Yours (Without Hours)

A man, in a long raincoat
I guess he is here, with his wife
Here, more for the recital
Than for the Vespers

They look like a couple
Of well-to-do Europeans
(Did we used to say foreigners)
Yes, they appear to be reasoned, cultured tourists

The bells chime to signify
That there are three minutes to go
A little bit like the last call
At the Theatre Royal

Yet with only five patrons
Thus far in the congregation
I don't expect there to be much
Of a last minute rush

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Towards Brabeny (Without End)

It feels good to be on higher ground
It feels good to think of you, loving me
For now I can take in the vast horizon
I can countenance the cold wind
Ruffling my hair, and my papers
I can believe that, yes
Those rainclouds may bring rain
But not until the shafts of sunlight
On that faraway, seaward, elliptical skyline
Have lit up our day
No, neither the dull of the decaying ferns
Nor the white-death of the bramble
Can hold back the excitement
Nor the energy
Of the future
For the man who has found love

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Negative Potential (Without Power)

To put myself out there, alone
With the environmental waveforms
Circulating and vibrating, to the tune
Of the exponentially raw passion

Such that in the search for this apparent stillness
It is the search for the unseen which is seen
It is the search for the not felt which is felt
Felt mostly by oneself

It is the beat
Of the bouncing psycho-rhythms
Which cycle through my body
Then, as one ventures, into the lower reaches

Those deeper features
Of love, of loss, of leverage, and of latitude
Which criss-cross, and zig-zag their way
Over, and beyond, and before the gratitude

Such that to find a balance, in the stillness
To find a calm, in the seen, and in the unseen
To find love, felt or not felt is one job of a thing
One job of a thing, to be left all unto itself

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Sat (Without Silence)

There is no bench to sit upon
To look directly at the back of the Abbey
Though I am able to tell you

That by turning slightly, and looking over my shoulder
I can see the substantial, gold-leaf, clock fingers
Which, even from this distance, I can make out

That they are saying that it is just after eleven-thirty
On this, fine, one might even say exquisite
Autumnal Saturday Morning

Of course there is noise, even the great Abbeys
Need the service of stand-by-generators
For those times of electricity power cuts

Once it might have been a water-driven turbine
Situated on the surging River Dart
Which flows alongside fairly briskly

But then, with such propensity
Of trees and fallen leaves
One might have thought

That a champion of biodiversity
Could have hatched a quieter form
Of extraction, extrapolation, and exploitation

Whatever, the birds still chirp and chatter
Enquiring children
Ask their parents all manner of questions

Some of which, the monks
Who will also have sat here
Would no doubt have been able to answer

With their very own
One hopes, well thought out
And ever more dignified, soulful responses

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Nothing (Without Anything)

It is oh so so difficult
To remember you
When you offer nothing whatsoever in return

Though, as if coming here
To sit beside falling water
Would do anything, but add
To the sorrow of separation

I once was a complicated soul
Yet, right now, I don't believe
That I ever did deny that
Although, yes, you might well say

That I have become
Even more deeply enamoured
With the after-effects of duplicity
In my attempts at creative writing

But, inside
I feel to be a somewhat gentler soul
You see, I am happy
To sit here beside the river

To know that somewhere behind me
The star-shaped leaves
Are drifting, like angels, to the ground below
To let everyone know

That once our love most definitely touched
What oh so so many modern dreamers
Today still dream of

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