Fresh Shoots

Did  you walk the fired stubble
Of last years corn harvest
Did you stain your bare feet
With the half black dye
Of the sodden black ash

Play another song; any
You care to choose, then
Reminisce as best you can
In Fields of Gold, or down
Highway 61 (revisited)

Did you walk on the downs
Where bare grass opens up
To the chalk substrate below
Did you scribe a sign or symbol
To signify your past and presence

Sing along, to your hearts content
Whistle and yodel if so you wish
Make it no houses, houses, houses
To be built here, on what was once
England's green and pleasant land

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 

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