Backtrack

Truth of it is we don't ever return

Only once can you sing along to your mothers fur coat

Only once can you innocently stroke the inner thigh of expectation

That the once can be dreamed of

For a thousand days and nights or more

Is testament to our fearful powers of delusion

Truth of it is we don't want our doubts confirmed

If for only once all that we wished for would just happen

If for only once we could rise or fall way beyond the fornication

That at once we can drop those thoughts

As if a pebble on the beach, without ripples

Is ample justification for our no-nonsense processions

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Anniversaries

Ache; twenty-five years in the making

I also have to say

That each day your storm

Grows somewhat stormier

Fragrant flowers sneak upon me

As I wander through the canal-side markets

Dusty words throng around me

As I ponder among the older bookshops

To research their serious and frivolous titles

Oils and pastels paint intricate pictures

In the rivers and the galleries

As those erstwhile exploratory travellers

Wake no more to the love;

So long to make, so swift to break

This timely declaration may normalise:

Hold back the storm so to speak

Unless the storm of your broken love

Becomes ever more steamy

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Tricks of Time

In the days extravaganza of seconds

Might I share a few

In this anything but miasma 

I am able to steadily bring 

Mneme's sensitive voice

To wash peacefully over me

Still, almost silent moments within

Except for the flicker of the fires flames

Except for the lest forgetful petrified heart

Outside the wet afternoon brings breezy

Blustery wilder times to the treetops

Life is scythed through the weather vanes

I sway, I hope you sway too

As we swayed with the waves

That tumbled down

Onto the dune protected shoreline

I have no demons to slay, what's that you say

A few words to remind me of the good times

In this days extravaganza of recollections

Where I can always rely upon your insistence

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Sunday

The earthliness of the day attracts me

Slight drizzle, tight breeze

Blighted head after last nights

Light filled, late fight celebration

The stillness of the damp, limp leaves

On the sorrowful Laburnum tree

Mirrors the pace of my hoped for thoughts

If only a gardener, with a wheelbarrow

Could trip across the lawns, or if the

Delivery-men would nip around

With our artisan's shepherds hut

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Anchor Court

Wooden floor, bed settee, bare walls

Except for a picture by Monet 

Lyle Lovett on the hi-fi

His big band lingering

Oil pastels smudge my fingertips

Echoes of my son hurling pebbles

Into the half sight, dark light seas

Nights of ones own company

To play, to cry

To have the strength to sigh

Then go on to rediscover

Coir mat tiled flooring

Two bedrooms

A bathroom and a kitchen

Music that floats, to whichever

Of the four single beds 

I choose to lay my head upon

Sufficient accommodation

For my visiting offspring, and for

My more recent, hopefully

Indecent acquaintances

Flights of ones own fancies

To play, to slay

To have the doubt to weigh

Up only the day of positives

Champagne or chilled white wine

On the sunny-side flags out front

Thoughts of the sophisticated town

That basks over the bakeries rooftops

It is the midwinters brightest season

Weathered by a micro climate

Sights that sensed

The inevitable impermanence

To live, to hopelessly give

To ply, to be so sly as

To shy away from reality

Floors stripped

Furniture and effects loaded

Onto a white removal van

Key fobs pushed, squeezed

With a don’t return note

Into the estate agents letterbox

My brother and my daughter

Present at this intermittent

Significant, half-final reckoning

My lover negligently absent

Rites of passage not observed

We swerve out of town

To deny, to give back the gown

Frown, as we call time

On the dreams end

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu