A period or state of inactivity

The ginnel, the tunnel, the pit prop

Fairgrounds laid down for the focus

The stasis stayed with me; amplified in my memory

By being chosen both here, as well as from way across the water

From the pictures and the words it is such a small step

There to here, to hear now, it is the brass band playing

And to smell the cobbles, fresh with mist fallen rain

With the footprints of the bakers dozen early in the morning

Easy then, as now, not to pick up a brush

Or some other suitable vocation, to stay steady

Going nowhere, being nowhere until procreation

Put its head around your open door

You take her to the kitchen, you take each other on the floor

The two of you with your sudden rush of blood

While being indulgent in the shortest softest moment

Sets yourselves up for the hardest lines of your life

Photographs; nearer now than any of the present

Times they speak of

The face, the finger, the wavy hair; fairgrounds remembered

Stood around, only for the loci, or for the locomotion

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I do not carry someone else’s wisdom

A well thumbed book

A collection of beautiful stories

A wee thumbed crutch for you

Hope lays somewhere there

Hidden away behind the glory

Good will triumph

If then to win is good

Evil will be defeated

Unless that is if I or you

Or they instead

Have misunderstood

Or been once more misled

You did see the sunshine

You told me that you felt its warmth

But that it was not enough

Or maybe it was more than enough

For you to thank your god

And the virgin birth

For your certainty of deliverance

Prayed for with and for all your worth

My words are seen by very few people

But they do hold me free 

In deep they are the inward

And outward beauty for me

They speak of the gift of breath

Without the need of steeples

They wreck the wrath of death

My freedom is frail

Perhaps you might say even feeble

These though are my words

Intrinsically a part of me; my way

I hope you are so fortunate

For now I have to go, so I say good day

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On touching skin

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

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To the bottom of the sea

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

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Unmanned level crossing

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

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