Left out overnight

 Left out overnight

What should I say

In recompense

For I feel

That an apology

Is in order

If only

To calm, or settle

My own persona

Before I might

Set about

The writing of the day

 

Tiffany lamps in the windows

Tiffany lamps in the windows

Linen fragrance in the diffusers

Skin and bone in the trousers

Where might my mind be going

What is to be the contemplation

Now the mood is set and the music plays

I honestly don’t have any explanation

I don’t know if I ever do have

So, one step at a time, I keep going

The search is not for direction

Although a tune or two would be good

Some sort of guidance for the writing

If instead left to struggle

Working without a working light

Working out without working

I honestly can’t say

In truth I never was told

Or so the story goes 

I take myself off

I take myself off

It is a pleasure of mine

Sometimes, when reading

A place will come to mind

And in a flash I am there

Breathing in the beauty

Not always is the place a place

Sometimes a person, with a perfume

Earlier, while reading Trying Not To Try

I flashed back to Madhyamaka

A Buddhist institution

A favourite of many visits

But tomorrow, yes

Where might tomorrow take me

 

Sat in my turning chair

 Sat in my turning chair

Turning things over

Over time I turn things

Before I let them settle

Scared by the dream I had

Booking into an hotel

Wearing only a towel

After being refused at a B&B

Fearful of being left

To fend for myself

Rocking at the thought

Of such hopeless exposure

I would travel

I would travel

Half-way

Around the world

To then travel

That whole half-way

Back again

I would listen

To Peter Gabriel

Over

And over again

One day

I might find a rhythm

For a song of my own 

Sunlight, and shadows

Sunlight, and shadows

Interstellar overdrive

Method in the meadows

What turns life to live

Crystals in the windows

Stillness still to decide

Reflections over glass bowls

What turns past times to pride

Bright light over shoulder

Stain glass on the side

Awkward on the boulder

What sinks love on the slide

 

On the Sunday afternoon

On the Sunday afternoon

With a wine gum

And the prospect

Of an evening at the pictures

On the Monday afternoon

With a bowl of cereal

And the prospect

Of shopping online

On the Saturday morning

With a hiatus

And the stubbornness

Of a dull mind

Sat, in the reclining chair

Sat, in the reclining chair

Listening to Dublin Blues

By Guy Clark, one heck

Of a neat singer-songwriter

“I loved you on the Spanish Steps

On the day you said goodbye”

Next up is Lyle Lovett singing

“Step up inside this house”

Which might also be related

To that fine teacher Guy Clark

“There couldn’t be more than ten

dollars worth to brighten up my day”

This is one good playlist

What with Clay Pigeon

And Ellis Unit One

By Blaze Foley and Steve Earle

Respectively 

The pen is refilled

 The pen is refilled

With Berlin Blue ink

And flows ever so smoothly

The last fill

Managed a full book

Of Berlin Notebook paper

So the bar is set

As is often said

In our poetry review

I notice that the ink

Is actually called

No.1 Berlin Notebook Blue

It is by Victor Walter

Who I take to be an artist

From those parts

I know little

I know little

Of these bales wrapped with twine

Alongside the fen road

I have an idea

That they were purposefully placed

Perhaps by a local farmer

I say this

Because the tyre tracks

Appear to be made by a tractor

The road also

Is covered by mud and debris

Indicative of a spillage or two

I write to you

I write to you

In ink of indelible blue

I have news for you

Which I believe to be true

I write to you

To say that I wobbled too

I gift these words to you

Perhaps yet another clue

I write to you

With a pen which dribbles through

I have new hope for you

My thoughts in indelible blue

What don’t I already know

What don’t I already know

What would be good for me

How do I begin the journey

To find that which I do not already know

Might you offer guidance

Provide worthwhile suggestions

Gift me the true magic

Of the already known

Do I have to walk further

Tread new paths, a long way

From the security of home

Do I need to join conversations

Take new positions, possibly at risk

Of loss, and solitary times

 

What is it all about

What is it all about

Actually I would rather wait

Before you respond

Though not to wait so long

That the imperative meaning

Becomes feint

So feint in fact

That its breaking open

Is obscured or defeated

Better then, with your answer

To rephrase the question

With your own understanding

Only at that time to pour forth

To illuminate the skies

Way beyond the treetops

 

