Breakout (Without Breakthrough)

Everywhere there is beauty

Then, from time to time

One steps into a quiet place

Where the light shines less brightly

Of course, by now

I choose not, that is, not on purpose

To visit the darkness too too often

But you know, love, love will have its way

Just as the moss grows

On the tarmacadam path

And the discarded leaves rot

Beside the forsaken branches

Could I just say, that there is room for two

On this fine, and sturdy, bench

Constructed from concrete and oak

Fixed to the floor with galvanised brackets

You may sit here, to listen to the river

Also to absorb the aircraft noise from overhead

Which may once well have transported you

Back to the place of your birth

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Rub Of The Green (Without Calling Time)

I rubbed the mint between my fingers

Then smelt the tangy aroma

I was transported 

To the gardens at Sewerby

Which of course led me to thoughts

Of the cricket field

And our walks, our sitting there

The purifying scent also reminded me

Of how I have neglected the herbs

In our own garden

For it is not enough

To simply buy the cuttings

And the contemporary containers

One, so I see now

Must gift love, and care

If one is ever to understand

How to nurture nature…

Then back into the Abbey

For Sunday's Conventual Mass

Which to my surprise, though not entirely

(For I know of the pretence for providence)

Is a full congregation, of over fifty people

All the pews populated as the Monks enter

For their main event of the week

I get a twinge in my elbow, as I write that

Part of me wants not to stay

For I don't in truth really belong

Nor do I even feel comfortable here

No, I am happier, in the early morning half-light

With the minimalist, escapologist crowd

So I do leave:

I am taking someone else's space, is how 

I justify my absenteeism, wasn't it always thus

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Revitalise (Without Revision)

It is almost November

The fallen leaves

Are amusingly blown

And scattered, across the cobbles

The unsettled sky clouds drift slowly

Before  occasionally opening, to allow

The warmth of the sun to fall upon me

I am sat in the Lavender Garden

At Buckfast Abbey

And just now I have to squint

To shield my eyes from the bright sunlight

The long shadows, from the herbs

And the flowers edge towards me, they edge

Towards disappearing altogether actually

Shortly I will move into the chapel

Or maybe I will go there

After Conventual Mass

Which today will take place a little later

Because for one thing it is a Sunday

Also because, sometime during the night

Someone gifted one extra hour to my sleep

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Rest (Without Rest)

And in this way I rested

By rising early

Taking tea, and biscuits

Sharing Vigils with the Benedictine Monks

Walking to the door

Beside the one, who twirled his rosary beads

Outside, in the new day's light

A short walk

To the Physic Garden

There to read the notes

And to rub the leaves of mint between my fingers

Then to retrace my path

To climb a few stone steps

Take a photograph

Of the Abbey, and the oak tree

From a slightly raised vantage point

Before returning inside

Taking my seat, writing a few words

Of praise

Of scorn

Almost with a complete

Lack of reasoned understanding

Even with the book of Lauds

Opened, resting, in the palm of my hands

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Later (Without Being Late)

Sunday morning Vigils

Also the clocks have moved 

By one hour, into winter-time

So indeed, two extra hours sleep

And three people

On the front benches already

The calling bells have been rung

Also there is an owl, joyously hooting

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Yours (Without Hours)

A man, in a long raincoat

I guess he is here, with his wife

Here, more for the recital

Than for the Vespers

They look like a couple

Of well-to-do European 

(Did we used to say foreign)

Reasoned, and cultured tourists

The bells chime to signify

Three minutes to go

A little bit like the last call

At the Theatre Royal

Yet with only five patrons

Thus far in the congregation

I don't expect there to be

Much, of a last minute rush

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Towards Brabeny (Without End)

It feels good to be on higher ground

It feels good to think of you, loving me

For now I can take in the vast horizon

I can countenance the cold wind

Ruffling my hair, and my papers

I can believe that, yes

Those rainclouds may bring rain

But not until the shafts of sunlight

On that faraway, seaward, elliptical skyline

Have lit up our day

No, neither the dull of the decaying ferns

Nor the white-death of the bramble

Can hold back the excitement

Nor the energy

Of the future

For the man who has found love

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Negative Potential (Without Power)

To put myself out there, alone

With the environmental waveforms 

Circulating and vibrating, to the tune

Of the exponentially raw passion

Such that in the search for this apparent stillness

It is the search for the unseen which is seen

It is the search for the not felt which is felt

Felt mostly by oneself

It is the beat

Of the bouncing psycho-rhythms

Which cycle through my body

Then, as one ventures, into the lower reaches

Those deeper features

Of love, of loss, of leverage, and of latitude

Criss-cross, and zig-zag their way

Over, and beyond, and before the gratitude

Such that to find a balance, in the stillness

To find a calm, in the seen, and in the unseen

To find love, felt or not felt, is one job of a thing

One job of a thing, all unto itself

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Sat (Without Silence)

