Back then

No one tells you anything
Anything that you really need to know
At the time you need to know
At the time that you really need to know

How to stop those voices shouting
How to stop the calling of the shrink
How to count to ten or twenty
Or even just to stop and think

No one tells you
Except that you ought to know
No one tells you
Except the tears just have to flow
No one tells you
Except for sure that by now you know

How to stop the nagging doubting
How to drop the stalling mink
How to count, wait, hesitate
Wait a short while longer take a drink

Back then back in childhood
Back then back in teens
Back then back a young man
Back then with dragons with queens

No one tells you anything
Anything that you need to know
Anything that you really need to know
Somehow just a simple breakthrough

Then again a massive step
Then again a massive step

If you've ever been in love
Or lost a close one
Or lost a limb


Well to think that none of that would matter
To think that not a single thing matters
Not a single thing at all

How to stop the voices shouting
Wonder if  it's worth the thought
How to add the noughts together
To any single thing less fraught

So damned easy just to write it
To compensate with chance
Or the intellect almighty
Of imagined circumstance

What you need to truly feel it
Touch it right there on the nose
Deep down in the spine

Hear the book words breathe it fine
Pay the teller to tell her lies
Pay her with the fives and dimes

No one tells you anything
Anything that you really need to know
No one tells you

Tells you what you need to know
At the time you need to know
At the time that you really need to know

No one tells you anything
Anything that you really need to know
No one tells you
At the time that you really need to know



This poem is from the collection East of Lincoln Central available now on kindle - click on the text for details

Scrap Man

There is old angst in me
Anger that makes it hard to see beauty
Inhibited to realise the simple joys of being free

Anguish came, and stayed sometimes
Sat with me alone to trouble my mind
Twisted my heart, my hurt soul angrily redefined

I sought out solace tucked up in blame
Worked so hard for unpublished fame
Listened to poets in silent disdain

I travelled the world with an attitude of wrong
Neither in Paris or Rome did I break out in song
Always the pragmatist I stood apart from the throng

Now I see specks of light here as a sign

I have intention and foresight to work out in time
With breath and touch each day to combine

I aim at a peace, but with a vibrant soul
I will walk by waves, smile fully as they roll
I will wonder at skies, stars and moons
I will stroll with your names as forever you call


a poem from In & Out of Dream Space Love Embellished by Visitations click anywhere on the text for details

A single dust mote note

Midnight
At ten thirty
Houseplants die
By dust fair dirty

A room with a view
Of a railroad
A moor
Some way beyond

A radio station
Misplaced
Here a Saturday
On a Thursday

A dial beyond
Way past beyond
My last
Imagination


Would that this warmth
Was as settled
As the mind
That it tries to disturb

This body displaced
Replaced
Each spring
Each autumn

Each winter
Dusted
With a thin fine sprinkle
Of fair-weather soft fallen snow

A room with a view
Back over a fair few years
A mischievous miscalculation
Lost among a past matriculation

A song
Would that
To pluck
A single note

In time, in tune
My only; dare I even say
My only one regret
My missed single dust note mote





This poem is from the collection East of Lincoln Central available now on kindle - click on the text for details

Telephone

You didn't expect to feel so low
Why would you
Wasn't there laughter and lightness in her voice
Go back if you will
Analyse those thirty-one minutes
Line by line, as if a detective or forensic scientist
Better still
Write a diary note, from the distance of time


a poem from In & Out of Dream Space Love Embellished by Visitations click anywhere on the text for details

Simple complications

Don't want expensive presents
Would rather share
What it is already bared

Walk by both the faces
Still and turbulent races
Thoughts more clear

A path to steer
Day by day
Hopes with care to stay

Talk of misdemeanours
Or exclusions - faraway
Long lost conversations say

Or better wow; find words of now

More worthwhile
You and I to softly smile

Simple complications
Debates of long passed stations
Hang on for a while

Wait just a moment won't you
Debates they care, don't they
Care for a victor either way

Why then (sic)
Is it in any way nostalgic
To wear a stripy scarf

Or a bead on a wrinkled wrist
To choose again for time
To be of value; time

The essence of being
The chance to gather
Disparate thoughts


Placed above the sterling
Time; way above the sterling
Way above the tarnished garnered coin

Don’t want expensive presents
If in any way that brings resentment
Of what is already spent

Talk from far off places
Stairways & pretty faces
Climb to these elevated floors

With one door
And one window stay
Elopers with a care to play

This poem is from the collection East of Lincoln Central available now on kindle - click on the text for details