We go many ways

We go many ways

I arrived here today

Who knows where next

Not often

Entirely of my own making

I trust you understand

Complications

Situations

Fusion and diffusion

The sea still calls me

Moorlands and mountains too

Sound their own echoes

People of course

Never one to forget

Who might raise the alarms

Now Book Two

Now Book Two

Or Nummer Zwei

If you prefer

I turn to you

To be carefree

Alive with joy

No mention here

Of reasons why

Or reasons why not

Better today

To stay with life

As it falls in my lap

You know the sort of thing

So no need for me to expand

Other than to say thank you for being here

Proserpine

Proserpine
Your words I find
In the midnight mind
Searching for a peace of kind
A solitary recitation
Escape to meditation
Walking on sands of sedimentation
From the galleries of sensation
Tortured heart
Broken soul
Bare, on the gallery wall
Pain standing ten feet tall
Your sleep
Is my sleep
Your weeping
Is what I keep
Silently, slowly you slip away
Fade, fade, fade away
The flowers lose their colour
The trees lose their leaves
Silently, slowly you slip away
My tortured heart
A deck of cards, broken apart
By the midnight mind
The insomnia was overtaken
Travelled it seems so so far away
And now we are awakened
Our pain has been taken
We have left behind
All that was forsaken
Lost what I thought was mine
In the garden of Proserpine

 

Innocent I

I stare in the window a gleam in my eye
Come in beckons the lady
Me innocent I
The lace is St. Lauren

The French panties would make you want to cry
I so so want to buy them
Me innocent I
The doorway is wide

No need to be scared
Come in beckons the lady, nothing to fear
The lace is authentic
The lady smiles
"Obviously for a special person”
Well now I'm talking, what do you think
In a shop full of ladies' underwear

Without a blink
Me innocent I
"If my husband bought me that

Heaven knows what I’d do"
Yes now we are talking
And there's only us two
We've moved from St. Lauren

To G.Strings and briefs
"Some people will wear them

Some people won't
What about your lady
You innocent I”

I say that you are special
That your figure is good
That you are fun to be with
Educating me, innocent see
"But are you shy and retiring, or experimental and gay"
What! No, no, absolutely not I say
Just a slight misunderstanding
A little laugh
"I mean outgoing, energy for life”

Yes that's right
Back on the right track

Do you think a lady

Would like to be given these I ask
"Oh yes, oh yes, absolutely"
"Especially that

That would leave her in no doubt"
No doubt as to what, I dare not ask

Well that’s it, I’ll take them
Wrap ‘em up

"Nay you'll need t’stockings an’t slip”

She smiles
“You innocent I”

 

When The Whites Of Your Eyes

When the whites of your eyes
Don't see the light of day too often
Then my friend it's time to call a halt
Yes when every waking moment
Bequeaths some form of escape
The time is nigh to seek gestalt
Each cringe of skin
Each sudden jitter
Listen
Listen good
Time to change
So how do you go, where to look
The answer is screaming
But it is within
And no more lies will help you
Begin
Of course the biggest most damaging lie

Is to oneself
But also the most easy

Until self respect returns
Clutch not onto straws
Unless to hold them in your hands
And gaze real hard
Mean something
So stare beyond the bricks and mortar
Focus your attention

On the most minuscule

Be not afraid of being misunderstood

Or of misunderstanding
Slowly now, real slow, take all of your time
Soon, soon the thinking will begin
Take a thought and write it down
Pluck another, as they race across
Your myriad of disconnections
Now mix the thoughts with pen on paper
In words, in pictures
And as you draw, as the ink flows
From those thousand instantaneous hits

Inside your head
Remember

No conception this from stimulant
No alcoholic haze, nor nicotine dullness
Just you and you
Move on, move on, still smooth, still slow
Reach your tips of toes, beyond the body
Stretch out, to your very extremities
Turn on the music, listen, listen
To just one heartbeat
Amongst those hundred thousand

Collisions of sound
Take a colour and rub it rich
Deep into the canvas
A life in layers
Layers of golden crimson
Now pick up the silk
Soft, so so softly, stroke between
Your fingers and your thighs
This is you and only you
Alive to tactile sensory sensation
Stimulated within, within, by you
Step now, step forward, step back
Twist your toes and smile
Learn to say to say control
You may feel, if you wish
A little pleased with progress
But progress one moment only
Knowing full well this house of cards
Is not yet ready to turn to stone
So stop, stop now, and work hard
To recollect
Remember that very instant, when
You did not, would not, could not, say no
Folding, falling

For fictitious, viscous, 'freedom'
If, if only
Avoid if only
Build a test to test temptation
All the while fondling silk

And feeling good
Each and every once you see temptation

Eating at your core
Work, work with pen and paper

Work with thoughts and thoughts
Now decide, in the full light of day
And the full light of your being

Your reason, your rationale, for living
Escape if you wish
But escape to nothing
Nothing more than the oxygen 

