Workday

The five bar gate leans out and over

Pulling at the barbed wire fence; these

Are the big fields, of Norfolk & Suffolk

A lament plays on the car stereo

Good times appear to be on the water

Where was I five minutes ago

I didn’t then know

Of the garden centre cafe

And the rows and rows of weedkiller

This restaurant I have been to before

But not alone, not alone in the early evening

Before the jovial ‘out for a good time’ diners arrive

I wonder at the decor, it’s neat, professional

The whole place sparkles and appears well run

Unlike the downbeat town where I fear to walk

Yet what connects me to the orient; I have never 

Been there, I never really desired to; yet I’m eating

A chow-mien duck special, and reading Murakami

Becoming immersed in his hyper realisations

Joining him in streets, on trains, in temples

Thats as close as I’ve been; yet I’m almost 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

Channel

Maybe, maybe, maybe

Anyway 

The Island

Light

And sky and sea 

And my not being a writer

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

Edmund

Maybe if she hadn’t given me that book

Or if I hadn’t read my first gay novel

Either way it was too late, we were on

The island; we would continue our search

I have spoken before of red telephone boxes

With stolen conversations - remember Calvino

& of course, when she won the competition

I was doubtless going to be going there with her

The boy will be given the gift, he almost already has

Though she may not, be given to know of the present

Or of the tracks that he finds, on the cities outskirts

Which may be transplanted, without tying him down

My clothes feel soft again, though I’m not in stripes

My hair is flattered, by the perm, turning to silver

I have left, moved away from the less of conversation

To become a spy; an intermittent traveller, a writer

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

The Gift, to Oneself, of An Island

I was surprised, to find a moorland heath

In sight of the sea, but I was, in that current

Mood, much open to the joy of your surprises

I was wearing a soft shirt; broad stripes

Of silvery grey and silvery green, the sun

Flattered my hair, it shone in the photograph

I had read Mr Pye and was set ready for discovery

I had recovered, settled myself to find a peace here

By the sound and the movement of the horse & cart

One can become very light indeed, in meditations

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

Spinning

It is the quiet

The dry tears of absence

The heartfelt, scoured for words

That move nothing closer to nothing

The magnolia wall

Is within touching distance

I remember the bowl of pebbles

The tools of tried & failed reconciliations

Today; wind down the chimney

Work on the printer

The desire, o what desire

To be alone, on ones own

The bookshelves sorted

One hundred and fifty

Volumes of poet’s poetry

Most with a tear for my eye

It is this half-silence

The washing-machine of presence

The close-felt, scoured for clothes

That keep nothing further from nothing

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