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Tuesday, 26 March 2024

Old And Cold

I want to hold your hand

I so so want

To hold

Hold somebody’s

Anybody’s hand


I am growing old

Without love my hands are cold


I want to hold your hand

I so so want

To hold

Hold somebody’s

Anybody’s hand



Monday, 25 March 2024

I Sit Inside The Christian Fellowship Coffee Shop

I sit inside the Christian fellowship coffee shop

Amongst a melodramatic search for reason

Day dreams of retreat

Into sublime silent solitude


Sparrow crumbs of memories

In flight across my mind


I actually sit

Astride the easy rider metro double decker bus

Visualising heathers of golden crimson

That one day we may walk among together



Sunday, 24 March 2024

Playa de El Paradisio

For you to lay back, to imagine

Benjamin Zephaniah painting his poems in the sand

Derek Walcott welcoming himself to his own door

That Mr Marley rumbling up the band


For you to extend your imaginary senses a little

Sultry sunrise cotton daybreak

Sweet potato, mango, fresh caught fish

Breakfast in between


Now you’re getting the taste, beginning to feel

The heat rippled skyline over wave breaks

Hand-gliding, water-sliding, rapidos rising

Beach bums, guitar strums, Indian summer


It’s not yet ten, in the morning that is

Tonight the moon will set real slow

The jazz boys brass will blow

Dances will be fast, as fast as lasers glow


Before that there will be oysters

As you look out over the bay

In musk bound, orange and yellow chiffon and taffeta

The boys with studded belts, with Cuban heels


So you take a cup of coffee

Draw on one more cigarette

You close your eyes so tightly

This morning moment, you simply shall not forget


PS

Up there in the mountains

There is another poet painting over us

Everyone who is anyone was his visitor

They would not, could not, let him be; oh let him be



Saturday, 23 March 2024

Doubt, No

Mackerel on rye


Tinned in tomato sauce

Packet from the corner all night store


Sat at someone else's dressing table

Another person belongs this space


Could afford the best in town

I mean the most delicate delicatessen


Doubt, no


Choice


Swinburne, Shute


Faded paperback by Pan

Not for sale in Canada


Reading someone else's book

Another person belongs a requiem for a wren


Could afford the leather bound

I mean the signed first edition of A town like Alice


Doubt, no


Choice


Walls, Windows

Magnolia with Tartan

Basket weave, knotted pine


Someone else created this place

Another person belongs the kitsch, the swish


Could afford the penthouse suite

I mean the most existentialist royal Casino Royale


Doubt, no


Choice


Walking or waiting


Making the first move

Indecisive in the end


Someone else made the pace

Another person belong’s your familiar place


Could have carried on

I mean continuing more than incremental growth


Doubt, no


Choice



Friday, 22 March 2024

Light Headed

Could be just coincidence

Incandescent, irreverent coincidence

Elemental, heaven sent
Coincident


But there’s got to be more, more to it

More than innocent

Innocent collisions

Driving these decisions


Then again, someone said

Seven stories told

No more to unfold

Whether the pages are paper, papyrus or gold


But there’s got to be more, more to it

More than lost civilisations

Civilisation's, civilised creations

Creating these precise incisions


Well soon, so they say, we'll all be ether

Moments passed

Memories lapsed

Neither you, nor me, nor our soft, soft breath


But there’s got to be more, more to it

More than these poet’s predilections

Their convictions and descriptions

Describing their alchemic prescriptions 


So I move my arm sideways

Through the fine air

Demonstrative, debonair 

Yes, ether it’s me, or it is the Corsair