New Year Reading

You held my words
In your hands
Just as I held my breath
To hear your projection

I wrote those words
With love and kindness
More half-hidden
Than right to the fore

Yet, after only a few tunes
Your reading gave love
Pronounced love
Offered love to all

I heard your words
One by one
Just as you paused for breath
Before further creation

I wrote these words
With gratitude at the very core
Yes, as the absolute
Primary purpose

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You Carried My Pictures II

Between the snapshot, and the memory
Between the unconscious, and the record
Between the turntable, and the story
Between the love, and the thoughts of one

Collected for the keeping
Collected for the looking back
Collected for the rites of reclamations
Collected for the love, and the thoughts of one

In the years, and the months, and the days
In the vacation places, and the regular houses
In the youthful years, and the times before
In the mind, for the love, and the thoughts of one

Envelopes, to send them back, and send them forth
Envelopes, in which to hold the minimal index cards
Envelopes, of which most are now half empty
Envelopes, carrying the love, and the thoughts of one

Tempted to make more of what appears to be missing
Tempted to burden what’s left with inordinate weight
Tempted to find a rationale or a recollected reason
Tempted to become the love, and the thoughts of one

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Read Even More Into The Bubbles

Before I was responsible
The world had a beauty
Yes, when I was irresponsible
There was a freedom

So, on return to St Aubin’s harbour
Both responsible, and irresponsible
We sought out, and found
Both the beauty, and the freedom

Detached of all of our responsibilities
We were free to be irresponsible
Two bus rides to Grouville, after a few glasses
Of bubbly, to send us on our way

Yet how not to try to mix
The here, and the now
With the there, and the then; how not
To shake, and share, the cocktails

For all I have, of my past, and my present
Are in these pint fold outpourings
So many memories, so few photographs
Except for those we have taken today

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Read More Into The Bubbles

For four consecutive nights
Right on the cusp of sleep
I have been gifted a poem about lemonade

Not a poem about any just old lemonade mind you
But a poem, about the lemonade that you bought me
Not being diet lemonade but full sugar lemonade

Of course it isn’t really a poem about lemonade
More it is a poem
About what I couldn't and what I shouldn’t do

Indeed I did have one line, fairly early on:
I couldn’t do what I shouldn’t do
But I could not keep that, for it’s just not true, is it

Not for me, not for you, not for the whole wide world
None of us actually are made of such stuff
As to be able to say, and to deliver on:

I couldn’t do what I shouldn’t do
I couldn’t do what I shouldn’t do
I couldn’t do what I shouldn’t do

And with that mantra, the floodgates opened
All those things I shouldn’t do I wanted to speak of
To shine a light onto all of my secretive suggestions

But I shouldn’t do that now should I
So I couldn’t do that could I
Except of course if we had an amnesty

A declaration that no upset would be caused
That no recriminations would be effected
That you too couldn’t do what you shouldn’t do

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Everywhere, Everyone, Everything

On another day
There will be a different pain
Indeed, on other days
There have already been different pains

And there will be days
Of fabulous consummate joys
Indeed already
There has been such a joy of days

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