Absent Without Leave

It is the funeral today

But I won’t be there

Though we did share a joke

Playing bingo that Sunday lunchtime

In the Conservative Club

You teased me

About the thousand pound prize

Which I fell for

Hook line and sinker

As also for your daughter

Yet the words ended

As the separation began

I became persona non grata

Which was understandable 

Given my lack of conviction 

It will be a small affair

All others, or most

Having already passed

Their bowls and blazers

To the cloakroom attendant

Your family will be there

At least your child and her children

Who carried your burden

Only to end up

Spilling over with tears

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Thin, But Total Covering

Such is the new light

That the lead penetrates the paper

Even more so as the floorboards creek

All is curve and straight line

All is solid, or submissive

Soft furnishings and decoration

As if the walls could be papered

With the same ten dollar bills

Which brought this room into being

If those abstract paper currencies

Could replace the tables and chairs

The bookshelves and the lamps

To give a focus, a continuation

To create a living space

As opposed to relying on happenstance

To start again with a blank canvas

Knowing now of mistakes to avoid

Yet somehow to hold onto the romance

To have skipped with joy

Then rested, with some satisfaction

At a job well done

Forgetting, or ignoring the difficulties

The obstacles involved with self-creation

Which had to be stumbled through

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Triggered Repeat

One life is in shadow

One life is in plain sight

In this way

Both are hidden

From the outsider's view

There is little or no conversation

Among the chiaroscuro

Small steps may have been taken

Yet it is the in silence

Where the giant strides are made

From hotel bedrooms

To solid stone archways

From museums and galleries

To ice creams

Taken in the square

On the ledge

Watching and waiting

For others to appear

A new letter is written

As if from the third man

All nonsense

And missed conversations 

With the invisible beauty

Hidden by ether and distance

Covered by joy and sadness

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Emigre

Black of night

Before the light of dawn

Silence and stillness

Shares the warm welcome

As you remember

Also rising early

To see the pink-footed geese

To tread on the firm and frosted ground

Those higher plains

Of tied together emotions

Struggling to capture

What needed to be caught

Such that friendship

May be moved up

By a notch or two

To something other

Where love becomes lovers

Where distance pulls up close

Where heartache takes a step

Or a leap, into ecstatic joy

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Combustible

And so I shiver

In the cold chair

The radiator is stone cold

Yet I do have some warmth

From deep inside of me

Which presumably is generated

In the same way that the squirrel

Eats his nuts for energy

Stored throughout the winter

I drink warm tea

Surely that will stave off hypothermia

Yes, I do know that I am being melodramatic

But if don’t then who will

For haven’t you all

Got your own problems to deal with

Why should you care too too much about me

For this early rising poet

Isn’t it his own fault that he is cold

He could have stayed in his bed

In his warm, warm bed

Instead he feels the damp sensation

At the tip of his nostrils

Which whilst confirming that he is alive

Also it says something about the coldness

And isn’t that what the poet should do

Observe and record the nuances

Whilst everyone else, or most others

Are comfortably sleeping

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works