Clean water, blue skies
A coastline for the county
We travel the long roads
To see our inlaid beauty
Later
We take off our clothes
In a haphazard pile
Our wait long but over
The state we work our self in
No thought
To begin a slower
Decomposed exposure
Clear water, soft thighs
A coastline, a silk road
A passage
Of freedom and pearls
Later
We sip chilled white wine
In a care unless embrace
Our wait sure was worth the chase
Could you be a sparkle sea there beyond the water
Would the tree with flicker free tell the story to your daughter
These are the long horizons; the escape from now or being here
To wonder and wander, in our mind
Our thoughts rise then fall, then disappear
Yet that sunlight which bounces without of aim
It seems to find the breeze blown leaf
On its way across those many reflections
There to catch my eye, or to catch my past mischief
All the while some buzzing noise, a dizziness of sound
Around the turned down stature, all unfound where I concentrate
I look at the photograph and the bullets in the alabaster
That last bit simply is not true; I have been near no war
Never a prisoner, or a miner, or a student of Theodore
But I’ve seen the movies and I read Shevchenko after noon
Also I saw Craiglockhart; recreated with Owen and Sassoon
That day I took a photograph; of no more than
Just very big numbers, it’s true
Twenty million Russians died, for that to be my view
No wonder then that we wander, observe over the treetops dressed
Through the ginnels and the back passages
Past the orchard and the printing press
There is no stop to our search, for a door, open or otherwise
For therein wherein we are leant to enter
Could it be the sparkle sea
Clear water for the dolphin without a trace of trouble
Freed of all the frost of functional distemper
The twenty mile view
News from the flatlands and marshes
Earlier; as if in preview
We saw the vases of Mr Grayson Perry
Up cobbled streets; no hurry, slow up and go down
Past the west windowed Jews houses
In embroidered flouncy skirts
And broad waist corduroy trousers
Now, somehow, back in the county mansion
We stand to wait at the door there for the carriage to return
Bare but not without news of old chestnuts and peregrine Falcons
Oh and of New England, in the fall, after all
Thus spoke one who speaks of one who has gone before
The one who saw the snowdrops and the tree in beauty’s stare
With her leaves scattered on the pavements and the parking lots
Stop; still, in the now of welcome, wait here with the moment
Quietly, somehow let the breath be slow, wipe your brow
And settle on the present sea, on this the current undulation
Knowing that at the distant station she will stop the train
If, and when it’s due, or intentionally meant for her to be
Spring springs in just before the summer
Autumn lights bring sparkle to the fallen rain
Down leafy lanes and broader ways
The same old songs they may sound again
Andy Fairweather-Low, not so very long ago
He looked good, I looked good
The brotherhood of man, and sisters doing it too
Fair haired, proud in denim jeans; skin tight, sky blue
Attitude
The corn is cut, the dew is on the thistle
Listen, the day begins brand new
Those two rose counties and all other advocates
They are no longer pointed out to war
In the afterglow or effervescent incantation light
Might we see beyond the fog of youth
Further now somehow
Than the close cut fringes of rights to fight for
Attitude
Desiderata, or was it Kahlil Gibran
Or Jonathon Livingston Seagull
In an airport lounge
Durban or Dublin or Donegal
Where does the money come from to bless all
The pontiff’s men, here today with crocodile shoes
Good news if you are on their side
Stood or standing ten feet tall
Otherwise, with the underbelly of truth
You’d better start, with heart strings felt
To sing
Of the slaves, sing those sorrowful songs, the blues
Today they took me on at college
And I so so nearly did not go
An old fool with too long whiskers
The man I’d come to know
Thankfully; without a hint
Of church or grace, but no, not in any doubt
Thanks to a bit of Zen and the songs
Of Mr Cohen and Dame Vera Lynn
I turned myself, to sing again
With wonder
What shall I hear now, here for my mother
Undone by the scales
And wary of my welcome up above
It as to be the water, not the wine
Without though the need of the numbness
Of my more unfortunate snake-skin brothers
