thick and thin socks and underwear of various kinds
Boxers and trunks from silks towards the sublime
Also the ones you wear when you stand in line
There's checks and there's plains and those without taste
Presents and purchases gifts perhaps chosen in haste

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Shedding

You do not need to worry if indeed worry you might I am not going to forget about you rather I am intending to shed light on all what you have gifted me into a new work

Indeed I hope to shed all that life has gifted me thus far into a search for soul a search to enrich in a non-religious way my thoughts on spirituality

I feel to be commencing this work from a good place I am in good health I am of sound mind I have a job which does not tire me unduly and which leaves me with sufficient time to contemplate to think and even on occasions to write

I am certain that I am sufficiently unaffected by religion for religion to affect me yet I am equally sure that I do not carry the bias of a zealot which might similarly taint what I would hope will be a balanced though still hopefully inspirational story

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Thoroughfare

I was driving home from my work it was mid-afternoon on a grey sky day in late May I was listening to Willie Nelson's fine album Spirit

I began to have great empathy with this singer-songwriters songs of failed and ended relationships also of relationships broken and restated

I felt a need to write some words myself so I turned off the main road down a country lane named Thoroughfare after about a mile or so I pulled onto the grass verge this was farming country fields and fields and yet more fields

I wrote of misunderstandings serious misunderstandings with  disinfected understatements I wrote from often mistaken memories I wrote of love of joy of deep ache and undoubtedly I wrote pulled back from the grip of pain

I wrote because I felt I needed to as though Willie Nelson's songs which I know you cared for had opened up my long closed heart

I worked up four verses with a deal of repetition a great deal of repetition based on the workings of yet more repetition before I moved on to reputation our reputation and our love

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Light

There is a place I think Leonhard Cohen sang about it
There is a place where the light gets in

The watch says that it is between 5:30 and 6:00AM I should still be sleeping I had closed all the doors I had drawn all the curtains I had turned off all the electrical illumination I had done all that I could to create a blackout

It's hard to say what first woke me I had been dreaming that I was a compère in a small club introducing a group of young musicians who had gone off into the bar next door while their mums and dads shuffled well late first through the iron gates and then on into the clubroom

The dream had lots going on including my microphone not working which maybe broke my sleep that and the pinhead of light entering through the keyhole that and the daylight which worked its way into and through the muslin and the cotton hung up at the windows

That and the light-stream which travelled from the Velux in the bathroom ceiling through the door opened due to a call of nature that and the light in my mind the light the light which always does in that place get in

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Pilgrimage

On this day on another day
To this place to another place
A desert of a distraction such that I might hide away
A reason or force for subtraction to end or to begin my stay
Purposeful strides to the inside space for looking out
I slide by the Henry Moore decide to keep that photograph
Laugh out loud how the long walk clouded your vision
How the decision to come on foot from your mothers
It was a thing your brothers found hard to believe
But believe me you were one of the first
Your thirst for expanding your horizons caused you to burst
Upon this space with your anger and your rage and your love

Yes above all love that final shove the push
Which pushed you out of your uncomfortable comfort zone
That desire to roam to leave your home of half a life
To leave your wife and your children willed to find
With unfulfilled haste that chase to expel the waste
Of simply trundling on your own pace now unrelenting
The obsession presenting itself at each and every turn
Yet yes yet yes yet what did you learn
Whose favours did you earn
How did you learn to churn to burn the past
Faster yes way faster than the last time
Faster than the words you learnt to mime

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Estuary

We travelled across the low bridge the one of many arches to reach the car park of the Ebb Tide public house

The sun was up but the day was still yet young you wore a white cotton blouse which gifted to me a thinly veiled view of your belly and your breasts it was a temptation not to be missed

We waded out to the small rowing boat the water was cool but clear something else somewhat inviting my jeans became soaked up to the knees I didn't mind I had no reason to complain our day was going well

The hem of your short pleated skirt bobbed just above the water the salt lines on your suntanned thighs showed the high tides water mark

I climbed aboard first then held your hand as you joined me on the simple cross-seat I put my arm over and around your shoulder you smiled then kissed me on the lips

The relative calm of the still water was broken ever so slightly by the movement of our oars yet soon we were a good distance from the shoreline forever entering deeper waters

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Consciousness

I was not happy when I was picking potatoes it was autumn it was cold it was raining my wellingtons were covered in mud my hands were covered in mud and when I washed my hands under the hot tap my fingers suffered from hot-aches

All of these recollected feelings as well as some that I have doubtless forgotten conspire to convince me that I was not happy when I was picking potatoes

I was happy laying out on the grass it was spring it was dry it was warm there was sunshine and the nearness of the sea I was wearing one of my favourite shirts a soft fabric with quite wide stripes of green and silver