There is no bench to sit upon

To look directly at the back of the Abbey

Though I am able to tell you, that

By turning slightly, and looking over my shoulder

I can see the substantial, gold-leaf, clock fingers

Which, even from this distance, I can make out

Are saying that it is just after eleven-thirty

On this, fine, one might even say exquisite

Autumnal Saturday Morning

Of course there is noise, even the great Abbeys

Need the service of stand-by-generators

In the times of power cuts

Once it might have been a water-driven turbine

Situated on the surging River Dart, which flows

Alongside fairly briskly

But then, with such propensity 

Of trees and fallen leaves

One might have thought

That a champion of bio-diversity

Could have hatched a quieter form

Of extraction, extrapolation, and exploitation

Whatever, the birds still chirp and chatter

Enquiring children

Ask their parents all manner of questions

Some of which, the Monks

Who will also have sat here

Would no doubt have been able to answer

With their very own

One hopes, well thought out

And ever more dignified, soulful responses

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Nothing (Without Anything)

It is o so difficult

To remember you

When you offer nothing

Whatsoever in return

Though, as if coming here

To sit beside falling water

Would do anything, but add

To the sorrow of separation

I once was a complicated soul

Yet, right now, I don't believe

That I have ever did deny that

Although, yes, you might well say

That I have become

Even more deeply enamoured

With the effects of duplicity

In my attempts at creative writing

But, inside

I feel to be a somewhat gentler soul

You see, I am happy

To sit here beside the river

To know that, somewhere behind me

The star-shaped leaves

Are drifting, like angels, to the ground below

To let everyone know, that once

Our love touched

What o so many dreamers, today still dream of

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Gathering (Without Departing)

In that instant

Of hearing that sweet voice

Then I too

Wanted to sing

I too

Wanted to be able

To express

My joy with this life

A nun

With her iPad

She was the first person

Into Conventual Mass

I had watched her

Walk across the concourse

In the first light

Of the brand new day

The bells tolled

Close to the gathering time

And I remembered

My last time of leaving this place

I had heard then their welcoming sound

Though at quite some distance

For I loaded my car

And o, so so ignominiously departed

I did not know then that I might return

But I have, and I may do so again, and again

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Two More (Without Two To Follow)

It is just approaching five-forty in the morning

There are two Monks here already

As a short peel of bells sound

Two new visitors enter, they sit on the front row

One to either side of the walkway

Two young men; one white, one coloured

Together we waited, in stuttered silence

For the first act of the day to begin

Two latecomers joined the congregation

We were six men now

But only I, had entered from the inner quarters

Vigils proceeded, with meticulous precision

Each Monk seemingly knowing their part

Of the week-worn routines

And the seamless stepped-out sequences

Of suggestion, and response

And of further suggestion, and response

And of readings

Even one from the Book of Wisdom

And one from where I know not, but which spoke

Of God having given love in his own image

And of having gifted us Jesus, to make up

For the disobedience of Adam, and his indiscreet apple biting

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Woken (Without Painkillers)

It is 05:24 when the bells begin to call us for Vigils

I have not had the best of night's sleep

I dreamt, many times, of being confused

In the rearrangement of my poetry

And I do, quite-literally, mean, seeing the text

On the page, and trying to move it from one place to another place

Mostly it was to no avail, because more often than not

The words decided that they did not wish to be moved

I woke early, at just after 04:30 British Summer Time

I spent quite some time massaging my arm

Feeling for the aching parts, stretching out the muscles

And manipulating the tissue, as if somehow to aid the circulation

I do hope that my elbow is going to get better

At least I do have the feeling, and I am able to massage

And to write, about my visit to the Abbey at Buckfast

Or at Buckfastleigh, as many of the words deign to say

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Love Is (Without Fabrication)

These bells are not

The bells of Plum Village

Not that I have yet heard

Those bells toll for myself

Sometimes

We have to be on our own

Sometimes

We have to be alone

To hear the human voices

To bathe, immensely

In the silence, in the light

Of those compounds of love

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Damage Litigation (Without Resolve)

There was a darkness

A sadness

An emptiness

To your absence

And not one word

Was spoken of you

By either of us

How could we

All three

Be damaged so

Or is it only I

I that am

So so super-sensitive

Is it only me

That senses

The aroma of decay

When

At this stage

Of our life

All ought to be joy

Or at least

A few certain splashes

Of that confidence

Which just might

In a certain light

Be passed off as joy

Why then

The darkness

The sadness

The absence

Gifted, by the emptiness

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Variable Frequencies (Without Discharge)

