Flower

Return home
To airborne scents of roses
Stand in that open space
Stand in that open warmth
Of the summer

Wonder, what is that perfume
On the English breeze
What is that peace
Of the blossom leaves waving


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Psychology of Space

Am I still on retreat
I feel to have retreated
A good way already

Is it myself I have to meet
The I thus to be greeted
Greet one safe and steady

One more course of memories
One more Sunday of Sunday's

Soft thoughts of soft defeat
As I watch the Grand Prix racing
No need now for searching deep
Put simply; my life is even pacing

What is left is left to keep
Hold on without exasperation
With no hope for participation
The station now is the station when

That new platform can be constructed
That journey from here to cosmopolitan
From village and countryside to city centres
From home, to homage to mystery and myth

Occasionally with the partitioned silence
Occasionally with the extended peace
Some way to reflect the sounds of settlements
Or to find the passageways that go vice-versa


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Temptation

The pull of the pen
The pull of blank paper
A place to let the rage quieten
A place to let the love happen
How little I have travelled
How far I have travelled
Shallow is as shallow is
Let the cuts go deeper
Let the flames fly higher
Take the fear and the repulsion
Take the cure of the damned
Feel the blood, fizzle and crackle
Hear the head ring and rant
Scant reward for years of pummelling
Tunnelling for the known unknown
Scurrying from house to home
How far away is the slowing down
How far away the signs; what signs
What pictures am I to paint
What sketches am I to draw
What is this power of the pull
Such aches that fall onto the page
Sage of my life do not quieten
Love of my life pray make it happen


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On Watching The Nine Muses (Part Two)

Your journey follows their journey, you too did not know where you were going
You did wet the bed (and in later years you urinated in the wardrobe); affected by those most afflicted, loved by those with most to lose
Yet the sunshine shone; laughter from the very soul of humans; smile at that first Ford Cortina
Say thanks to all who offered teachings; thank each one as each one equal:
The labourer, the tradesman, the foreman, the manager, the family, the muse, the lover, the you
Late nights, upstairs on the late night bus; fields and parks and dance-halls and bars and stars
Seas of the wildest water, mill ponds of the calmest calm; no harm to reminisce, nothing being lost through nostalgia
Kiss the Blarney Stone, kiss her just once around the corner; that bliss should find you scintillatingly present
Not misrepresenting hurt, nor hurt and hunger, not misrepresenting truth, nor truth and torture
Your journey, my journey, our journey, this journey; we do not know where we are going, yet
We do find our love in our lover's head, we do have the finest clothes, in the wardrobes of our minds


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On Watching The Nine Muses (Part One)

Reach out for the shores
Reach out for the beating heart
Clear your eyes, have them sparkle
Wash away the tired halfway
Wash away the line walk
Let the tears well up
Let the tears break down
Touch what is untouchable
Settle for the hidden inner silence
For the first time be alone, be, alone
Alone that you are free to breathe
Alone that you are free to rejoice
Alone that you love the love around you
You are not tied, you never have been tied
Your tiredness is of too much making
Your tiredness is of too little looking
Work for the right to go on walking
Work for the slight self-assurance
Be reassured by the rambling
Lured by the everlasting lust of longing
Cured by the love that cares
Wayfarer dismount from this the final saddle


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