All Dressed Up

I have a job, in a shop in Leeds
I don’t know how, there is no back story
It would once have been a gentleman’s outfitter

Nowadays we sell expensive branded attire
To those fanciful county & city sets
Men, and their lady friends, with ample wallets

Two shops, close by to each other
No sooner had I been introduced to the main store
Than I was moved out to the two-tone satellite

I was introduced to the staff
Arranged how we could share lifts
Talked of where we could get a good breakfast

It turns out
That most of the clothes are not sold in store
But are punted

Unmercifully, at society do’s
Charity balls, Yorkshire’s horse racing days and
Whatever is Leeds equivalent of a Night at the Opera

I am nervous
I feel out of place
I don’t know why I am here

I do though like the merchandise
& a significant part of my arrogant self says
“Yes, this stuff wouldn’t half damned suit me”



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

Sun Dance Slid

I have heard it called light pollution
The dilution of darkness that hides the stars

Far & away tonight is the best example
Thanks to the fog & mist & horizons kissed
With strong light from the hidden city

Pretty it is, and pretty it is not
With the sodium of Bergamot
Heat shouts; we are hot, we are so hot


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

Push

I prowl these lands
Hope for scent or sound
Scour the wasted times
For signs of significance

Such as that gull in flight
The bare bramble bush
At the aft cusp of winter

I have a thirst, a real thirst
Not due to the poem
Down to the dirt, down to the
Diatribe of lifelong learning


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

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