Find only our own fortune

White linen suit, frayed fingers in your making

Can you turn me into a poet

Can you take me to Bohemia

How many wages were spilt before being distilled

Before you were ready; integrated

Steadily to be taken off the peg

The past province of aristocracy

Lost city of the intellect

Retailer, wholesaler, packer

Shipper, advertisement executive, also maybe

The marketing manager too; anyone but you then

Who had the time to take the money

For your intricate handiwork; your lyric

Your chorus, your woven weft

Bereft of any of their bluster

Turn instead to the isthmus

Or depart for the black hole

Of singular isolated pain

There we may find only our own fortune

Which may, or may not sustain

If even for a short while

Until tea perhaps, or even up to a late supper

Before eventually we step out

Bled dry for the better dressed

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Ride

The wind blows with gusto

It blusters across the warm garden

If this had been an holiday romance

The loss, or sense of it, would already be upon us

The warm winds of the wet Atlantic

The thrashing storms of Regis seas

Sixpence in the bubble-gum machine

A parachute slow hanging from the citrus tree

In joy we seek out shadows

In sorrow a search for somewhere light

That is why, for us, we ride the roller coaster

That is why we step upon the magic bus

In my deckchair

Beside meadow grass and mistletoe

To read a book of passionate poetry

Rapture; yes, I do remember

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Too good to be true

He plays your already chosen songs

There is though, something uneasy

For you about him

A sully face, an optimistic smile

The darkness which she lightens

If it wasn't for her

There would not be enough of life left

He's ok, you think he's fine and why not

For all we know is the public persona

Stage managed

We are given what we already have

Or what we want to hear

Yet still he takes just too many steps

Ingratiatingly he goes too too far

Only a simple and ordinary man goes lightly

White washing blows outside on the line

Way too much goodness, even to understand

Fragile to walk across that derelict railway crossing

On and on, go on and on

Deep down into the tunnel where the colours drain

From your cheeks; you are still, pretence or real

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Back off

Your intellectuality burns me, turns me off

Then puts a distance

Between me and your poetry

Of course I recognise, I have heard

Of the inferiority complex, and what she can muster

That harbinger and buster of angst unclaimed

Shame they say is thrust

By our child abusing a muse in your cloisters

Did you play that game too

Showing off to the weak and the lonely

Taking advantage, but missing the feeding of you

Snapshots, crackpots abide with the simple few

Hey, I say; get back to where you once belonged

If such a place, should

In your present reality, still exist

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Wild Flowers

In the roof space of silence

And echoed evensong

A place on this morning

Untouched yet reached for

Held up by stone pillars

As for worshipful gatherings

My prayer, my poem

Of a few simple words

Wide lake of sidelights

And shadows grace is falling

Just by being still with you

Together to gather

Sitting on the slat wood

Sitting in the pew

Unset offset imagination

Inactive, attractive so so soon

Do you propagate wild flowers

Poppies, evening primroses

Which close then open

At the same time of sunset

Open through the night

Splashing their perfume

The old peculiars

Of tobacco, and Old Spice

Dominoes, counting games

Maybe one day she might

Except once, when more unable

Tables turned and you edged away

Out uneasily from beneath

Or beyond the stairway of silence

Swift in flight did you not see

The forbearance of the night

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