My pasts are buried in my poems

Sometimes, as home-grown new

potatoes, in the raised beds

shallow and easy to lift

Sometimes, as in my childhood

planted deep by the farmer

for his tractor driven machine to turn over

Sometimes, as with my mother’s parents

my grandparents, set rich in the earth

looking down the valley, from their coffins

Although not all my pasts are buried, not yet

Sometimes I write about them

in a tense which may suggest

That they no longer inhabit my life

Sometimes I am more celebratory

Even wishing that they could be here

To share in with the good times

Sometimes the black dog catches up with me

Then I don’t think well of owt at all

However alluring my pasts deem themselves to be

Not all my pasts will be buried, no, not ever

Tough on Trust

I was asked to choose someone

Who I could trust completely

I don’t know anyone

Who I could trust totally

I don’t trust myself that far

I’m pretty sure, experientially

Who do I hurt

With my lack of trust

Other than myself

And those with doubts about my trust

Am I trustworthy

Or is that a different question

That I tell you

Of my lack of trust

Does that help you

To now trust me

That is, any more or any less

Trust is what trust is, isn’t it

Inculcate

Are you by the water

Are you settled in space

Does the world revolve around you

Have you found, might I say, your grace

I chased you for a long time

Always I enjoyed the freedom of the place

I tried to make the world all mine

Yet often, to be honest, I could not find a trace

The brothers, and the sisters too

Carry on with their learning

I pass the baton from me to you

Either way, so it seems, I am forever yearning

Longing for a communique

You know the kind of thing

A simple note, perhaps to say

Oh, am I so glad that you did ring

For it was only a thought

Albeit also somewhat pretentious

That when I made the call I ought

To have said, oh, how wonderfully sensuous

 

Speculate

Today I leave the abbey

But first to read, and quote

A few words from Jung

… the waves from the steamer

washed up to the shore, the

sun glistened on the water, and the

sand under the water had been

curved into little ridges by the waves

… this expanse of water was

inconceivable pleasure to me,

an incomparable splendour - at

the time the idea became fixed

in my mind that I must live near

a lake; without water I thought

nobody could live at all

Jung was between seven

And nine years old

When these thoughts arose

I am almost ten times that age

And yet have not totally found

That place of water, or of meadow, or of calm

So I carry on searching

I return to our nice, spacious, comfortable house

In the heart of the picturesque Lincolnshire Wolds

Where I sit in the lounge

Listen to Max Richter music

And realise how lucky I am

Articulate

Are we mutually abusive

Or do we work, exclusively

Towards our own failed assonance

Are you in my groove

Or do you move, reclusively

Onwards with your own persistence

The last night of vespers

The last night of compline

Take me to your pictures

Are we getting there

Or do we have to drift further

Towards the planetarium

Are you in my curved air

Or do you kiss the Berger

As you step out of the sanatorium

The last night of dining

With the monks and brothers

Takes me to their pastures

Are we any wiser now

Or do we still

Have mountains to climb

Are you in my sentimental plough

Or do you move, at will

Inwards with your thighs to grind

The last night of this single bed

The last night of lights out at nine

Take me to your strictures