Sixty

But back at Emerson
From now on will mean
The scorched grasses

The open greenhouses
The storyteller’s building
Vacant throughout this summer

A sense somehow of love
Also of decay
That exact same sense of love

Also of decay
Found in among I
I who is that same person

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Fifty Nine

This will be my way
I will not go to breakfast
Instead to save that time
For writing
That is first for thinking
Then for writing
That is to engage my own mind
With the image of moorland bramble
On the box of Yorkshire Tea
That is to metaphorically
Walk along that path
Across the moor, atop the Pennines
Or to reminisce
On my own poem Preamble
As a way of returning to Dartmoor
As a way to remember
The five AM rising; to bathe in incense
With Gregorian chant, with monastic prayer

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Fifty Eight

Today I did not go to exercise
But tomorrow
Oh yes, but tomorrow
Whatever reason then
Whatever lack of self-love then

May I feel the sources
Of love, of joy within myself
Yes, I raised these words internally
I thought on, of the sources
I smiled with love, with joy

May I recognise then the sources
Of angst, of hurt within myself
Yes, I followed those words mindfully
I thought on, of the sources
I becalmed my angst, my hurt

Of those two imposters
I treat them both the same
For what I love also gives hurt
For what is angst that it also gives joy

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Fifty Seven

I won’t go to watch the sunset
I did that once before
I won’t visit the hundred-acre wood
Nor find out the latest score

I will write, I will sleep
I will sleep, I will be
I will read, I will write
I will shape up as if to keep

I did sleep, I did wake
I did dream, I did wake
I did sleep, I did wake
I did dream, it was no mistake

The light is here early
The light is here strong
I don’t know what the dreams mean
Yet they were clear, they did belong

I did write of the young man
Alone on the train
I did write of his young love
Together again, still the same

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Fifty Six

I question myself because
I question myself, because
I have doubts, because
Why else am I here, why do I

Feel uneasy; not yet welcome
In myself, not in my body, not
In my mind, not yet introduced
To my own new found freedoms

So, still it seems, I remain trapped
Why choose this place, of intense
Personal exhaustion, to follow
A path penetrated by my own

Illness, my own weakness
My own unachievable desires
My own, distinctly-indistinct deceptions
Where else could I be at this precious time

In my life, where to see the logic, the line
Where to find the sea, as I wonder how to be
Here now to find the love, to find a lover’s sign
Here to prosper, just beyond the base design

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