Costa

I have found a place by the entrance
A good draught blows over my shoulder
The cake is Granola, yet
I am still embraced by Yorkshire air

Your jeans may also be tattered at the
Bottoms; we are all getting older
I will buy the crayfish & rocket
For high tea in my hotel room

This part of my lifetime, spent
In cafes, hotels and service-stations
Contributed to my downfall, in matters
Of health, and in affairs of the heart

In recompense it now offers me my writing
The opportunity to observe, the chance
To sip my coffee more slowly; I am
In no hurry, do not rush to reply

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

Balcony

I have moved
Into the outdoor sunlight
There is a pleasantly cool breeze
School children gather on the grass

I have a view
A tree covered in catkins
Taut wires
That act as a barrier

I can hear the wagons, or
Maybe they are tractors
Moving up the hill
Out of my line of sight

The young teachers eat cake
Already they look dismayed
At the prospect of a lifetime
Of saying don’t do that

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

Prophetic

There is light

From the blue sky

There is evidence of love

In your text message

I have noise & disturbance

It is being human

With a history

Piled up behind me

We could be on the sands

With wind in our hair

Sharing the love

That nature gives us

I have words

That won’t stop pouring

It is being human

With a future ahead

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

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