Engineer, Mathematician, Poet

Twenty-five years
Before I dared
To use the p word

You used it
In the first poem
In your first published collection

Although even you
You the most forthright
Of your generation

Even you
You dared not go there
Not on the first line

Instead you cared
To lead us on
With a quaff of the black stuff

& words drawn
From the north-south divided
Attractions of polar-physics

Later I will paint
Fall in love
With absorption

Think of gin
Stilled in my
Grandparents parlour

Later still I will dream
Walk or fly
Run or skip

Become endearingly
Overwhelmed by the days
Experiences & visitations



Listen to the poem for free on SoundCloud by cliking anywhere on this text

Nuclear non-laconic

All of all time
Dwell on physical love
Soft blown heads of corn
Newly mown, fresh laid hay
Warm skin with the elements
Traced lines in virgin fields
Fondles on summers sands
Shadows, on and off the page

Temptation of sensual deliverance
Open to touch, open to exploration
Manyfold the layers of reflection
In the hazy afternoon sunshine
Daydreams of coastal paths
Of bathing in salt water
Naked and immense


Listen to the poem for free on SoundCloud by cliking anywhere on this text

Shag

Shag
Wings open
To catch the prevailing wind
Lord of all he surveys

Lord of the waves
The sun, the crescent horizon
Lord, of the diminutive rock

On which he stands
Lord of the igneous intrusion
Further out at sea

This is the blue
These are the blues
Blues you are my colour

Thus he sits
Night to day
To keep the flock in order

To absorb the blue light
To infuse the blue energy
To turn his back on Prussia's blue

To rush through
Way ahead of the rest
A seer
A black-blue guide
A singular portrayer
Beyond the oceans cosmos



Listen to the poem for free on SoundCloud by cliking anywhere on this text

Take

Take in the air
The smell of the sea
The stench of seaweed
Beached by incoming tide

Take in the sound
The soft splash of leaves
The shriek of gull
Swooping for your ice-cream

Take in the view
The unhurried horizon
The tar splattered rocks
Of the environmental disaster

Take in the touch
The so submissive sand
The discarded broken bottle
That gashes your careless barefoot

Take in the taste
The neeps & tatties
The stale steak and ale pie
Left on the squalid pantry shelf





Listen to the poem for free on SoundCloud by cliking anywhere on this text

HD Day One

How does he do that I ask

I don't tell everyone but this is a sunken shape, coloured with non-reflective pigment says the gallery guide

I go on to ask about the transparent cube?

I can't actually say much about that, Anish is till secretive about some of what makes his fortune

We are outside now, into the industrial landscape, to see art that makes a statement; did I even hear someone say ‘he is the beginning of our fresh shoots of recovery’

Almost impossible to photograph, in isolated entirety at any rate; I am though affected; first physically, from the distance of the footbridge

I feel to be being drawn inwards, as though the wire shape invokes the effects of a fairground vortex
Back on terra-firma my consciousness marvels at their ideas, commends the fine technical skill

We continue our journey onwards, propelled across the river; our first time on a transporter bridge, further impressed we travel up the coastal route, past the tall ships; sails at rest to the backdrop of boarded up terraced houses

We pass edge of town shops, securely shuttered, travel on to a solitary column of rock off the cliffs edge where we take photographs, before checking-in to our 4 star hotel

After a couple of beers, in a pub full of hen-parties we have lamb biryani with aubergine on the side, followed later by a stroll along a quiet promenade
We are in search of the nights invisible starlit moon




Listen to the poem for free on SoundCloud by cliking anywhere on this text