Inspired

I had it in my mind
To write a guided meditation
About approaching silence

Then, in my morning meditation
With the above thought still with me
I listened to a soundtrack of distant thunder

Without too much delay, or decay
I began to think of the joy to be had
From being outside in a storm

With rain and thunder
And perhaps even a little lightning
Though mostly rain, rain and rolling thunder

I would be soaked to the skin
Rainwater would stream down my face
As bare feet squelched through the puddles

Walking without aim
Yet awash with observation
On and on my footsteps would tread

I had no known destination
Other than to be fully immersed
That is totally absorbed by the situation

Yes, there are memories
From childhood and also adulthood
First with friends, later with lovers

Now I do want to reach that moor
To lay upon the sodden peat
And sink, sink into my earth

You see I am at one with you
Whatever our issues may have been
I am here, and I do feel welcome

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Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Final Placement

Where will I be
When it is my time
Where will I find those rooms, rooms
I once found by being so so clandestine

The old places
Are no longer there
Or they have been changed
Beyond compare

I might be on a mountain
In a log cabin
With an outdoor veranda
For a rocking chair

The old places
Are no longer there
Or they have been changed
Beyond compare

I might be in a valley
In a mill workers house
With three narrow storeys
And pull-up stairs

The old places
Are no longer there
Or they have been changed
Beyond compare

I might be on retreat
With the Benedictine Monks
At Buckfast Abbey
Or Ampleforth

The old places
They are still there
They haven’t changed
But remained beyond compare

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Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Taking Stock

I was that full-formed itinerant
That entered this world
Eight pounds, four ounces
Of skin and bone, muscle and blood
Body and soul, heart and mind

Was I born a socialist
When did I learn to despise the Tories
What is your view on nature versus nurture
Are you brazen enough to think
That you truly do have a choice

At the centre; my kernel, my core
The givens, the lineage
Parents, grand-parents, further back
The inescapable, non-transferable
Immutable, family tree

On the outside
Birdsong, chimney stacks
The ever-flowing stream
And the glorious wonder of friendship

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Poltergeist (Diluted)

I had a thought, or rather a feeling
I was laid on the settee
Watching a Scandi-Noir TV film
Projected onto the fireplace wall

Other than this light
The room was in total darkness
I wanted to ask you
How you imagined the story would pan out

It was then that I realised
That earlier in the day you had set off
To visit your friend in the city
You would be away for four or five days

So I was alone in the room
Alone with my broken knee

Again I had the thought, or rather the feeling
You were indeed sat in your favourite chair
But by now I knew, for I had observed
That I was entirely and most certainly alone

I did not tell you, before you set off
About my falling down the stairs
I did not want you to worry
On a day when you should be happy

So I was alone in the room
Alone with my broken knee

The Noir plot line was pretty straightforward
Already the murderer has been revealed
And the side-stream narratives
Are also quite obvious in nature

And so I was alone in the room
Alone with my broken knee

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Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Quarterly Rant

Why do I feel so angry
When I open the Poetry Review
Is this a seriously strange strain of jealousy
Which chooses to overwhelm me

Does this show the futility
Of my fight against the establishment
That old names are laid beside new faces
Yet all seem intellectually academic in style

Why don’t I trust myself enough
To enter any of their competitions
Is my lack of self-belief raised
To stand me back on my unicycle pedestal

I don’t want to say anymore
I am already tied in knots of my own making
I didn’t leave school with any qualifications
Neither did I get a full-time university degree

So I wade in puddles of envy
I wallow in mires and mires of self-pity
I know there is no enforced duty
Except to Emerson College’s Poetry Otherwise

Which as you might see, calms me
Almost instantaneously gives me the time
To settle into a poem, to settle with a poem
Yet not with the Scottish mathematician

Whose self-indulgent dirge
Is so so similar to my own work
But hey, I am not published, nor never will be
Not by the hierarchy of establishment that is

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works