6:23

Grey skies
Don’t stop the birdsong
Windblown hedges
Don’t dampen their spirits

I have risen early
For no real purpose
It is too soon
To make my love her tea

Poetry doesn’t begin this way
Even for Mr Bukowski
Why, by now there ought to be
Profanity, or words more profound

But, as the too slow camper-van
Crossing the New York Bridge
I also am moving too slowly
I need reminding how to flow

Perhaps a meditation
To contemplate the light
Say thanks to all creation
And the wonders of the night

Maybe an invitation
To a debutante’s ball
Or another Gatsby glorification
To sound his lost lover’s call

Besieged by past temptation
I stride out towards the fall
There is no simplification
When love to know is all

The love of one another
The brook beside the brawl
The sister and the brothers
The familiar tone to stall

As richness becomes discovered
And spitefulness is turned around
The day moves on upwards
Sad thoughts banished to ground

Available On Kindle - Click Here

Essex and Suffolk

Nothing more than the sunrise
& the sundown & the words
Of the earth and heaven between

Except that life is a bit more complicated
Already two hundred miles from home &
A further stretch to drive this evening

There is a strong sun, in a clear blue sky
The roads are already heavy with traffic
I will do a days work, then go & join them

Available On Kindle - Click Here

Pictures

Entente Cordiale
A sort of dialogue is begun
Backslapping, thin and light
Yet a beginning for all of that

The programme is installing
With what hopes
That the photographs
May be recovered

The database is upgrading

A peace of love
Such fleeting, moving stillness
That brings a facial likeness
To the new morning

Available On Kindle - Click Here

Doubtful

I wouldn’t take it past the line end
Unless I was certain of my position
Better to be unsure
Better than being mellow

I wouldn’t try to find a rhymed blend
Other than the strength of my indecision
Better to be blue
Better than being yellow

I wouldn’t close or sign the letter off
Without the crisscross of my derision
Better to be lured
Better than being a good fellow

Insight et al

I walk across my home town
Between two drawing offices
There isn't a real desk space for me in either
My old boss Roger wants me to design
An aircraft refuelling system

I tell him it's all about
Finding the right operational staff
The second office is really busy
A meeting of everyone is called
I see this as an opportunity to slip out

A fox approaches me on the petrol station car park
It bears its teeth and harasses me
I shout and wave a stick but I am frightened
A big dog grabs the fox
Eventually it works the foxes head between its jaws

Before determinedly and manically crushing
All life out of the bereft wild animal
It was a dream that I couldn't leave
In the same way I couldn't leave
Another work dream earlier in the week

In another of tonight's dreams I was explaining
The solution to a control system problem, & even
Though I knew the fix was to move the measuring
Device nearer to the process being measured
I had doubts that it would be correctly implemented

It seems to me the dreams are about a lack of control
Doubts about the resolution of issues
I am neither able to complete a task, or walk away
In the morning I find that a Fox in ones dreams means:
Insight, cleverness, cunningness and resourcefulness

Available On Kindle - Click Here