Taken (Without Receipt)

My usual pew

On the back row

Is reserved

Also

The bench, ahead of that one

Is similarly stamped

I determine to move

Nearer to the front

But decide against recording the proceedings

My initial quest then

For a suggestion and response audio recording

Of the Buckfast Benedictine Monks is scuppered

Instead I am here for Compline

The final-minute bells are sounding

This is my new purpose

To feel the stillness

To immerse myself in the quiet

Before the misunderstood rituals begin

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Doppelgänger (Without Trace)

Why shouldn't I imagine that I see you

Sat out, in the corner of the Lavender Garden

In conversation, on your mobile-phone

How much hope can be destroyed

By those twin forces 

Of human nature, and human nurture

Why wouldn't you, choose to sit there

In the most obviously noticeable area

Of this somewhat, considerably discreet, location

And if I could listen in, to your words that is

Would I smile, with warm interest, as I identified

Your libidinous turns of phrase

Or would I

Through clearer speech recognition

Realise how foolish I had been

To have thought of you, either as my lover

Or as you wished, my friend

For all of those intervening years

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Cart Track (Without Refrain)

I kick the leaves

Not knowing

Whether to laugh

Or to cry

Not knowing

Whether to be happy

Or to be sad

I look back on my life

For signs

Of some achievement

Not knowing

If, to feel

Is not itself sufficient

I watch the leaves

Which fall onto the cart track

The cart track

Which climbs up the hill

To the five-bar gate

The five-bar gate

Which I feel

To have always, yes always

Simply to have straddled

Not determining

For one side

Nor neither, for the other

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Gate (Without Chains)

I

I did not cross the bridge

For I remembered last year

When your mood overpowered me

You have not been with me so often this time

Though when you do arrive

You do so with no less force of magnitude

II

I had no choice

There were several hours

To be disturbed, distracted 

Overcome, and somehow defeated

So I did cross that bridge

I walked up the cart track

To the five-bar gate

Where, last year

I had, on three occasions

Left my camera case behind

But today I keep my eyes

Firmly focussed

On the leaf

And nutshell-strewn ground

Only at the top of the hill do I wheeze

Wishing to share another cigarette with you

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Sat In The Sensory Garden (Without You)

Early afternoon

On the second day

Of this short personal retreat

Although I have retreated

From anything but my senses

Right now I hear the gulls

And the loud raucous laughter

Of the studious young Americans

Though to be honest

I am unsure what drew them here

Only one or two

Made it into the Abbey

Only one really, on a regular basis

But I did see a vacant-looking girl

Walking by the river

And in the cafeteria

I overheard two young men

Discussing the purpose of their lives

I tell you, they had a great deal

Of street-wise verbose

Even if occasionally

They stumbled

As I also, so so often stumble

To find the right words

To make the sense of which I am after

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