I feel a smile

Which radiates

Even with my eyes closed

As the voices sing the songs

Those, muse-filled, suggestions and responses

Of the Benedictine Monks

Which vibrate, yes they do physically bounce

And resonate exponentially

Throughout my entire body

I am also able

To sense the blood flow

As it scours and courses through my veins

Tingling on its journey

In its life-enhancing attempt

To repair my damaged physicality

I am being made ready to conduct freely

As if a battery, being re-charged

Thus able to visibly, with differential force, smile

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Seat (Without Escape)

I can hear the water, cascading

I can her the birds, invading

Such is

The stillness of autumn

I can see that settled surety

In the rusted trees

In the well-trimmed hedge

In the solid oak seat, which I sit upon

I see the singular gull

Gliding, and swooping, and landing

I see the crimson-red, star-shaped leaves

Set against the grey-blue sky

I count twenty-five vertical dark windows

In the, near-distance, conference centre

There is not a soul about

But of course there are insects, and flies

Midges, and maybe even mosquitoes

Which quickly puts me on edge

As did the vertigo

On the clifftops earlier today

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White Shirt (Without Doubt)

I entered the chapel

Early on the Friday evening

And, almost immediately

I felt so so good about the next day

I had the security

Of that joy of a Saturday Morning

All clean and seriously refreshed

All of my clothes laundered, and ironed

I am in the knave now

The Monks, and the congregation

Are gradually arriving, as the calling bell tolls

I presume announcing, that it is time for Vespers

There is a beauty

To the light on his silver hair

There is a solemnity

A might of gathered assurance

A certainty also of deeper goodness

As a nun, safely, serenely, and o so silently enters

Why though, I wonder

Am I the only one sat here, on the right side

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Observation (Without Predilection)

I was moved, when my son told me of his feelings, of that night when he and his girlfriend had to walk the streets of London

He explained how he had observed, with a keen eye might I add, the behaviour of the homeless, in the early morning coffee houses, around Victoria Station

He talked of individuals using the wall sockets to re-charge the cheapest of mobile phones, of young women putting on their make-me-fabulous-make-up, with the aid of the reflective window glass; and of others, moving the previous patrons discarded cups, to then be placed in front of themselves, so as also to be considered as patrons

He was surprised, but particularly recognised their youth, and their hopelessness, for as he rightly says:

Out in the countryside one could satisfy ones basic needs, by engaging with nature; by building a shelter from branches, and twigs, and leaves, and moss; by washing, and drinking in the streams; one might even be able to swim in some places

But in the city none of that is possible, and so, for the few hours of that one evening, he felt; no, sorry, they felt, even together they felt, the real fear of becoming destitute

And he asked himself; why do the young people flock to the city, surely not, not as that young man, who had to pull his jumper over his face to sleep, to be here, alone, in one of these, some might say bleak, early morning coffee bars

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Soup (Without Predetermination)

I lifted the latch on the church door, then pushed open the imposing piece of timber

Come in, shouted the voice, but close the door behind you, keep the heat in

I did enter, and I did smell the soup, which the two workmen, sat, at a cloth covered card-table by the altar, were pouring into bowls, from their flasks

I thought to take a photograph, but chose against that, largely for privacy's sake

I thought to talk to them, but decided not to, for they were already in full flow

Instead I determined, to try and remember what a good thing this was, which I had been so so fortunate to witness

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Vertigo (Without Resolution)

Lighthouse, and vertigo 

Radar-ball, and vertigo

Coastal-path, and vertigo

You get to the point

Hartland Point, and vertigo

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Frills (Without Embraces)

It would be wrong of me not to arrest the images of you, scantily clad, in the shortest of frilly skirts

You bring me close to you, and I am unable to stop the thought processes; for miles and miles I am thus absorbed

I even begin to wonder if I will ever be able to shake off these thoughts; what if they were always to stay with me, my eyes feel heavy, my head feels heady

I am driving towards you, albeit, in my own version of the truth, I am driving for a quite different purpose

Hours go by before I reach anywhere near your vicinity

The sadness is scattered to the moorland, the hurt lies on the riverbed, the immense fear, for isn't it the greatest of fears, to be fearful of oneself, is inculcated into the baron landscape

I walk the dark streets, too dark for my camera to develop the warm glow (to the naked eye) of the church clock

As I pass the bus station I make up a story, about my B&B being just behind here, behind this very place, where three times every hour the buses will arrive; to carry out their complicated, and seriously noisy, and intrinsically disturbing, reversing manoeuvres, before they accelerate, with loud aggression, to depart, on their way to who knows where; the buses are empty now, and I expect that will also be the case, many hours later

