Reclaimed Land

The legs of the wicker chair
Sink into the turned over ground
The breeze blows over my face
Bringing with it the birdsong

Andrew chops logs
With the splitting maul
He wears yellow safety glasses

Ruth and Kate turn soil
As if turning soil and talking
Comes naturally-ordained
To womankind's evolution

Springtime in England
For simple folks
With pastures to cherish

Graft

I chopped a few logs
Enough for this week
On Andrew's wood-burner
But before the heavy, physical work
I had sketched the orchard garden
With most dry and powdery pastels
It is a two hundred and seventy
Degree horizon, which plays havoc
With my limited sense of perspective

I am then told that Malham Cove
Is in the distance, and that
On a good day the sunshine
Reflects clearly off the limestone
Nearer to hand I hear the partridge
And next door's children playing
Such as they do, when
Searching for chocolate eggs
On this happy sunny Easter Sunday

Boy To Man

Feels like I'm eighteen again
Walking down the gravel drive
Wide Oxford bags
Flapping in the breeze
Tall and erect
A good days work behind me
I might talk about that one day
But right now
It feels like I'm eighteen again

I Or Almost Or I

I make this mark as a way to begin

A doorway through which to enter

The music is vaguely religious

With deep folk root overtones

The heavy curtains are drawn

Spotlights cast long shadows

I have read from Edgelands; learnt of an artist by the name of Chell who might well have captured the verges that I hoped to draw, or at least to write of

I have read from Falling Upward; of the two halves of life, reflected on my strong similarities to the failings of others on the road to immaturity

Before the fever takes hold

As I fear the fever no doubt will

I stretch full to say then take me

To write as would a man possessed

I make this mark as a way to end

A doorway through which to depart

Fury Poems - A short collection
Read free on Issuu

At The End Of Night

Daylight creeps into the valley
In search of the crowing voices
Beat of the pheasants wings
Brings vibrations physicality to glass
It is all that stands between human warmth
And the strut of winged courtship

The clocks tick-tock
Yet the alarm is silent
Once again I have woken
Before the time to wake
To peer across the flat frosted grass
Over the stream to the woodlands

Banks of trees that rise in an instant
A vast array of intense greens
And golds, and browns, and yellows and cherry reds
Yes, also the girlish wisp of the eastern silver birch
We all, so it seems, stand erect
In search of the photosynthetic energy of light

Fury Poems - A short collection
Read free on Issuu