Party Time

She had a good figure, precociously attractive 

Her clinging dress cut to show off her her thigh, to declare her bare and beautiful skin open for business

The man, a roughish sort, was bewitched, he clawed at her shoulders, writhed and wrapped his arms around her waist

Another woman, most certainly a woman, gyrated provocatively in front of her silver-haired, dapper, partner; she had the madness of passion in her dancing eyes, her movements had all the makings of a fertility ritual

The smartly dressed man had worked for forty-two years in the same factory, followed by another ten at the service of a global manufacturing industrialist; he was in the company of those who knew him, he stood by those who loved him

The women, and the words, could be from those back copies of Men Only, that he kept, hidden from his mother, inside his record player

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Freesias in the Grasses

It’s not that I want you for myself, or that I don’t want you to be held by another

Though when I saw the photograph entitled Magic Garden I sort of hoped it could have been yours

That you would be there, barefoot in the early morning sun

That one afternoon, some time ago, you would have danced free, and scattered the wild flower seeds

Of course a certain part of me still hopes that you reflect well on our time together

Even though our cottage plot did not have time to bloom, before we had to leave

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Driven

I write
To say
That I am attracted

Yet
In truth
Your infinite magnetism

Wrenches
At my
Molten core

I write
To say
That I am swayed

Yet
In truth
Your uninhabited distraction

Calls me
To the Mount
Of Evermore

I am drunk
Although
Not by alcohol

I am drugged
Although
Not by illicit narcotics

I am crazy
Although
Not by illness fever

I move towards that place
Where no-one
Will love me

Bounded
By doubt, that
Someone else is rocking

Lost
In head
& heart & soul

I fear
Irresponsibility
Locking itself down within me

All that I have been
I am
Again becoming

All that I have seen
Hey, listen to the
Spanish guitars strumming

The warmth
The light
The incidence of fright

In the sweated nights
Of imaginary
Loving

It is as if
With a thousand lashes
I desire to go self beating

It is as if
All my previous shallowness
Is seeking a way out

My shallowness
My years of self deceiving
Are pleading for a way out

I won’t keep you at bay
As, I thought, you
Kept me at bay

Over all those mountains
Of forgiveness
I will forgive you

Yet it’s true
That I could not
Share you

& it’s true
That the truth
Will still be true

I dare not think
Of a time together
Never in my mind

Have I had
So many things
To try undo

Wherever then
You seek total commitment
I will be on the sidelines

Some intermittent thankful recipient
Of the incremental rites
Inside the human zoo

Such small crumbs
Are all I need
To continue my journey

Small crumbs
To encourage me
To be on my way

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

400? Moi?

Rooms with left open doors

Moonlight, on stretches of night

Soft mists that wash the sky

She remembers: curved arches

A rougher alabaster, the print of 

A Girl with Pearl Earring

It was in Amsterdam

That she bought the notebook

Their parting then, ever more painful

Pages; torn out, torn to hold

To hold, with thoughtful hands

Tears withheld from her unsafe eyes

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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

Onzekerheden

Nearer to the hurt

Further from the ache

Leave the time to suit

Of patience still to wait

Beyond the mirrored view

Into the smoke and mist

To sit beneath the window

Ease into the drift

In the instant's instant

Sounds, near and far away

Love of all that’s distant

She feel’s though to say

Nearer to the hurt

Further from the ache

Leave the time to suit

Of patience still to wait

This is a poem from Vagaries:

Love of The Key to Room 149

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