One Window, One Morning

Have you read of the direction of trees
Seen the cat at play on the carpet
Tapped your feet to intricate intimate music
Soft songs talk, of the time when cotton falls

The tree goes on and on into the backdrop
No more to see but trunk and bough and
Branch and snow; the poet talks of Nelson
Or was it Napoleon, on snow covered seas

Brighter light enters the garden, the audience
Applauds, I hear my own voice; outside there
Is no horizon, twigs divide the canvas, chimneys
Smoke signals merge; unread, they too disappear

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Drift

Snowfall you have covered all the
Imperfections, you have them sleep
On the roadsides and bus stations

Two pigeons share a branch in an
Otherwise snow covered tree, they
Are deep in a coo of conversation
I turn the alabaster statue, to look out
Of the window and onto the garden, to
Watch the snowflakes fall ever so slowly

This is Christmas at Easter, families gather
Share their past years reflections, sleep off
The drink, on an altogether lazy morning
I listen to music through my headphones
Take photographs of no-one in the snow
Write these words; alive in my own world

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Half Scape

Two trees; in this time before the leaf
A pair of them planted, yet planted too closely together
An invasion of their personal space, space set against space
In sight of the East to West winds that prevail hereabouts

Straight furrows reign along the perimeter
The trees are erect, but erected too soon, and now about to weather
All of this reminds me of the unseen fragility, fragile
At the inside and the outside of the indirect pathways of life

Man set against man; man under delivers
Man set against the wind; man under delivers
Man set against the plough; man under delivers
Man set against the mist; man fades into insignificance
Man set against the money; man sure finds resilience

Big ungainly lads, footballs at their feet, footballers
In conversation, their football clubs in administration
Straight furrows scrolled over unfashionable ground
Protected; too soon for all, too soon to fall forever

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Back Of The Envelope

Anger is allowed to dwell in those half awake moments
When the skin still creeps and where our thoughts
Try to find a settlement despite
The usual queues at the traffic lights
The usual queues at the roundabouts where cars weep along
Their exhaust gasses discarding the heavy metals

Not that I want to jump on the environmental bandwagon
What with my Danish bacon, my Suffolk eggs; my
This is Lincolnshire Breakfast, which has been gathered
From across northern, eastern, western & southern traders seas
The meal though makes the day more approachable
It is time to cross the river, time to pay my dues at the toll bar

We all need to spend more in these troublesome times
Oil the wheels of commerce, kickstart the wayward markets
Be they yellow or red or black or blue; buy the candelabra
Buy the stocks and shares, buy the fitted kitchen, buy the bathroom suite
Keep our boys in business, keep the menders on the mend
Bring along the sunshine, roll back the dew and the mist

Step up a gear, take a more positive drift; skip over sandcastles
Throw sea frets high and skywards, lay back for the photograph
Turn up the minimalist sounds of Jean Sibelius on the misty morning
Radio, this is the lark rise, this is more than the lark ascending
Let your best side show itself off, let the warm sunlight do its damnedest
Cast off your shadows, into those voids and vacuums of yesteryear

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No Place

Be wary my lonesome lad, those days of solitude creep indivisibly into lost pasts. Even here in the country park, where all that sounds is gunshot and birdsong. Even here the bird watcher, the gamekeeper, the poacher, they are all alone

Earlier today I had occasion to revisit a place where I once spent a week in solitary refinement; seven days in the library; sometime in the late 80’s. Not a jot could I recollect, not a book or a passage, unlike the other summer schools; with midnight parties, walks around the lakes, the bonfires of profanity and the actuaries lark

The engine purrs, the four wheeled enclosure pulls me away, will there be a memory of this lunchtime passed, under the cover of the grey skies and the rainbows

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