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Friday, 5 August 2022

Rise And Shine

Cooling down

Going quiet

After a bodily engagement


Settling down

Being quiet

After a mindful resurgence


Out of down

Into quiet

After a presence emergent



Thursday, 4 August 2022

This Could Take A Long Time

All around

Yes, both nearby

And far away

The discrepancies arise


Nothing is

As anything ever was

So why think to repeat

The thing you thought was only quite good


Better surely

To strike out for the new

To take the adventure

By the scruff of the neck


But how to do that

The Algarve; entirely by chance

Ireland; a real leap of faith

Atrium Prestige; no personal recommendations


Other than 

All of those memories

About Leonard Cohen

And his muse, and his music


But back to now; the yellow and blue

Or anywhere nearby

Is surely off-limits

As also is crossing that airspace




Wednesday, 3 August 2022

Hope And Damage

How to dismantle

Such a thing

As I alone

Have constructed


To take a mallet

And a chisel

To the white block

Of plaster of Paris


To take a wash

Of a darker colour

To the study

Of plants and flowers


How to disassemble

Such a piece of work

As I alone

Have created


To take a sonnet

Or a limerick

To the free verse

Of another’s life


How to destroy

A lover

With the obsessiveness

Which I alone created




Tuesday, 2 August 2022

Sworn To Wander

A new citizenship

For an old citizen

Of the other place


Boxes ticked

Facts cross-checked

All parameters sworn into


And what of the status

Does it allow the purchase of a home

Or a position of permanent employment


That you should meet their criteria

Shows how quickly time passes

Or how slow is my distant recall


That I always returned

To this island, nay county, of my birth

Shows a marked lack of real adventure


That this is your third island

Of substantial habitation

Perhaps shows a stable wanderer


Yet, for me, as a writer

Every day a new citizen

Every day an old mantra

 

Monday, 1 August 2022

Commencements

The first telephone conversation

Would likely have been in late September

Because we had examinations in mid-October

In between those dates

I had been on a revision weekend

In Gladstone’s library, at Hawarden, North Wales


Tears

And pain

And love

Love

And pain

And tears


We had been

Together, and apart

Apart, and together

The first departure

To call it such a thing

Was without determination


Hello

And hello

And hello again

Goodbye

Yes, goodbye

Or may it be au revoir


The first kiss was in…

On a campus university

At an OU summer school

I had been

Beside myself with certainty

I hoped you would understand