Those fears
In everyone's lifetimes
They lurk just as the crunching left backs
Sliding tackle could leave a young man
With a very different game
The nerve ends
Tips of estranged feelings
Shake, shirk, a skeleton bleeding
Dunkirk of poppy fields which lean
Their seed has seen its own discomfort
Real, or unseeming
In everybody's wake
Fake, or deep with meaning
Unique my name for you
For the you which is left, left upwards yet leaning
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Sleep
Still in the corner of my eyes
My breath
Not yet settled into a steady routine
Recovery
From a day in the garden
A day in the sun
I always used to tell my mum
Not to do too much
But
It was her way
After the least period of inactivity
Or even the sharpest strongest illness
Always before the convalescence was over
Out into the garden
To toil from dawn till dusk
Steep
Still the hills to reach the view
My depth
Not yet settled, into a life renewed
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This is my morning meditation
My slow slow body, and my slower mind
Awakening
With this pencil
To capture
The sprinkled water flowing
Onto the flagstones
Onto the concrete
Pavements
Unloaded
From my father's lorry
To the workmen
The navvies
By the roadside
With their bright brazier
Their enormous
Frying pans
Chock full of eggs and bacon
Here only to do
What he had to do
To feed the kids
To stay above
The breadline
To retain a sense of worth
His morning meditation
To fill up
The forty-gallon diesel tank
With a coughing and a turning
Of the key; then to say
All and every day; it is, and was, always about me
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A shaft of blue sky
Clear sun light
The sway of the chimney
The bay outwith of leaf
It is daft this mourning
With summer near
To laugh my all
In loudest cheer
My craft on dry land
In a sea of tears
You hold my hand
Offer to take on my fears
Shadows are about me
The bright moment
Seen earlier is moved on
The daylight now without relief
You see
I cannot even write these words
Without the slopes on the margins
The time-line is gone; yes, she was the thief
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You almost entered the room
Your glance, truly you quite caught me
Earlier; and not for the first time
You asked: did I need some space
This word, then
This collection of words
A soliloquy, a pleasance
A submission to somewhere unknown
Walks alone, in only our own passages
Tunnels; churchyards and shipbuilder’s sheds
Here is where you have sent me
You simply handed over the key
I opened the door, this time without fear
The old hinges, the cold steel
I feel no more their reign
Faint their memory, now fairly fading
You
You almost enter the room
I turn
I know now, I turned away too soon
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