Black Dog

It is a place that I left

I have left a lot of places

It is a place that I return to

I return to a lot of places

It was a time when I walked away

I have walked away too too often

It was a time which passed me by

I did pass time by too too often

My memory occasionally reminds me

My memory equally often forgets

My heart and soul remind me

My heart and soul less often forgets

It wasn’t a great start

But it did get better

I was not in a good mood

But the mood it got better

I was under the black cloud

But the black cloud lifted

I was feeling sorry for myself

But the pastiche of miasma slowly lifted

I berate myself unduly

Before I feel the lightness

I criticise myself without reason

Before I am redeemed by the lightness

Noise, Is That All

Is it the things

That we do do

Which bring us together

Is it the things

That we don’t do

Which force us apart

Does love

Draw us

Together

Does love

Push us

Apart

If I have any certainty

It is

In the uncertainty of it all

If I have any doubt

It is

In the without doubt of it all

Will my ears still ring

In my headphones

Tomorrow morning

Will the constant

Phut, phut, phut

Take me through the night

Wet, Wet, Dry

It is the sound of the rain

On the window panes

Which gifts me comfort

I feel settled, knowing

That the world moves on

Yet I have found shelter

I was think about

Becoming the I

Who lives my life

That the ways

In which I box things up

Are of my own choosing

That I have an open life

And a secret life

May bring complications

Yet also a sense of order

Is imposed, simply by

Having classifications

Sunshine and rain

You could say

For the rains have died down

The showers have cleared up

The return of the birdsong

Is what brings me contentment

Drive, Walk, Drive

Wind blistered sand

A desert of a walk

At the end of the day

Two bells in the sea

A shelter of driftwood

With a fire-grate

One man

Up to his knees in the sea

Carries a sound recorder

In soft blown fields tall grasses sway

With their seed-heads

Catching the last of the sunset

Parked up, on Bluestone Heath Road

Under the shade

Of the whispering hawthorn tree

I take off my driving sunglasses

Listen to Cypress Avenue

Write one more penultimate stanza

One man

Up to his soul in the countryside

With all of that which this life offers

One White House

For all the world

Within a butterfly

For all of the shadows

Along the long five-mile road

For all of the escapees

To be standing by

For all of the known and the knowing

To be in the ‘two paths ode’

For all of the views

Which came unto my eye

For all of those whose undulations choose

It is my heartbeat, and my rallying cry

For all of determinations

To be sought out before we go

For all of the wartime sedimentations

To be bold beneath a blood-red sky

For all of peace

To take away the hovering buzz

For all of the love to increase

Making it easier, to try, and to try

For all of my eternity

And yours too, I hear you sigh

For all of the joy, and the doubtless infinity

It is for your beauty that I write