I have a photograph somewhere of this occasion and thanks to the feelings which I can remember and those that have slipped my mind or for some unknown reason I have excluded combine to convince me that yes I was happy laying out on the grass

Somewhere sometime between the being happy and the being unhappy I have sought out the joy and the solace of pen and paper I am reminded to do so again now as I watch Carl Jung's The World Within In His Own Words

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Meditations

Already the download is begun
Instructions on being comfortable and settled
Outside the sky is blue the birds sing
Yesterday there was work in the garden

A space to sit a place to contemplate
A privacy to look out on the wonderment
To view the ordinary and the extra-ordinary
Accomplishments of mankind and nature

I will need to find a chair or chairs
Perhaps a writing table with a bowl of pebbles
I have identified two or three trees
Which I feel might enhance the situation

Right now I am so happy not to be working
Although I have ironed some trousers
And cooked breakfast and posted poetry
On my websites I have shared my self

And now I am preparing for Thursday's
Meditation sampler in The Old Stables
I would like to include Sharon Salzberg's
Tea Meditation though we have no tea set

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Emancipated

The good weather is good
Low pressure thousands of miles away
Brings an absolute calm
Even the birdsong carries reverence

The blossom is full right now
Days ahead of silent nervous waiting
For the winds to pick up
For the rainstorms to come hither flourishing

Pinks and crimsons and greens
Of lime and grass and silk-satin cushions
I am in no rush to get there
To the withering to the certain decay

I have a locket with a picture of the day
That first day when we cut back on food
Not then out of financial necessity
That though as a matter of course came later

Accompanying the substantial withdrawal
Marshalled by the silence and the shadows
Governed by the longtime mute ex-mistress
Who now you see barely clings on

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Warm Air

From the washing machine to the Brabantia
Washed and spun blue jeans
Solid years of solid substantia

Abstinence keeps the hangover at bay
Yet not a day goes by
The drift the mirage the ghost of abstentia

The blossom bouncing the birds chirping
The writer at his ease at his writing
He collects the dust he throws the confetti

And the blackbird runs do blackbirds run
This blackbird runs across the cedar shingle tiles
Runs right up to the edge right up to the very ledge

And he can't help but thinking
Is she wasting away will she soon
Be no more than the bones of a lived life

And he can't help himself but to write about
The doubt the depth the chill the fret
The sweat beads of improbable deferentia

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Nettle

Nettle patch a fractious square
Of not to fall of not a good place to roll
Lift the latch the iron catch of the back door
Step out skip off the stone floor imprisoned no more

Run across the yard sprint across the yard
Instinctively open the five-bar gate wait
Look across at the hens and the sycamore tree
Turn and trip slip into the edge of the field

Yield yourself to the sting bring tears to your eyes
Despise that odd-shaped misplaced stone go home
To the dock-leaf cure be sure to rub long and hard
Cards on the table you had been a naughty boy

The joy of the morning all taken the early awakening
No longer now special the feral life
Is not for everyone the love is going the love
Is gone shone out onto someone other

An older or a younger brother or your mother
Or a lover such things as you did not yet know about
The shout to stop you screaming the dream
That life could ever be so innocent

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Downs

Calm ground unfurled unflustered
Ready for the sway
Ready for the days of the circus
And the canvas tents

As sent with the sun of spring and summer
After the days of lent and winter
And the autumn of dark dingy
And mild discontent until the moon

And the stars flickered the bickering
Household left behind the drive
And the walk to remind one
Of the chalk faces the places

Where to wander and talk to softly
Joke of never having been anywhere
Quite so peaceful so solid so steady
Ready for our footsteps for our breath

The depth of despair beware here
You are no match for this immanence
Your belligerence falls four-square on the floor
The door to earthly paradise is you see open

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On The Beach

All alone with a pebble with a stone
With a cobweb in my head
Throw the stone skim the pebble
Don't you be led by the cobwebs in your head

Morning to afternoon to evening to night
With a rattle-bag for a mind
Dance in the morning kiss in the night
Don't you be unkind to your rattle-bag of a mind

All alone except for one other one other one
With such thoughts of love
Hold onto one other hold one other one
For all above carries such thoughts of love

Light to dark to peace to calm
With a nod to contemplation
Settle into the light edge into the calm
For all in love are due a time for contemplation

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Dusted Reflection

I know that you know that I know
That they are only flowers in a vase
Reflected in the dusty glass
Of the wood-burner

You know that I know that you know
That we don't light fires in April
Although it Sometime Snows in April
If you remember from the song or the film

Here now laying on the Axminster & Wilton
To take the matching photograph
I am limited then limited again
By what little my eyes see

We know you and I we know don't we
That there is more to this scene
Than flowers (carnations) in a vase
Reflected in glass which needs cleaning

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