Books on the bookshelves
Left to right
Tallest to smallest
Poetry, self help, reference
Lost, found
Pathways to escape
And the Beatles Anthology
The biggest book
By quite a way
Krishna's Dialogue On
The Soul is minute
In comparison
Oh and Jonathon Livingston Seagull
Crashing into cliffs
Next to Wendy Cope
So
Well then tomorrow
We will go
And buy that DIY
Bookshelf
Left to right
Youngest to oldest
Cold War
Next to Cold Comfort Farm
You know, here, in isolated country, under canvas
In the still of night there is no one to be afraid of
No fear outside of our own imagination
Only ghosts of a suicidal farmer and his in bred son
Not so in the city of a thousand and one creations
With psychologists, philosophers
Non-denominational priests
And the next day latter day nun
I feel safe with people around
In any case
What would the thief take from me
My clothes, my hand baggage, my loose change
How succinct
And so obvious
Life could steal my possessions
But not me, nor my dreams
Or my thoughts of the open road
The sparrows in the hedgerow
The robins in the garden, and the hip-hop busker
Going up the coming down escalator as if unseen
Told of old people unable to talk to young people
Policeman, who banned sales of eggs to teenagers
Health and safety; fearful that they will create havoc
Around the time of Halloween
The stream is overgrown
The water is heard but unseen
No children's voices or splashes
Or swine's in sight
No sunlight or dampness or snow
Or the late night rites
Under the one and only
Stood up straight, street light
Was their a moment
An hour, or a day
When the last pass forever
Was revisited
Was their a final shake
Of the nine o'clock hand-bell
The last school delivery
Of lukewarm milk
The meaning is often thrown
By a smile or a laugh
At the airborne joke filled
Conversation from a soft armchair
A glass of chilled chardonnay
Stereophonic music of the spheres
And behind that the coming of the night
The return of swine's in sight
Eighteen untold stories
Of bedrooms, gardens
And torn down houses
Nine pairs of partners
Passing over secrets
As if so to live again
Your fondest moment
My closely
Recollected memory
And the young girl
In Australia, afraid
Of the outdoor khazi
Darkness, light; stairways
And rose red curtains
Spoken unwoken
With a gleam of the eye
Pass it on
Please, won't you
Why don't you
Softly, slowly
Tell me my story
A new book, bought in Leeds
On the day that IKEA opened their doors
For everyone to leave in an orderly way
Due to a problem with the technology
A day when clocks went backwards
And the blue and pink skies of autumn
Pervaded their wares over the horizon
To both sides of the six lane motorway
A day when the plumes from
The power station cooling towers rose slowly
For their droplets to cling on to the nothingness
Of the otherwise empty sky
A day before the expulsions
From the sugar beet factory turned sideways
At right angles, to be hit by the onrushing
Wild winds of the seasonally turning weather
A new book, a place to find a place
Not in the sky but flat footed, level headed
Yet with enough of envy and desire to see beauty
Before me, not just looking back over my shoulder
