After Life

No, you are right, it is true
I don’t know anyone
Who has come back from the dead
And there have been plenty of good guys
And of course my mum

These few words spring to mind
As I see the fridge magnet
Of the fallen soldier sailor
A memento of his passing
A young man taken too soon

And how he smiles
And how well they spoke of him
Yet for all the tears on that day
He has not, to my knowledge
Made a second appearance

What chance then I
With way less well-wishers
What hope for my re-emergence
From beyond the pearly gates
If indeed that is my destination

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HL IV

I let the essence stay with me
I do not push it away
I take it upstairs with me
Happy that it chooses to stay

I sort out the bookshelves
For any poetry that’s gone astray
I feel the feeling weaving within me
Today could be that very same day

I let the tick-tock of my mind
Carry the connections from here to there
I take the bigger clock of time
To carry the seconds without a care

I ask that the thoughts come to me
You might say I encourage them to pair
I wonder at my own sense of being
As I move off towards my lair

I listen to her walk through the fair
With no thoughts of a wedding day
I hold the translucence, I do not scare
I am happy, and also so so ready to play

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HL III

I shared with myself this moment
It was from a good while ago
A subtle and serene evening
With a larger than life echo

The echo is not of loss
Neither of a frightful bore
It is a place without a place
Which did exist, but not now no more

I might almost reach out to enter
At least to feel the magic light
I might almost hold on forever
At least until the end of night

I could draw you a sphere
On a stage with an open door
I could tinge the edge with sadness
Or sprinkle stardust on the floor

The response is not for today
Nor for tomorrow I fear
It is as if a seance
Through the ether with my seer

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HL II

A Sunday night in autumn
Which figures down the line
Awakened by a memory
Of clothes cut neat and fine

And the river that flows by
Was once a moorland stream
And the slipper footed raconteur
Told of his everlasting dream

A lesson in forgiveness
Among the passing of the time
Soft steps of reminiscing
To earn his five and dime

And the love that passed by
Was once a place to lean
Happy then to be an audience
To hear him picking from the cream

A Sunday night in autumn
Cool culture quite sublime
The debt is there to share
Let the punishment fit the crime

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HL I

The slipper footed artist
Steps quiet, across the stage floor
He tells of the pre-raphaelites
He is Jazz
He tells us of so much more

I believe he spoke of Rubens
And baroque, entering the door
He told of the early times
He is Jazz
He is the keeper of the score

I know he spoke of post one thing
Or was it from another shore
He mostly spoke of ample women
He is Jazz
He is the picker in the store

I hope he remembers
Of how they loved him to the core
He was irascible
He is Jazz
He is the laughter from which to pour

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