Take A Seat Sir, I Will Bring It Over

The woman waits
Outside the window
She checks her watch
With some purpose
She does this again
A couple times more

Her friend arrives
She runs towards him
They are all smiles
They hug, and then
Turn to enter into
Into the coffee shop

A middle-aged couple
In matching black
Arms already linked
Come along the pavement
A few moments later
He opens the door

The lady opposite
Reads her book quietly
The family, to the side
Talk of all manner of things
But mostly they fall back
To motor cars and F1 racing

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Raison d'être

What would the dates matter
Or the photographs
Or the fading sounds
Of the trains leaving the Somerset levels

One year, or the next
What difference to the indifferent
One colour, or another
What irregularities do we harbour

If the weakness is a weakness
Then let it be so
Don’t you go trying to find out
What isn’t there to be found out

Look at the print
Of the Rothko untitled painting
In the right light, in the right place
At the right time

So be there for the laughter
And carry on with Zhivago
To set aside is to set aside
There is no more to it than that

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Both Sides Then

It is hard to be on the cusp
Of inspiration
When one is on the cusp
Of just beyond the cusp of pain

It is hard to feel for different times
Or different lives
When one is held in the difficulty
Of ever-present pain

And so the same for love and joy
Which may be glimpsed
But cannot be held square on
When pain is an obstruction

Yet it does no harm to test the water
To look back on records, photographs
Notes of the good times, and the bad times
To let pain know that it also must share you

And then still to have the wherewithal
To sort, and move, and catalogue
Such that naught will be lost
And, when the day free of pain arrives

One will be able to begin the rebuilding
To trawl and rediscover opportunities
Which in the moment meant so much
And which in the future will mean more

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Obscured By Whether Or Not

Raindrops on the washing line
Mist hung over the pampas grass
A morning of copying old files
A morning of reading past histories

We are we where we are because
Because we said the things we said
Or we did not say what we did not say

And altogether it appears a bit untidy
Things not being where they ought to be
And also things just where they should be

You were angry for a time, as loss
Put you off your track, derailed you
But now you are back, you are, back

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Gradual Recovery

There is no more sleep left in me
I am as it were purged of the tiredness
I cannot though yet jump for joy
Nor wave the semaphore to welcome you
But I can feel that life is returning

I must be careful, take care
Do not rush, do not hurry
Which of course is not my natural style
Dive in headlong I would mostly say
Rather than to step steady on the way

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New Year Reading

You held my words
In your hands
Just as I held my breath
To hear your projection

I wrote those words
With love and kindness
More half-hidden
Than right to the fore

Yet, after only a few tunes
Your reading gave love
Pronounced love
Offered love to all

I heard your words
One by one
Just as you paused for breath
Before further creation

I wrote these words
With gratitude at the very core
Yes, as the absolute
Primary purpose

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You Carried My Pictures II

Between the snapshot, and the memory
Between the unconscious, and the record
Between the turntable, and the story
Between the love, and the thoughts of one

Collected for the keeping
Collected for the looking back
Collected for the rites of reclamations
Collected for the love, and the thoughts of one

In the years, and the months, and the days
In the vacation places, and the regular houses
In the youthful years, and the times before
In the mind, for the love, and the thoughts of one

Envelopes, to send them back, and send them forth
Envelopes, in which to hold the minimal index cards
Envelopes, of which most are now half empty
Envelopes, carrying the love, and the thoughts of one

Tempted to make more of what appears to be missing
Tempted to burden what’s left with inordinate weight
Tempted to find a rationale or a recollected reason
Tempted to become the love, and the thoughts of one

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Read Even More Into The Bubbles

Before I was responsible
The world had a beauty
Yes, when I was irresponsible
There was a freedom

So, on return to St Aubin’s harbour
Both responsible, and irresponsible
We sought out, and found
Both the beauty, and the freedom

Detached of all of our responsibilities
We were free to be irresponsible
Two bus rides to Grouville, after a few glasses
Of bubbly, to send us on our way

Yet how not to try to mix
The here, and the now
With the there, and the then; how not
To shake, and share, the cocktails

