Quarry The Quarry

There is a quarry nearby

We’ve seen the wagons

Going to and fro

When I was a young man

An apprentice electrical engineer

I used to repair the jib controls

On a Ruston Bucyrus 5W

A walking crane

With a 20 tonne bucket

The drum contacts had to be cleaned

With fine, then finer, emery cloth

Before being set to work

Some days, with the jib

Out over the cut

I would have to change the light bulbs

Which meant hanging

Over the nothingness

Of impending vertigo

With only the world’s clear air

Down to the broken rocks

Fifty metres below

This helped ingrain within me

A fear of heights

Which I cannot now step over

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And Counting

One thousand buddhas

Before I reach

My buddha self

One thousand consciousnesses

On my way

To the universal consciousness

One thousand blue skies

Up above

My blue sky mind

One thousand trees

In the woods

Of my walking

One thousand kisses

On the lips

Of my lover

One thousand bishops

To our cabin

At Bishop Wilton

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Construct Destruct

That newly permed hair

Dry on a dry afternoon

That newly permed hair

Nothing ventured happens too soon

Old brick wall

With broken exposure

Supports a tree

Where cement ought to be

That newly permed hair

Dry on a dry afternoon

That newly permed hair

Nothing lost by speaking to the moon

Old thoughts flow

With fractured disconnections

Nowhere thus to grow

For out and out corrections 

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Charity Events

V neck

Deep cut

Home for the season

Where weary travellers

With friends last seen at sea

Dwell as the breeze blows

This is the catwalk

A house of fashion

Where leopard skin shorts

Ride up high on thighs

As the conversation

Kicks on a pace

Waiting

Without a time

Or a presence

Yet what is

Is what has to be

In the greater scheme of things 

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Airborne

Cigarette smoke

And walking boots

An unlikely combination

Yet the deep-throated cough

And splutter

Suggest it is well set in

Your brother, my brother

Needed an heart attack

To end his addiction

Your son, my son

Hasn’t got there yet

But he might

I gave up

Several times over

Yet the aroma…

Oh yes

That drift, that waft

Of nicotine grabs hold

Temptation

All of life

It has been the downfall 

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