Reclamation Yards

Past the broken down tractors
Past the randomly discarded farm implements
Over the heather moor and peat bog
Past the rebuilt black houses
Past the new houses with abandoned static caravans

The islanders you would think are not fond of aesthetic beauty

Perhaps this is what a hard life brings; years of cutting peat or catching fish, years of toil before this current time in the work of supporting the leisured classes

Perhaps these years of hardship coupled with the very regular visits of mist and rain combine to build an island consciousness, where survival & shelter come first, a very long way first

This is not then a place for you seekers, of the peak, of the self realisation pyramid

to read the full collection online or download for free from issuu click here

Rain

There is a song at the waters edge
There are pebbles on vacant sands
There are swirls
Where the water heads towards the sea
There are people, why wouldn't there be

The beauty of this beach idyll
Is then all but beaten out of me
By Kate's insistence
That we carry on walking in the rain
Towards a small dwelling
With four windows and a door

I go along with the daftness for a while
But finally insist on returning to the hotel
Kate takes shelter
She walks to my left side away from the slanting rain
My right side becomes soddened

At the cross roads we turn right
Now we walk directly into the wind, and rain
Kate takes shelter
She walks just short of a rainfalls depth behind me
My front becomes entirely soddened

A calm emerges, clear light ahead
There are songs in my heart
There are stones for my feet to kick
There are puddles for children to skip and splash in
There are people, why wouldn't there be


to read the full collection online or download for free from issuu click here

Steve Jobs

He is a guy I never met
But I think I would have liked to

Willie's Campaign

A warmer wind
Nine seagulls on sentry duty
On top of the ferryboat docking posts

Out in the sound
Past the buoys and the markers
Beyond the Shiants and the fish-farms

A warmer water
Suited to dolphins and whales
Soaked in dreams of human pastimes

Framed for the canvas
Stilled by the paintbrush or camera
Settled by slower words, irregular verse

to read the full collection online or download for free from issuu click here

Framed

Endless shimmers
Wave after wave of nostalgia
Patterns thought never to be repeated

Bring their own sense of what’s gone on before
They dwell here & now for a while
Before moving on, to afterwards, ever so slowly

Photographers flip out
Their flip up cameras
Form into rows and rows

To capture the ferry's berth
We are number two
In the orderly queue

We look back, focus
With a self satisfied smile
On our fellow travellers

to read the full collection online or download for free from issuu click here