Longer Poem

Into this life as a gift

Although the giver is unaware

Take some time to wander

Go to the edge of the cliff

With each step, dwell, look out

Beware

As the ink flows

& the mind slows

Think of it

As the oncoming of thrift

Where to pare down

Is way beyond compare

So well to have escaped

The life so stiff

Just for that moment

I thought of myself in Versailles

Parading, posing

Strutting down the palace garden boulevards

A reasonable sign

That I can delude myself without much thought

I imagine a place I have never been

On the back of the sound of crushed sandstone

Under my brogue leather shoes

On reflection, a fairly swift reflection

I compared my ability to fall for the thought

The earlier fleeting thought

To be on a par with my desire to fall

For the love of a beautiful woman

However estranged the relationship may become

Vexed at the thought of time running out

I have contrived to take time

To let the doubts wash in and out of my mind

To vibrate the whole of life through my body

To have love

Gently and sensuously enter & soothe my soul

Also to read the sort of philosophy

That heads uncertainly

Towards the most certain of certainties

I ache to talk of love

To talk and write so amorously

As I did those few short years ago

The love is no less

In truth more love falls upon us each time we meet

Sometimes words

Are the unlikeliest, or most difficult of friends to find

In those early days it was spine tingling to catch the love words gushing

I pluck out the broken

Distorted feathers of arrogance and bravado

From the desensitised plumage of my youth

In their place I search for the contentment and the confidence

To become my self; a self of some intrinsic value

As I listen to the birdsong

& the slowly flowing water

The ease to be at ease comes more easily

As the tractor & the seed-spreader

Rumble and rattle over the arched stone bridge 

I sense not all is at peace

If any bit of me was an artist

I would have set up my easel by now

To paint this history of trees

In their many stages of decay

& ushered-in new beginnings of life

Better still I would include the miniature train track; it's tunnel

That I imagine comes to life with steam whistles

& children joyfully cheering during the summer holidays

It is as though this place, once an industrial heartland

A forge with an illustrious past

Had nowhere to turn to for its future

Until leisure offered some sort of survival

The ravages of time & the recalcitrant northern weather

Have attacked the fabric

Of the once grand and flamboyant country houses

Their structure is in disrepair

As I tell you this 

I am called upon, on the phone, to remind a younger colleague

That I have over forty years industrial experience

Which for his project may be useful

Although for my life, as a writer

Boils down to not much to do with love at all

The trees are still

Yet a time-lapse photographer

Could capture the changes in hue

From browns to purples to greens

He should be able to bring to life

The slow beyond compare

Birth, or breakthrough

Of shoots and leaves

He might also have the skill and patience

To show the diurnal patterns

Of rooks coming to roost

The vast skies opening and closing

In tune with the seasons weather

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Ringside

He crossed out
The very doubt of your forgiveness
He began to shout
All were annoyed at his remissness

You didn’t flout
Yes, maybe a flouncy permissiveness
Though to clout
Showed off his mean dismissiveness

Have no doubt
Assured by your pert prettiness
Life is about
Rising above the strictly stickiness

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Visitation

In the smile that says my mind remembers

Your infinite space of stored fond memories within

Warm sun, stretches into the quiet room

Little or no disturbance to inhibit your arrival

On the outer breeze your gaiety and laughter

Increases my expectation

Only for those few bright moments could you join me

Before the chimes of peace called you to another

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Half Unknown

Some things I am happy to share with you

Indeed I imagine you might take pleasure in the sharing

Other things I desire to keep to myself

Indeed I imagine they might improve my personal enrichment

On the cusp of these two positions 

I find my relationships waver

Just as previous relationships have wavered

Her name was; no I do not wish to give you her name

She was slim, bony & attractive, with wonderfully long hair

Carried through with an innocent sixteen smile

I could say that a mutual friend suggested we got together

That way a little more useless information would be divulged

We danced, we walked, we talked for hours; I often stroked her hair

Yet only once in earnest did I stroke her bare thighs:

There was a party, my parents were away

Perhaps they too were trying for a reconciliation

Her Levi's came undone; five studs pulled down, towards an

Unimaginable future; my wranglers swiftly followed suit

Half leaning against the dining room wall, with only our youthful

Exuberance between us, events destined to evolve in that direction

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu

Misplaced Sentimentalities

I learnt of the word rill

From a woman poet in Vermont

Was it wrong to build such a slice of water

Into my lovers garden

Not that the construction lasted

The symbolic landscaping vanquished

Shortly after our final inseparable separation

I remember New England in the fall

I brought home a fallen leaf

If I had been stronger

I might have framed the veins for my lover

Not that the token was lambasted

She, I dare to believe, escaped on occasion

Out by the rill, into my search for tranquility

From the Collection One Crow to a Tree - Love in Separate Houses available from Lulu