The oxygen of you and you
Stroke the marble, marvel at the texture
Mould the ball, within your palm
Say soft words, say them slowly
Sometimes take time to contemplate
Two thoughts

Intertwined with a common bond
Molecules in mesh
Upon this creation add your idea
Try to weave your way inside
This composite, stable

Living, breathing structure
Feel, feel not for a parting
But a solid bond, a point of high energy
Waiting for your fusion
This is friendship
Here the lies are gone, and to enter
Your first pass, is with truth to yourself
Friendship is a form of magic
Conjured from the craziest calculations
Open your arms embrace, smile…

Enter

 

Aye Lad We’re Watching Coronation Street

Aye lad we’re watching Coronation street
N'today on t’phone

To that Manchester lass
A sort of broad vocal happy laugh
Filled the air and filled the moment
Void of anything except innocence
Happy asking directions to deepest Devon
Aye lad, you see it’s the simple things
Simple and complete communication
Keeping speaking souls sanguine
Lately we’ve been forgetting
Later perhaps regretting
But, sometimes not even that

 

Sculptures in Expanded Polystyrene

Art College
Art and Architecture
Young Turks
Swirling skirts
Gangster’s molls
Christmas dolls
Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac
Christine Perfect's Chicken Shack
Technical College
Engineering and electricity
Young men
Stiff shirts
Girlfriends
Sunday tea
Northern Soul
Otis Redding's Dock of the Bay
Coincide
Cross the divide
Shave the days into nights
Union bars, steel guitars
Youth in spirit
Growing apart, growing together
Amazing Blondell
Principal Edwards Magic Theatre
The textbooks bind
The engineer’s mind
Straight and true and able
Pockets full of logarithmic tables
Thermodynamically stable
Calculating the impedance of cable
Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd
Page and Plant’s Led Zeppelin
Indentured Apprentice
Golden Boy
Time off for good behaviour
Time off for inappropriate attire
Under his skin
Touching nerves so thin
Andy Fair-weather Lowe's Amen Corner
Jimi Hendrix's Experience
Days off for DJ's
Excused
Losing time falling behind
Someone has to fall away
Rising to the top
Completely unable to stop
King Crimson

In the court of the Crimson King
Stevie Wonder's Innervision
Work in figures
Work in words
Work in space
Plastic like plasticine
Sculptures

In Polyethylene paint
David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust
Andy Warhol's New York Dolls
Working out past times
Rationalise fate's own schemes
Dreams and disappointments
Certificates and senior appointments
Work to play
Play engulfed by work
Simply Red
Van the Man
Music lover, worker, poet

 

Virginia in the Cinema

The poet rolled right out of the window
The writers rolled right along the riverbed
The flowers forgot

That they had been given
And the cake could not remember

Being iced twice
Virginia in the half-empty cinema
You mesmerised with your surprise
You kissed her on the lips
We never knew how much you missed her
Now we drive home across the moor
Under starlit skies we surmise
Who was the begotten bard
Understanding never-ending loving
Virginia in Sussex and Surrey
Craving for the faster life
In New York she became
Only the lonely organiser
Friends and lovers and husbands
Tearing hair and wearing thin
Unable to enable or to establish
Sense or source of equilibrium

Your fingers and fags
Ink stain and nicotine
In between the glory and the glamour
The nerves and the never knowing
Wanting to be more than normal
Wanting to walk out and down along
Wearing what
Whatever young girls wear along
In the cafe windows
On the railway platforms
Real people disappear in fear
Why do they stare
Another century, another era
Paperbacks and plays all show
Silver-screen brings you near
We, you, no one will ever never know
The credits roll
Our arms unfold
We scatter your flowers
And pour the nectar deeply

 

Pimps and Tarts, Poets and Writers

Black stockings, spotted skirt

Engaging smile, pretty flirt, dealing dirt
Dollars or dope, just enough rope

To bring her home, she's never alone
Violence in love, her presence she moves

The crescent moon, it can't rise too soon
Black, in black-coffee cafe, jukebox jive

He's so alive it's killing him
His girl works, he shows her the door

He has to score, it's killing him
Shining, silver and gold, everything

He holds, he has sold for his soul
She is escaping from within, mescaline

Frightens her skin, her nerves, quieten
Stronger, the fool took her time

Nearly took her total

She's longing to be strong again
Singing songs, clean and confident

Freedom yet still on the edge

A need to perform, limited reform

Don't want to get at it again
He's doing time, paying his fine

Corrupting society, importing exploitation

Prostituting the situation
In a year, she's still clear, but now he's out

He's roundabout, nothings changed

Still the strange satisfaction

Of manipulation
Of course she falls, no one to call

He holds her tight, says it's alright

You know he cares, he smiles and stares
Fear or love, good god above

God only knows, having been before

Why the need to score

Why go on the game again
A passion for crime, even doing time

Learning new tricks, corrupting young

Hicks, building reputations

Avoiding situations-vacant

Waken in the new black-economy
Talk about arts, poets and tarts
Sculptors, fighters, pimps and writers

 

First Poem of the Day

First poem of the day
Clearer than a Capstan full strength
Meaning seemingly

Endless understanding
That first breath of intellectual inoculation
That first untainted web of words

So so carefully interwoven
Woven more than spoken

Softly lowered and laid to rest
Better than the best of stories

Thoughts broken down

With feelings wide opened
Awoken to our own intrinsic imagination
Blown on the mountains

Of menthol inhalation
Consulate reminders of a nicotine past
Thanks, for the first poem of the day

 

Late Junction (For Verity & Friends)

Good Friday
Liaison de l'amor
The water falls
Spanish guitars slide and strum
Whispered words over
Underscored songbirds in unison
Laying behind the violin
Bassoon behind the moon
Drawn in by the drone
Moments too soon, too soon
Sorrowful strings seep out and over
Timbre of stroking, tapping, canvas
Wandering back out of the forest
Falling into the fearful darkness
Bellows blazing and blowing
The screaming shrieking crow
Into Istanbul
Saxophone’s summer mystery
Chords, carousels, bass trombone
Rhythm section in full blow
Constructing crescendoes
Winding down, in and out
Ethiopia's singing superstar
Behind Bertolt Brecht
Score, scrape, roughen up the surface
Introduce a smooth-blue lead guitar
Crack around the dripping potholes
Stalactite to stalagmite
Steadily increase the heartbeat
Feeling for a following frequency
Drop on top that single bleep
Repeated with mounting irregularity
Going nowhere
Circling for a moment
Redirection fades in from faraway
Scattering out the waves and tones
Driving on at midnight
Fingers tapping on the wheel
Windscreen wipers splash the spray
Locomotion slowly drains away

 

Across the Village Green

Across the village green
Beneath the cloud-capped hills
He waved his hand
So full of love and tenderness
He smiled his smile
Years of calm and contentedness
She returned his smile
And thought of wasted opportunities
Between the wars
She could have staked a claim
The life they lived
The stuff of dreams
Across the village green
Beneath the cloud-capped hills
He swept back his hair
From his sun-blessed brow
He held his head
Aloft, proud, not loud
She would have swept her fingers
Through his golden locks
She would have squeezed his hand
Beneath the old church clock
The life they lived
Or so it seems
Across the path of time
It was the stuff of dreams
He walked down along the roses
Between the green and the public house
He licked his lips
Frothy beer, dominoes

A real conversational hub
She would have missed his company
Left at home, alone
She would have tried not to nag
Or wasted Sunday dinners
He rolled out under the moonlight
Unsteady on his feet
He blessed his life
And forgot he had a sweetheart
She thanked her lucky stars
She had not been subservient
She would have loved him dear
To her it was so clear
The life they lived
Grew further apart
The stuff of dreams
In the head, also in the heart
They walked, they talked
Wondering why
Beginning to cry
Their life to revive once again

 

New Poem For Your Return

New poem for your return
Flowers swimming on the breeze
Sunbeams mingle

Jingle in flight across the sky
New poem
Plagued by deconstructive desire
Undone by absence of spirit

Body and soul no longer so strong
New poem
Floating, beaming, weeping willow
Orange blossom full in bloom
Big bright, bright blue sky

Everything of you
New poem
Scattered, shattered thoughts

Slipping like cancer
Time without time, without meaning

Without understanding
Broken bonds
New poem
Crystal swings in glory, casting

Rainbow colours in droves
Nature’s curtains hang at ease in waiting
Whilst ladies languor

With their stolen cigarettes

New poem, more love

 

Driftwood

One white house
Your memories unfold
Fisherman’s tales
Told and retold
A lonesome room
On a windswept shore
Children listen
Parents plead for more, for more
Your crevices and cracks
Your driftwood smoking stack
Rhythms and rhymes, into the night
Eyes burning as splinters smack
Living alone
Inside your solitary stone
Now painted white
A virgins flight, souls to fright
Was your life
So simple we surmise
Grilling fish
Sunset, sunrise, no surprise
A simple cloth
Not Cardin or Davidoff
Did you smile
Along the whole five mile
Walking the shoreline
Before the armies came
Was it ever the same
Was it, ever the same
Your stories unfold
Your history is told and sold
You lie there stark and cold
Within your mind’s finer robes of gold