I Stole the All of Joy

Did I truly

Make off with your ebullience

Hijack your bounce and verve

Is it true that only the downtrodden

Was left behind

The cast aside and trapped free thinker

Under sodium skies

With winds set down for late evening

As though the truth of one

Can be at one with one

Who sits somewhere in transit

Over the distant darker blues

Underfoot undulations

Night visit to neighbours; harmonious

Welcome, careful journey of love

I drink my Northumbrian water

Hear you talk of limestone dissolved

See you swim; in river, loch and cave

I was on the edge of sleep

But I have been awoken by painters

Poets and writers talking of wild swimming

I will buy Hughes’ book of the river

Paddle again in the streams of my childhood

Tingle my extremities with the touches of water

Everyone celebrates Roger Deakin

He was infectious with his desire

To let one share in his excitement

Though boy o boy we didn't expect

The skinny dipping

Or did we

Intoxicated by water, water on skin

Skin glides through water, intense

The immersive other place of water

It was one line, spoken with little

Conviction; five words, no more

No less: "come and see me later"

In the past I would have been ecstatic

Right away my whole body

Would have trembled

My mind in an instant

Would have been fuzzy

Frazzled to the core

Then I would be hanging

On to her every word

Instead it is the swallows 

& gliding house-martins

That bring a smile

To my less tired eyes

I don't think of her on waking anymore

Which says something I suppose

About the passing of time

This is a poem from Filmic: Love of Our World of Purples & Blues

Available as ebook from Kindle
or as a homemade print book with audio cd from  poetryshop 

Swing

Sat by Infinity Bridge

Eyes cast across the water

Canoeists venture out

Cut through the breeze blown tide

This is a poem from Filmic: Love of Our World of Purples & Blues

Available as ebook from Kindle
or as a homemade print book with audio cd from  poetryshop 

Verminous

Listen to the crows

Feel the scrunched up skin

That says you need to sleep

Forget the dreams

Of work place disorganisation

& mixed up appointments

Those guys

They were just trying

To catch you out

You don't need

Those sorts

Of so called colleagues

This is a poem from Filmic: Love of Our World of Purples & Blues

Available as ebook from Kindle
or as a homemade print book with audio cd from  poetryshop 

Labour

The lads set off up the fairway

They must have started before eight

There looks to be a bit of banter

The bar will be busy till late

The mower trims the greens

Blades all sharp and true

He's been a lifetimes groundsman

He returned, as just one of the few

This is a poem from Filmic: Love of Our World of Purples & Blues

Available as ebook from Kindle
or as a homemade print book with audio cd from  poetryshop 

Interwoven Nights

The lights here are down

Your crown lies unadorned

In time of scrub and thorn

Pour scorn on sweet surround

Darkness knocks at my door

Holds herself steady by my window

In the yard

A quiet candlelit conversation

I have no way of explanation

To explore is purely conducive

The reduction in pace

Is surely partly seduced

By tips of steel on stone

In this place not home

Roams the mind, kindly

Sign the art as untouched

We said as much didn't we

On the way to implication

That to explore is conducive

To the boy child’s birth-bed

Dark of night outside

All along the sea front’s fret

Pain, anger, joy, touch

Delirium, care, guidance

Parents to be by chance

Uselessness personified

Seaside, dark of night outside

All along the promenade

Mystic; myths in the making

Aching to scream; yes, yes

Father, son and mother

Uselessness exonerated

I can see my fingers

But little is self evident beyond

I can hear my shirt ruffle

But no sounds of air conditioning

I could think of precise moments

Yet delve instead into beautiful emotions

I could tell of powerful interruptions

Yet instead I sell rights to curious commotions

Aircraft engines are louder in the silence

Joyful conviviality is drowned out

By the absence of light or movement

The shadow-puppets loom with menace 

A table for eight my dear

We were a little late, but no matter now we're here

A bottle of your best white wine, mon frier

& a pint of finest, frothy, German beer

Our bodies warm to one another

Arousal is imminent

We stroll to the beach-side bar

Quaff the ice cold draught Peroni

Served in their neat one pint glasses

We listen to upbeat feel good music

You and me girl, now and always

We are the good time bar people

This is a poem from Filmic: Love of Our World of Purples & Blues

Available as ebook from Kindle
or as a homemade print book with audio cd from  poetryshop