Make the Man

Striped deckchairs
Chiffon dress
Heads in books
A softer breeze

Beds with plumped up pillows
Rose gardens
Weeping willows
Cups of tea

Quintessential:
Fits as if a three-piece suit
Or ducks plaster cast threefold
In flight across the fire place wall

So what would you take with you
Other than paper, a pen and the sanity
To fetch back from your mind
That which you have already known

That which you know makes
The difference
Between the here and there
Between the then and now

So what
Would you take with you
To make the man:

Checked frocks
Embroidered smocks
Garlands round the maypole

Hand pulled ales
Hills and vales
Strangers resounding

At the clarion call
By the tall trees now in slumber

Somewhere East of Clumber

Deferential
Sticks unpicked
Past glories
Lost & stumbled

The shoddy
Without the shimmer
With thread and pin
Therein to sing

That sometime
The fabric’s time
Not with medals
But with honour
The fabrics time arrives


This poem is from the pamphlet Rainbows On My Spectacles - Love Through a Lens
To see the complete collection click anywhere on this text

Capture

Cracked earth
Your sign
Of sunshine after rain

Of clay
Close upon your surface
Of winters now far away

Wide grass, wedged between your thumbs
In front of your cupped fingers
Your breath

Without the grass gives a hoot
Or is it an owl
Somewhere in the distance

This moment
I stroke beneath your eyelid, then
Ask that you turn

To face into the sun
Such that the camera
May catch (capture)

More than just the essence
Of the past, or the future
Or your presence

In sepia tone
Or black and white
Or pixel plenty colour


This poem is from the pamphlet Rainbows On My Spectacles - Love Through a Lens
To see the complete collection click anywhere on this text

Pink white blossom

Crooked vine you have turned
At every turn, yet
You have yearned not of going back

Always instead to reach out, without end
Or fall away
Wither there, to die a quicker death

Curvaceous leaf; your sheaf, your shape
As her neck nape with pleasure gave
Strains of the toughest, twice turned cheek

Always instead to float until way past late
Or drip when clipped
Annotated as a signature, on the vase or cheque

Pink white blossom - you arrive unnoticed
Well dressed
No thanks to the hibernation times

Always instead to spume your fine perfume
Or phrase your dusted past
Onto the pictures of our pastured pavements


This poem is from the pamphlet Rainbows On My Spectacles - Love Through a Lens
To see the complete collection click anywhere on this text

Imperfect Words

Mown grass cut in crooked lines
She finds her beauty in the painter’s eye
There by the water butt & the buzzing fly

Twisted bark and washing lines
Drying out the nearly nigh on summer
Starched collars and double cuffs

A uniform to bluff the chuffs you must
Just now and then disapprove of
A lazy space; a place to phase

A future resurrection, a collection filed under
Imperfect words, absurd to think that they
Make you smile, while all  the while

The workmen wonder
Thunder rolls, ramblers stroll
All for the love of someone East of Clumber

Lumberjacks and rookies hats
Right on mountains, with fountains
To the sea, through the waterfalls

Seats in the operatic stalls
Hold all the calls
For then you’ll see

The mown grass
The fir pined tree
The painter man - and me


This poem is from the pamphlet Rainbows On My Spectacles - Love Through a Lens
To see the complete collection click anywhere on this text

Peaceful Deflection

Crimson in bloom
Right beside the buttercup
A fair distance
From the pampas grass

Or the overhead
Twin propelled
Airships
Aeronautical extravaganzas

A little closer
A good deal closer
With closed petals
And

The touch of silk
Colours
Of the oriental
Sunrise

Escape from
Thistles throttled
Bottled scent worn
On special days

And Saturdays
And always
Worn always
When in love

I sprinkle dry grass
On my cotton
Sweatshirt
To see the grasses

Shadowed patterns
& to see the
Sparkle of the sunlight’s
Rainbows on my spectacles

Smell of fresh grass
Smell of dead grass
Aroma of peaceful
Deflection in sunshine time

Of late afternoons
Later more than mornings

Before the day sets, with the
Dance of the evening primrose

Long thin grasses waive and bend
The heat’s rays it seems defeats them
Thankful for the breeze
With her soft fingers

She tends them
Lends them back a life
She stands them up to be
Once more erect


This poem is from the pamphlet Rainbows On My Spectacles - Love Through a Lens
To see the complete collection click anywhere on this text