Duration

It is as if
When full term
Brings its own contentment

With the care
To wait, to listen
Also in silence

How else
To hold love
By a shared handle

Swing as a pail
Rocked by Johanna
On the honky tonk piano

Fast on the rail
Of one stolen stallion
Bareback squeal of the clarion

It is as if
Where time
Brings its own contentment

How else
To hold love
By the light of the candle

With the care to wait
To wait, and
Listen, also in silence


A poem from Nameless Places and Hospital Gowns - Love Cared for by Relate available from iTunes and Amazon

Are we there yet

I smile from further away now
A half smile at that, to myself

O wondrous sky
Great gap in the rainclouds
Mercy be for your starlit clarity

She was the first (woman for my poetry)
First for my chase
First for the imperfect haste

First to find a place
For my shameless words
For my tastebuds to muzzle

The writing itself didn’t much matter
What mattered was that I was writing
Writing to win the love of one woman

Only later (listen to Joe Strummer)
The writing itself then mattered
Thus scattered we moved in turn to part

The writing then mattered
Cliches lowered, she broke my heart
Closed all the doors and started to start

The writing then mattered, pitter patter
Words mattered as musk moved deeper to dusk
Nattered was I, that it came so far into the dark


A poem from Nameless Places and Hospital Gowns - Love Cared for by Relate available from iTunes and Amazon

Hospital Gowns

I cannot walk into this fog
I cannot walk out of this fog
Each forthright stride brings clarity
Each hesitant pause returns me to the gloom

Above is the dull roar of enemy aircraft
To the South lies the quiet of the radical wood
To the North travels the grumble of traffic manoeuvres
Here, in the kernel, doubt waves radiate outward

I cannot, nor do I want to, feel the despair of the hospital patients and visitors
They see their own end clearer than the 'well people' who stumble inattentive in the mist

The dying do not take hesitant steps
Their steps are forthright steps
Shorter steps, steps to prolong their time
Steps to ease their pain, as they head off
To blow cigarette smoke
Into the disappearing mist


A poem from Nameless Places and Hospital Gowns - Love Cared for by Relate available from iTunes and Amazon

Nameless Place

Late afternoon mist, before darkness arrives
Sheep are gathered by the hedgerow
They wait for whatever sheep wait for
In these surreal metaphysical conditions

Bare branch trees are shrouded
Spume covered with a solidified half grey blossom
They are placed at indeterminate distance

Cars flash by
Halogen headlights and diesel breath exhaust

I park by the side of the wood
I want to capture this dull sky atmospheric
It is a view endorsed by the random rags
Disaffected litter attached to the skeletal frames

Around the bend a convoy approaches
The leader of the pack advances ever so cautious
He, or she, peers into the place where only I can see

Although I too fail to hold myself together, in this ether
The effervescence of interpretation escapes me

It could have been a meditation
It could have been a painting by Turner
It could have been an island in a Buddhist movie
It could have been the story of what is lost is lost
It was not any of these fanciful presentations
It was sheep, gathered in late afternoon mist




A poem from Nameless Places and Hospital Gowns - Love Cared for by Relate available from iTunes and Amazon

Supermarket Car Park Lunch

I change the radio station
From highbrow political debate
To an earnestly represented classical music concert

Imagine the coal fired power stations
Emitting their final puff of smoke
Their feed canals emptied of bulk fuel transport barges

As if the camaraderie of working men is to be gone
No more the communal showers
No more the rush to the clocking off clocks

There is rain
It streams down the car window
There is a meeting to attend

It is not to listen to a recitation by Lawrence Sail
It is not to joke
About the frequencies of peak experiences

Yet for some perhaps it is


A poem from Nameless Places and Hospital Gowns - Love Cared for by Relate available from iTunes and Amazon