Predetermined

Pray tell me if you will, about the gossamer sheath
In your bedside drawer

It wasn't there by chance was it, held onto
In case some passer-by should pass by

No, did I hear you say, it wasn't
It was placed there for a purpose

In wait for the opportunity to arise
Or indeed for the situation to be developed

Which it did, mostly at my instigation I might add
Although you did play your part, thoroughly

For which I am forever grateful I have to say
Even if I don't always let you know that

It was a conscious decision, which I made on our behalf
The only unknown, for me, was to be the exact timing

I trust that clears things up
Absolves you of any of your insecurities

Which you may have formed or developed
During the intervening twenty-seven years

They can at last, once and for all be laid to rest
I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, all my love x

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Yorkshire

Sat on the real stone steps
Sheltered by the Hawthorne and by the Oak
From the prevailing wind

Or should it be
Sheltered by the Bougainvilleas
From the fragrant breeze

Either way the sun shone
The gardener mowed the grass
With his rather noisy eight-bladed machine

The children
Now, as then, then, as now
Engage with the sculptures

Perhaps see something of themselves
Reflected in the works of art
See something of the future, see something of the past

The visitors, from nearby, from far away
They jostle with a vacation's excitement
Hold hands as they walk down the pathways home

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Excess

As one way to counterbalance your self-congratulation
You had a day of extreme over-indulgence

Beating head
Sweating skin
Severe indigestion
Counteracted by more, yes many more ablutions

Then by chance to find recovery
In the many-fold dreamscapes

Old friends
Old lovers
Obtuse fanciful situations
Exaggerated by more, yes many more awakenings

Yet almost without a pause
A few moments of nostalgic reconstruction

Unsteady in mind
Unsteady in body
More than a touch of anxiety
Differentiated by more, yes much more, absenteeism

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Elsewhere

Elsewhere is where I might have been
Or where I might have been thought to have been
Even where I might have hoped to have been

Yet I was only there for a moment
Before the vanishing trickster
Performed his vanishing trick

Moving me on to elsewhere
To where the good drummers drummed
To where the good vibrations vibrated

In doing so I seemingly caused the dogs to bark
The lawnmower engines to start
The roll-along refuse wheelie bins to be collected

I want to be elsewhere I silently chanted
To be where I might have been
Or to be where I might have been thought to have been

Even to be where I might to have hoped to have been
Where I would have hoped to stay longer
Where I would no longer have searched to be elsewhere

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Amplification

Much of my poetry is an attempt
To amplify those experiential moments
The ones which I share with myself

Those slight glimpses, of the past, or of the future
Which enter unannounced, silent
As a firm thought or indefinite as a vague fleeting image

Which require the crystal set amplifier
Of amplification to be turned up to the very top
Such as if Roger Bacon's magnifying lens

Might be used to inspect the cell
Or the Jodrell Bank telescope might be used
To interrogate the stars or the cosmos

Imagine now, if you will, that deep meditation
Which realises itself as a visualisation
However, with no Polaroid or such at hand

It would surely fade as easily as it arose
Becoming obscured
By the mere transience of life

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