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Trepidation (Without Gratification)

Quite the opposite to Emptiness Dancing

Brought on, in part, by today's destination

And last night's early disruptive dream

Neither of which I desire to expand upon

Except to say that relationships

And their dissolution, played significant parts

Not at all the synthesis

Of the sunlight, and the leaf, and the raindrop

As enveloped

On that quiet Sunday morning in the countryside

Nor as felt

On that slow drive, along narrow, puddled lanes

With hedgerows guarding the ploughed fields

With trees sprinkling, not interfering, with the view

Quite the opposite, to the moorlands

With their exposed outcrops of rock

Where the blue, serially activates the doubt within

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They Carry My Pictures

Better in the morning
Sunlight
Fancy shoes; your hand upon
My navel

Briefly you open your eyes
Smile
At my silent thank you
And then

Right beside the birdsong
Under the bluest of skies
Where I gave you my
New found virginity

Told you more than ever I know
More than ever
The cooing bird
Or the gentle breeze

Listen;
Do you hear
They carry my pictures
My pictures

Pictures
Of
And by
The morning

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The Private House

If you should drive
Past Cow Pasture Barns
You will see a sign for; well
Make your own mind on that

The sign says
Potatoes £4-00
Nothing more, nothing less, quite simply:
Potatoes £4-00

Before the barns
Before the private house
The private house
Which used to be a public house

You may see the old man
The old man in the big garden
I don't expect, unlike the potato sign
That he is always there

But he was there, today
In the big garden
The big garden
Before the corner

The corner with the private house
A private house
Which used to be a public house
A public house before the Cow Pasture Barns

The Cow Pasture Barns with a sign that says
Potatoes £4-00
No more, no less - ever so simple
Potatoes £4-00

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The Old House

The old house, with rectangular windows
Is empty
No one lives there now
No one has lived there for a very long time

The house is empty
The long time is empty
Death, the long time of death
The long, long time of death, is empty

There are no chintz curtains
Or modernist abstract paintings
All that you have you take with you
All that you have your friends give you

All that you have lives with you
Inside and outside
Your rectangular windows
Inside and outside your old houses

Rectangular windows
Inside and outside
Of your long time
Your long time, of death, and of dying

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Before You Have Anything But You

All you are
Is all you are
All you have
Is all you have
All you have
Is all you are
All you are
Is all you have

Without a stitch
From the cherry and walnut
Inlaid wardrobe
Without a smudge
From the cherry and walnut
Inlaid dresser
Without a brush, without a touch
Without a crush of musk perfume

All you are
Is all you have
Before you have anything
But you
Before you have anything
But you
All you gave
Is all you give
All you give
Is all you gave
All you give
For those who gave
All you gave
For those who give

Without some hitch
From the foul
Or fair weather umbrella
Without some fudge
From the fake
Namesake storyteller
Without some hush, silence so much
Without the lush of husks presumed

All you are
Is all you have
Before you have anything
But you
All you are
Is all you have
Before you have anything
But you
All you are is all you have, before you have anything but you

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Juxtaposed Proximities

I smile
At your breath
Your easy hand
On our juxtaposition

I woke earlier
I think not then that to wake was any dare
Other than to share your morning
With the blackbird

And the fresh brewed
Blended Breakfast and Earl Grey
Warm
Warm tea

I lay in warmth
Of cotton and plumped up pillows
And the warm breath
Of the juxtaposed proximities

Of
Of our unadorned
Of our
Of our unadorned and naked bodies

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Kiss Stops And Lollipops

It is
That which we do not see
Or don’t take time
To connect with

Unable, unstable
My baby, my lady
I cradle you in my arms
I cradle you

Able to say love
Equal to any coincidence
By inference my
Intentions laid open

Only the clearest
Interpretation
My sensations caught
By shadows and sequins

Whispers
Kiss stops by the bus stops
Kiss stops and lollipops
Kiss stops, lollipops, bus stops

Love
Love, and chance, and lollipops
And by chance
She came to kiss me

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Of Passions And Pains

Juxtaposed
The grotesque
Twixt life and death

Of loss
Lost love
Of teardrops

And teardrop bottles
Uncollected
They lay beneath the Lilac Tree

Stored then, as unconscious finds
Transitory minds; the last one out
Turns off the lights

More chance than coincidence
More fiction than fate, berate
The tradition, it is then to be too late

To open the unexpected box
Either to ask the deeper question
Or to swing, as the fox by the sunlit fountain

Or fall, as did the clown, out-with
Of his crown, but weighted down
By his mountains of passions and pains

He was undone
As done
By deed, or gain, or fame, or shame

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