Meal Out

It is a room of archways

Circular details, rectangular

Mirrors & windows

It is a space with chandeliers

In line with the sea, lights

Perpendicular to the horizon

It is a floor, whose boards

Run diagonal to the walls

With wood-pattern frames

It is a roof, also forestation

Hexagonal and triangular

Patterns, of polished veneer

It is one person

Sat at a table for two

Hesitating for the next word

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

Gourmet & Light

I like the crispy duck

Because I like the crispy duck

I am here alone

Why else would I like the duck

I am looking forward to the chow-mien

Because I can try to use chopsticks

I am here alone

Why wouldn’t I try something new

I thought I might watch the day disappear

Because of being on the cusp

I am here alone

Why not enjoy the mysteries of dusk

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

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