For all I have, of my past, and my present
Are in these pint fold outpourings
So many memories, so few photographs
Except for those we have taken today

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Read More Into The Bubbles

For four consecutive nights
Right on the cusp of sleep
I have been gifted a poem about lemonade

Not a poem about any just old lemonade mind you
But a poem, about the lemonade that you bought me
Not being diet lemonade but full sugar lemonade

Of course it isn’t really a poem about lemonade
More it is a poem
About what I couldn't and what I shouldn’t do

Indeed I did have one line, fairly early on:
I couldn’t do what I shouldn’t do
But I could not keep that, for it’s just not true, is it

Not for me, not for you, not for the whole wide world
None of us actually are made of such stuff
As to be able to say, and to deliver on:

I couldn’t do what I shouldn’t do
I couldn’t do what I shouldn’t do
I couldn’t do what I shouldn’t do

And with that mantra, the floodgates opened
All those things I shouldn’t do I wanted to speak of
To shine a light onto all of my secretive suggestions

But I shouldn’t do that now should I
So I couldn’t do that could I
Except of course if we had an amnesty

A declaration that no upset would be caused
That no recriminations would be effected
That you too couldn’t do what you shouldn’t do

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Everywhere, Everyone, Everything

On another day
There will be a different pain
Indeed, on other days
There have already been different pains

And there will be days
Of fabulous consummate joys
Indeed already
There has been such a joy of days

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Later

This is the evening
To be in bed early
Listening to Meredith Monk
Listening to the wind
Being hopeful for my children

The wind might take me anywhere
You also, if you choose to journey
Yes, you also, if you join the journey

To walk beside the dry stone walls
To walk up the hills, to walk down the dales
With the all that there is to see all around us

Not in search of faith, nor spirituality
Or peace, or outward calm, but rather
Simply to be there; to see all, to hear all

Not that I am giving up the exploration
As to who I am, or more importantly for
Who I might become; who might I become

Yet all the while
To breathe, knowing the breath
To smile, knowing the smile

To speak with compassion and generosity
To hold hands, and wish well
For all whose paths we cross

This is the evening
To be in bed early
Listening to Meredith Monk
Listening to the wind
Being hopeful for my friends

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25th

This is the day
When we don’t have visitors to the house
This is the day
Of so so very few interruptions

There are no letters or parcels
Although the days, and the weeks
Leading up to this day have been a riot
Of postmen, couriers, and delivery drivers

There are no telephone canvas calls
To tell us about the latest developments
In double glazing or broadband communication
Which could warm us up, or which could speed us up

This is the day
When the coloured lights glow for themselves
Where the music crosses with the liturgy
When the cooking just takes a little longer

There are cards, presents, annual gifts
Though not all are here to collect theirs
For they too are becalmed also
In their quiet houses, on this quiet day

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The Writer Paused

It wasn’t always thus he says
With a benign smile of nowhereness
There once was a time, filled with enthusiasm
For each and every word

Now the openness of emptiness has closed in
The need for nothing, or at least the thought of it
Is becoming the thrust, the thrust now to follow
And so the empty rooms, and discarded railway lines

Can best mark the space for the virgin page
To make its entrance, less visible than ink
Yet more sustainable than lead, the parchment
Dies, for the irritant thoughts to be laid to rest

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Pest Of A Presence

Goddess
Good god
Twelve years now
I have lived with this woman
Yet still, she sees you
As my goddess

And, as for myself
Well
Knowing that there is no hope
I am able, at the last
To describe you as no more
Than mere mortal

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Sketch, Listen, Read, Write

Where is the going going to
In the straight lines
In the squares
In the cubes

And why wear a shirt
With flowers in pink and blue
With buttons in pink and blue
With turn up cuffs, in pink and blue

As if a contradiction
To contradict the pain
In the upper back and neck
And in the left side frozen shoulder

Yet no more at odds
Than to be listening to Arvo Part
Or reading Jean Jacques Rousseau’s
Reveries of the Solitary Walker

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