Thankful

It is August now

Outside the cottage museum

No one enters, no one leaves

If I wander for long enough

I may just find what it is

That I wander for

If it is to read the poems

Of Thomas A Clarke

It will not have been a wasted journey

Neither if the result

Was to recollect

The untamed sexual desires

Of consenting adults

Caught in the crossfire

Of early middle age

If I mooch about in my mind

I may see another door open

You, stood uptight behind me

Both of us, variously undressed

Warm, welcomed, willing

Willows within each other’s skin

If I try to work it out

I may decide all is nonsense

Me, trying to make a way of it

You, you say to stay away

What did the tea leaves say

Be thankful for the journey

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Visibility

I did look at you

Then I did not

Once again I look at you

Though soon I may not

I did look at you

What were you thinking

Now I look at you

Unable to ask of your thoughts

Did you look at me

Then did you stop

Ever again did you look at me

No, maybe you did not

Did you look at me

See into my thinking

Now do you look at me

Unwilling to ask of my thoughts

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Prospects

A life of deposed disposition

An end to the Spanish

Or any other, inquisition

You had been the pretty girl

But, at least for now

It seems you have gone walkabout

I had been the dashing young man

But, at least for now

It seems other matters occupy me

Wherever tenderness was

There is tenderness no more

Such apparitions from a distant shore

We do not let it go

Though neither

Do we hang on

Our dear life

Is for that other life

Which rather speedily approaches

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Different Strokes

Some words cannot be found

Without first being

Or becoming lost

The ground is dry, hard

Parched, thin grass

There are memories here

Yet the barren earth

Does not know how to call for them

There are couples, walking arm in arm

Matching jumpers, matching rucksacks

There are families

Of all ethnicities, of none

Who seem to share high levels of boredom

This is not my place anymore

I have lost my feeling of belonging

On the balcony of the cafe I drink a glass

Of Fontimans, Botanically Brewed

Mandarin and Seville Orange Jigger

I am there among young Japanese folk

And a woman, in a Sgt Peppers velvet jacket

The family of four, at the next table

Talk in pronounced English of last seasons Italian trip

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Listen

I see today’s lost soul

Just as I was that lost soul

Some time before them

I see the scattered feathers

Just as the fox attack

Has left them

I see the water of the lake

Just as that other water

Which my sorrowful soul gazed into

I see grandparents, parents, children

Just as we might have been

But not as we are

I see the light in the deer shelter roof

Just as it was

The last time, and the times previous

I see (feel) that the silence is not here today

Just as I didn’t actually know it was

All of those times in the past

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